| |
[1411]
From “The Lady of the Lake,” Canto VI.
THERE is no breeze upon the fern, | |
| No ripple on the lake, | |
| Upon her eyrie nods the erne, | |
| The deer has sought the brake; | |
| The small birds will not sing aloud, | 5 |
| The springing trout lies still, | |
| So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud, | |
| That swathes, as with a purple shroud, | |
| Benledi’s distant hill. | |
| Is it the thunder’s solemn sound | 10 |
| That mutters deep and dread, | |
| Or echoes from the groaning ground | |
| The warrior’s measured tread? | |
| Is it the lightning’s quivering glance | |
| That on the thicket streams, | 15 |
| Or do they flash on spear and lance | |
| The sun’s retiring beams? | |
| I see the dagger crest of Mar, | |
| I see the Moray’s silver star | |
| Wave o’er the cloud of Saxon war, | 20 |
| That up the lake comes winding far! | |
| To hero bound for battle strife, | |
| Or bard of martial lay, | |
| ’T were worth ten years of peaceful life, | |
| One glance at their array! | 25 |
| |
| Their light-armed archers far and near | |
| Surveyed the tangled ground, | |
| Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, | |
| A twilight forest frowned, | |
| Their barbèd horsemen, in the rear, | 30 |
| The stern battalia crowned. | |
| No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, | |
| Still were the pipe and drum; | |
| Save heavy tread, and armor’s clang, | |
| The sullen march was dumb. | 35 |
| There breathed no wind their crests to shake, | |
| Or wave their flags abroad; | |
| Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, | |
| That shadowed o’er their road. | |
| Their vaward scouts no tidings bring, | 40 |
| Can rouse no lurking foe, | |
| Nor spy a trace of living thing, | |
| Save when they stirred the roe; | |
| The host moves like a deep sea wave, | |
| Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, | 45 |
| High swelling, dark, and slow. | |
| The lake is passed, and now they gain | |
| A narrow and a broken plain, | |
| Before the Trosach’s rugged jaws; | |
| And here the horse and spearmen pause, | 50 |
| While, to explore the dangerous glen, | |
| Dive through the pass the archer men. | |
| |
| At once there rose so wild a yell | |
| Within that dark and narrow dell, | |
| As all the fiends, from heaven that fell, | 55 |
| Had pealed the banner cry of hell! | |
| Forth from the pass in tumult driven, | |
| Like chaff before the winds of heaven, | |
| The archery appear: | |
| For life! for life! their flight they ply— | 60 |
| And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, | |
| And plaids and bonnets waving high, | |
| And broadswords flashing to the sky, | |
| Are maddening in the rear. | |
| Onward they drive, in dreadful race, | 65 |
| Pursuers and pursued; | |
| Before that tide of flight and chase, | |
| How shall it keep its rooted place, | |
| The spearmen’s twilight wood? | |
| —“Down, down,” cried Mar, “your lances down! | 70 |
| Bear back both friend and foe!” | |
| Like reeds before the tempest’s frown, | |
| That serried grove of lances brown | |
| At once lay levelled low; | |
| And closely shouldering side to side, | 75 |
| The bristling ranks the onset bide.— | |
| —“We ’ll quell the savage mountaineer, | |
| As their linchel 1 cows the game; | |
| They come as fleet as forest deer, | |
| We ’ll drive them back as tame.” | 80 |
| |
| Bearing before them, in their course, | |
| The relics of the archer force, | |
| Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, | |
| Right onward did Clan-Alpine come. | |
| Above the tide, each broadsword bright | 85 |
| Was brandishing like beam of light, | |
| Each targe was dark below; | |
| And with the ocean’s mighty swing, | |
| When heaving to the tempest’s wing, | |
| They hurled them on the foe. | 90 |
| I heard the lance’s shivering crash, | |
| As when the whirlwind rends the ash; | |
| I heard the broadsword’s deadly clang, | |
| As if a hundred anvils rang! | |
| But Moray wheeled his rearward flank— | 95 |
| Of horsemen on Clan-Alpine’s flank— | |
| “My bannerman, advance! | |
| I see,” he cried, “their columns shake. | |
| Now, gallants! for your ladies’ sake, | |
| Upon them with the lance!” | 100 |
| The horsemen dashed among the rout, | |
| As deer break through the broom; | |
| Their steeds are stout, their swords are out, | |
| They soon make lightsome room. | |
| Clan-Alpine’s best are backward borne— | 105 |
| Where, where was Roderick then? | |
| One blast upon his bugle-horn | |
| Were worth a thousand men! | |
| And refluent through the pass of fear | |
| The battle’s tide was poured; | 110 |
| Vanished the Saxon’s struggling spear, | |
| Vanished the mountain sword. | |
| As Bracklinn’s chasm, so black and steep, | |
| Receives her roaring linn, | |
| As the dark caverns of the deep | 115 |
| Suck the wild whirlpool in, | |
| So did the deep and darksome pass | |
| Devour the battle’s mingled mass; | |
| None linger now upon the plain, | |
| Save those who ne’er shall fight again. | 120 |
