Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (189 page)

BOOK: Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)
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The Rover

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

A WEARY lot is thine, fair maid,
 
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
 
And press the rue for wine.
A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien
  
5
 
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green —
 
No more of me you knew
   
My Love!
No more of me you knew.
  
10

 

‘This morn is merry June, I trow,
 
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow
 
Ere we two meet again.’
He turn’d his charger as he spake
  
15
 
Upon the river shore,
He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
 
Said ‘Adieu for evermore
   
My Love!
And adieu for evermore.’
  
20

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

The Maid of Neidpath

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

O LOVERS’ eyes are sharp to see,
 
And lovers’ ears in hearing;
And love, in life’s extremity,
 
Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary’s bower
  
5
 
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower
 
To watch her Love’s returning.

 

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
 
Her form decay’d by pining,
  
10
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
 
You saw the taper shining.
By fits a sultry hectic hue
 
Across her cheek was flying;
By fits so ashy pale she grew
  
15
 
Her maidens thought her dying.

 

Yet keenest powers to see and hear
 
Seem’d in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog prick’d his ear
 
She heard her lover’s riding;
  
20
Ere scarce a distant form was kenn’d
 
She knew and waved to greet him,
And o’er the battlement did bend
 
As on the wing to meet him.

 

He came — he pass’d — an heedless gaze
  
25
 
As o’er some stranger glancing:
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
 
Lost in his courser’s prancing —
The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
 
Returns each whisper spoken,
  
30
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
 
Which told her heart was broken.

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

Gathering Song of Donald the Black

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

PIBROCH of Donuil Dhu
 
Pibroch of Donuil
Wake thy wild voice anew,
 
Summon Clan Conuil!
Come away, come away,
  
5
 
Hark to the summons!
Come in your war-array,
 
Gentles and commons.

 

Come from deep glen, and
 
From mountain so rocky;
  
10
The war-pipe and pennon
 
Are at Inverlocky.
Come every hill-plaid, and
 
True heart that wears one,
Come every steel blade, and
  
15
 
Strong hand that bears one.

 

Leave untended the herd,
 
The flock without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterr’d,
 
The bride at the altar;
  
20
Leave the deer, leave the steer,
 
Leave nets and barges:
Come with your fighting gear,
 
Broadswords and targes.

 

Come as the winds come, when
  
25
 
Forests are rended,
Come as the waves come, when
 
Navies are stranded:
Faster come, faster come,
 
Faster and faster,
  
30
Chief, vassal, page and groom,
 
Tenant and master!

 

Fast they come, fast they come;
 
See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume
  
35
 
Blended with heather.
Cast your plaids, draw your blades,
 
Forward each man set!
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
 
Knell for the onset!
  
40

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

Border Ballad

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

MARCH, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale,
 
Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order!
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale,
 
All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border.
   
Many a banner spread,
  
5
   
Flutters above your head,
 
Many a crest that is famous in story.
   
Mount and make ready then,
   
Sons of the mountain glen,
 
Fight for the Queen and our old Scottish glory.
  
10

 

Come from the hills where your hirsels are grazing,
 
Come from the glen of the buck and the roe;
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing,
 
Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow.
   
Trumpets are sounding,
  
15
   
War-steeds are bounding,
 
Stand to your arms, then, and march in good order;
   
England shall many a day
   
Tell of the bloody fray,
When the Blue Bonnets came over the Border.
  
20

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

The Pride of Youth

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

PROUD Maisie is in the wood,
 
Walking so early;
Sweet Robin sits on the bush
 
Singing so rarely.

 

‘Tell me, thou bonny bird,
  
5
 
When shall I marry me?’
— ‘When six braw gentlemen
 
Kirkward shall carry ye.’

 

‘Who makes the bridal bed,
 
Birdie, say truly?’
  
10
— ‘The gray-headed sexton
 
That delves the grave duly.

 

‘The glowworm o’er grave and stone
 
Shall light thee steady;
The owl from the steeple sing,
  
15
 
Welcome, proud lady.’

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

Coronach

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

HE is gone on the mountain,
 
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
 
When our need was the sorest.
The font reappearing
  
5
 
From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
 
To Duncan no morrow!

 

The hand of the reaper
 
Takes the ears that are hoary,
  
10
But the voice of the weeper
 
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
 
Waft the leaves that are serest,
But our flower was in flushing
  
15
 
When blighting was nearest.

 

Fleet foot on the correi,
 
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
 
How sound is thy slumber!
  
20
Like the dew on the mountain,
 
Like the foam on the river
Like the bubble on the fountain,
 
Thou art gone, and for ever.

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

Lucy Ashton’s Song

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

LOOK not thou on beauty’s charming;
Sit thou still when kings are arming;
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens;
Speak not when the people listens;
Stop thine ear against the singer;
  
5
From the red gold keep thy finger;
Vacant heart and hand and eye,
Easy live and quiet die.

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

Answer

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

SOUND, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
 
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
 
Is worth an age without a name.

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

Rosabelle

 

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

 

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.

 

‘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.

 

‘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?’

 

’Tis not because Lord Lindesay’s heir
 
Tonight at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my lady-mother there
 
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.
  
20

 

’Tis not because the ring they ride,
 
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
 
If ’tis not fill’d by Rosabelle.’

 

 
— O’er Roslin all that dreary night
  
25
 
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
’Twas broader than the watch-fire’s light,
 
And redder than the bright moonbeam.

 

It glared on Roslin’s castled rock,
 
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
  
30
’Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak,
 
And seen from cavern’d Hawthornden.

 

Seem’d all on fire that chapel proud
 
Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffin’d lie,
Each Baron, for a sable shroud,
  
35
 
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

 

Seem’d all on fire within, around,
 
Deep sacristy and altar’s pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
 
And glimmer’d all the dead men’s mail.
  
40

 

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.

 

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!

 

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.

 

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

 

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

 

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