And turning home without delay, Coned his wild strain by mountain gray. Each glen was sought for tales of old, Of luckless love, of warrior bold, Of ravished maid, or stolen child By freakish fairy of the wild; Of sheeted ghost, that had revealed Dark deeds of guilt from man concealed; Of boding dreams, of wandering spright, Could waken pity, love, or fear, Were decked anew, with anxious pain, And sung to native airs again. Alas! those lays of fire once more Are wrecked 'mid heaps of mouldering lore! And feeble he who dares presume That heavenly Wake-light to relume. But, grieved the legendary lay December came; his aspect stern Not stern December's fierce control Could quench the flame of minstrel's soul: Little recked they, our bards of old, Of Autumn's showers, or Winter's cold. Sound slept they on the nighted hill, Curtained within the Winter cloud; The heath their couch, the sky their shroud. Yet their's the strains that touch the heart, Bold, rapid, wild, and void of art. Unlike the bards, whose milky lays Delight in these degenerate days: Effeminate as lady gay,― Such as the bard, so is his lay! But then was seen, from every vale, Through drifting snows and rattling hail, Each Caledonian minstrel true, Dressed in his plaid and bonnet blue, With harp across his shoulders slung, And music murmuring round his tongue, Forcing his way, in raptures high, To Holyrood his skill to try. Ah! when at home the songs they raised, When gaping rustics stood and gazed, Unmatched his song, unmatched his skill! But when the royal halls appeared, Each aspect changed, each bosom feared; And when in court of Holyrood Filed harps and bards around him stood, His eye emitted cheerless ray, His hope, his spirit sunk away : There stood the minstrel, but his mind. Seemed left in native glen behind. Unknown to men of sordid heart, What joys the poet's hopes impart; Unknown, how his high soul is torn By cold neglect, or canting scorn: That meteor torch of mental light, A breath can quench, or kindle bright. Oft has that mind, which braved serene The shafts of poverty and pain, The Summer toil, the Winter blast, Fallen victim to a frown at last. Easy the boon he asks of thee; O! spare his heart in courtesy! There rolled each bard his anxious eye, Or strode his adversary by. No cause was there for names to scan, And the blunt borderer's plain array, |