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(From The Lady of the Lake) THAT early beam, so fair and sheen, | |
Was twinkling through the hazel screen, | |
When, rousing at its glimmer red, | |
The warriors left their lowly bed, | |
Looked out upon the dappled sky, | 5 |
Muttered their soldier matins by, | |
And then awaked their fire, to steal, | |
As short and rude, their soldier meal. | |
That oer, the Gael around him threw | |
His graceful plaid of varied hue, | 10 |
And, true to promise, led the way, | |
By thicket green and mountain gray. | |
A wildering path!they winded now | |
Along the precipices brow, | |
Commanding the rich scenes beneath, | 15 |
The windings of the Forth and Teith, | |
And all the vales between that lie, | |
Till Stirlings turrets melt in sky; | |
Then, sunk in copse, their farthest glance | |
Gained not the length of horsemans lance. | 20 |
T was oft so steep, the foot was fain | |
Assistance from the hand to gain; | |
So tangled oft, that, bursting through, | |
Each hawthorn shed her showers of dew, | |
That diamond dew, so pure and clear, | 25 |
It rivals all but Beautys tear! | |
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At length they came where, stern and steep, | |
The hill sinks down upon the deep. | |
Here Vennachar in silver flows, | |
There, ridge on ridge, Benledi rose; | 30 |
Ever the hollow path twined on, | |
Beneath steep bank and threatening stone; | |
An hundred men might hold the post | |
With hardihood against a host. | |
The rugged mountains scanty cloak | 35 |
Was dwarfish shrubs of birch and oak, | |
With shingles bare, and cliffs between, | |
And patches bright of bracken green, | |
And heather black, that waved so high, | |
It held the copse in rivalry. | 40 |
But where the lake slept deep and still, | |
Dank osiers fringed the swamp and hill; | |
And oft both path and hill were torn, | |
Where wintry torrents down had borne, | |
And heaped upon the cumbered land | 45 |
Its wreck of gravel, rocks, and sand. | |
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