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(From The Lay of the Last Minstrel)
IF thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, | |
| Go visit it by the pale moonlight; | |
| For the gay beams of lightsome day | |
| Gild but to flout the ruins gray. | |
| When the broken arches are black in night, | 5 |
| And each shafted oriel glimmers white; | |
| When the cold light’s uncertain shower | |
| Streams on the ruined central tower; | |
| When buttress and buttress, alternately, | |
| Seem framed of ebon and ivory; | 10 |
| When silver edges the imagery, | |
| And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; | |
| When distant Tweed is heard to rave, | |
| And the owlet to hoot o’er the dead man’s grave,— | |
| Then go—but go alone the while— | 15 |
| Then view St. David’s ruined pile; | |
| And, home returning, soothly swear, | |
| Was never scene so sad and fair! * * * * * | |
| By a steel-clenched postern door | |
| They entered now the chancel tall; | 20 |
| The darkened roof rose high aloof | |
| On pillars lofty and light and small; | |
| The keystone, that locked each ribbed aisle, | |
| Was a fleur-de-lis, or a quatre-feuille; | |
| The corbells were carved grotesque and grim; | 25 |
| And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim, | |
| With base and with capital flourished around, | |
| Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound. | |
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| Full many a scutcheon and banner riven, | |
| Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven, | 30 |
| Around the screened altar’s pale; | |
| And there the dying lamps did burn, | |
| Before thy low and lonely urn, | |
| O gallant chief of Otterburne! | |
| And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale! | 35 |
| O fading honors of the dead! | |
| O high ambition, lowly laid! | |
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| The moon on the east oriel shone | |
| Through slender shafts of shapely stone, | |
| By foliaged tracery combined; | 40 |
| Thou wouldst have thought some fairy’s hand | |
| ’Twixt poplars straight the osier wand | |
| In many a freakish knot had twined, | |
| Then framed a spell, when the work was done, | |
| And changed the willow wreaths to stone. | 45 |
| The silver light, so pale and faint, | |
| Showed many a prophet, and many a saint, | |
| Whose image on the glass was dyed; | |
| Full in the midst, his Cross of Red | |
| Triumphant Michael brandished, | 50 |
| And trampled the Apostate’s pride. | |
| The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, | |
| And threw on the pavement a bloody stain. * * * * * | |
| With beating heart to the task he went; | |
| His sinewy frame o’er the gravestone bent, | 55 |
| With bar of iron heaved amain, | |
| Till the toil-drops fell from his brows like rain. | |
| It was by dint of passing strength | |
| That he moved the massy stone at length. | |
| I would you had been there, to see | 60 |
| How the light broke forth so gloriously, | |
| Streamed upward to the chancel roof, | |
| And through the galleries far aloof! | |
| No earthly flame blazed e’er so bright: | |
| It shone like heaven’s own blessed light, | 65 |
| And, issuing from the tomb, | |
| Showed the monk’s cowl and visage pale, | |
| Danced on the dark-browed Warrior’s mail, | |
| And kissed his waving plume. | |
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| Before their eyes the Wizard lay, | 70 |
| As if he had not been dead a day. | |
| His hoary beard in silver rolled, | |
| He seemed some seventy winters old; | |
| A palmer’s amice wrapped him round, | |
| With a wrought Spanish baldric bound, | 75 |
| Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea; | |
| His left hand held his Book of Might; | |
| A silver cross was in his right; | |
| The lamp was placed beside his knee; | |
| High and majestic was his look, | 80 |
| At which the fellest fiend had shook, | |
| And all unruffled was his face: | |
| They trusted his soul had gotten grace. | |
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