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(From The Lay of the Last Minstrel)
O LISTEN, listen, ladies gay! | |
| No haughty feat of arms I tell; | |
| Soft is the note, and sad the lay | |
| That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. | |
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| “Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew; | 5 |
| And, gentle lady, deign to stay! | |
| Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, | |
| Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. | |
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| “The blackening wave is edged with white; | |
| To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; | 10 |
| The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, | |
| Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh. | |
| |
| “Last night the gifted Seer did view | |
| A wet shroud swathed round lady gay; | |
| Then stay thee, fair, in Ravensheuch; | 15 |
| Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?” | |
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| “’T is not because Lord Lindesay’s heir | |
| To-night at Roslin leads the ball, | |
| But that my lady-mother there | |
| Sits lonely in her castle-hall. | 20 |
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| “’T is not because the ring they ride, | |
| And Lindesay at the ring rides well, | |
| But that my sire the wine will chide | |
| If ’t is not filled by Rosabelle.” | |
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| O’er Roslin all that dreary night | 25 |
| A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; | |
| ’T was broader than the watch-fire’s light, | |
| And redder than the bright moonbeam. | |
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| It glared on Roslin’s castled rock, | |
| It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; | 30 |
| ’T was seen from Dryden’s groves of oak, | |
| And seen from caverned Hawthornden. | |
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| Seemed all on fire that chapel proud | |
| Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffined lie, | |
| Each baron, for a sable shroud, | 35 |
| Sheathed in his iron panoply. | |
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| Seemed all on fire within, around, | |
| Deep sacristy and altar’s pale, | |
| Shone every pillar foliage-bound, | |
| And glimmered all the dead men’s mail. | 40 |
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| Blazed battlement and pinnet high, | |
| Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,— | |
| So still they blaze, when fate is nigh | |
| The lordly line of high Saint Clair. | |
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| There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold | 45 |
| Lie buried within that proud chapelle; | |
| Each one the holy vault doth hold, | |
| But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle! | |
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| And each Saint Clair was buried there | |
| With candle, with book, and with knell; | 50 |
| But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung | |
| The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. | |
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