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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 o’er, 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 precipice’s brow, | |
| Commanding the rich scenes beneath, | 15 |
| The windings of the Forth and Teith, | |
| And all the vales between that lie, | |
| Till Stirling’s turrets melt in sky; | |
| Then, sunk in copse, their farthest glance | |
| Gained not the length of horseman’s 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 Beauty’s 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 mountain’s 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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