Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 96

WHY art thou silent! Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair?

Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?

Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant-- Bound to thy service with unceasing care, The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For nought but what thy happiness could spare.

Speak--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine-- Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

542. Proud Maisie

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

'Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?'

--'When six braw gentlemen Kirkward shall carry ye.'

'Who makes the bridal bed, Birdie, say truly?'

--'The grey-headed s.e.xton That delves the grave duly.

'The glow-worm o'er grave and stone Shall light thee steady; The owl from the steeple sing Welcome, proud lady!'

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

543. Brignall Banks

O, BRIGNALL banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there, Would grace a summer queen: And as I rode by Dalton Hall, Beneath the turrets high, A Maiden on the castle wall Was singing merrily:--

'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green!

I'd rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English Queen.'

'If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me To leave both tower and town, Thou first must guess what life lead we, That dwell by dale and down: And if thou canst that riddle read, As read full well you may, Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed As blithe as Queen of May.'

Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are green!

I'd rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English Queen.

'I read you by your bugle horn And by your palfrey good, I read you for a Ranger sworn To keep the King's green-wood.'

'A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn, And 'tis at peep of light; His blast is heard at merry morn, And mine at dead of night.'

Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are gay!

I would I were with Edmund there, To reign his Queen of May!

'With burnish'd brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum.'

'I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear; But when the beetle sounds his hum, My comrades take the spear.

'And O! though Brignall banks be fair, And Greta woods be gay, Yet mickle must the maiden dare, Would reign my Queen of May!

'Maiden! a nameless life I lead, A nameless death I'll die; The fiend whose lantern lights the mead Were better mate than I!

And when I'm with my comrades met Beneath the green-wood bough, What once we were we all forget, Nor think what we are now.'

Chorus. Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather flowers there Would grace a summer queen.

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

544. Lucy Ashton's Song

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; From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye, Easy live and quiet die.

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

545. Answer

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.

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

546. The Rover's Adieu

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, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green-- No more of me ye knew, My Love!

No more of me ye knew.

'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 Upon the river sh.o.r.e, He gave the bridle-reins a shake, Said 'Adieu for evermore, My Love!

And adieu for evermore.'

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

547. Patriotism 1. Innominatus

BREATHES there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!'

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his t.i.tles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those t.i.tles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832

548. Patriotism 2. Nelson, Pitt, Fox

TO mute and to material things New life revolving summer brings; The genial call dead Nature hears, And in her glory reappears.

But oh, my Country's wintry state What second spring shall renovate?

What powerful call shall bid arise The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain's weal, The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?

The vernal sun new life bestows Even on the meanest flower that blows; But vainly, vainly may he shine Where glory weeps o'er NELSON'S shrine; And vainly pierce the solemn gloom That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow'd tomb!