A maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily,—

"O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green;

I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.”

"If, maiden, thou wouldst wend with me, To leave both tower and town,

Thou first must guess what life lead we

That dwell by dale and down. 1

And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,

Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed,
As blithe as Queen of May." se
Yet sung she," Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green; ›
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.

"I read you, by your bugle horn,
And by your palfry good,
I read you for a ranger sworn,,,
To keep the king's greenwood."
"A ranger, lady, winds his horn,

And 't is at peep of light;

His blast is heard at merry morn,

And mine at dead of night."

Yet sung she, “Brignall banks are fair,

And Greta woods are gay;

I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!

12

24

36

1813.

"With burnished brand and musketoon
So gallantly you come,

I read you for a bold dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum."
"I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.
And O, though Brignall banks be fair,/
And Greta woods be gay,

Yet mickle must the maiden dare
Would reign my Queen of May!

"Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die;

The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!

And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the greenwood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.
Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,

And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen."

Sir Walter Scott.

48

60

LOVE

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own.
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

12

16

20

I played a soft and doleful air,

I

sang an old and moving storyAn old rude song, that suited well

That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,'
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,

24

28

32

36

40

44

And sometimes starting up at once!

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate

48

56

56

The scorn that crazed his brain;

60

And that she nursed him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay ;

His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,

My faultering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!,...

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,.

The rich and balmy eve;.,

64

68

72