| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | Harp of the North, Farewell! | | By Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) |
| | | HARP 1 of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, | |
| On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; | |
| In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, | |
| The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending. | |
| Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, | 5 |
| And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; | |
| Thy numbers sweet with nature’s vespers blending, | |
| With distant echo from the fold and lea, | |
| And herd-boy’s evening pipe, and hum of housing bee. | |
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| Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! | 10 |
| Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, | |
| And little reck I of the censure sharp | |
| May idly cavil at an idle lay. | |
| Much have I owed thy strains on life’s long way, | |
| Through secret woes the world has never known, | 15 |
| When on the weary night dawned wearier day, | |
| And bitterer was the grief devoured alone.— | |
| That I o’erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine own. | |
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| Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, | |
| Some spirit of the Air has waked thy string! | 20 |
| ’Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, | |
| ’Tis now the brush of Fairy’s frolic wing. | |
| Receding now, the dying numbers ring | |
| Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; | |
| And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring | 25 |
| A wandering witch-note of the distant spell— | |
| And now, ’tis silent all!—Enchantress, fare thee well! | |
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