Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Thoughts at the Grave of Sir Walter Scott
THOUGHTS AT THE GRAVE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Rest with the noble dead
In Dryburgh's solemn pile,
Where sleep the peer and warrior bold,
And mitred abbots stern and old,
Along the statued isle;
Where, stain'd with dust of buried years,
The rude sarcophagus appears
In mould imbedded deep;
And Scotia's skies of sparkling blue
Stream the oriel windows through,
Where ivied masses creep;
And, touch'd with symmetry sublime,
The moss-clad towers that mock at time
Their mouldering legends keep.
And yet methinks thou shouldst have chose
Thy latest couch at fair Melrose,
Whence burst thy first, most ardent song,
And swept with wildering force along
Where Tweed in silver flows.
There the young moonbeams, quivering faint
O'er mural tablet sculptured quaint,
Reveal a lordly race;
And knots of roses richly wrought,
And tracery light as poet's thought,
The cluster'd columns grace.
There good King David's rugged mien
Fast by his faithful spouse is seen,
And 'neath the stony floor
Lie chiefs of Douglas' haughty breast,
Contented now to take their rest,
And rule their kings no more.
It was a painful thing to see
Trim Abbotsford so gay,
The rose-trees climbing there so bold,
The ripening fruits in rind of gold,
And thou, their lord, away.
I saw the lamp, with oil unspent,
O'er which thy thoughtful brow was bent,
When erst, with magic skill,
Unearthly beings heard thy call,
And flitting spectres throng'd the hall,
Obedient to thy will.
Yon fair domain was all thine own,
From stately roof to threshold stone,
Yet didst thou lavish pay
The coin that caused life's wheels to stop?
The heart's blood oozing drop by drop
Through the tired brain away?
I said the lamp unspent was there,
The books arranged in order fair;
But none of all thy kindred race
Found in those lordly halls a place:
Thine only son, in foreign lands,
Led boldly on his martial bands,
And stranger-lips, unmoved and cold,
The legends of thy mansion told;
They lauded glittering brand and spear,
And costly gifts of prince and peer,
And broad claymore, with silver dight,
And hunting-horn of border knight—
What were such gauds to me?
More dear had been one single word
From those whose veins thy blood had stirr'd
To Scotia's accents free.
Yet one there was, in humble cell,
A poor retainer, lone and old,
Who of thy youth remember'd well,
And many a treasured story told;
And pride, upon her wrinkled face,
Blent strangely with the trickling tear,
As Memory, from its choicest place,
Brought forth, in deep recorded trace,
Thy boyhood's gambols dear,
Or pointed out, with wither'd hand,
Where erst thy garden-seat did stand,
When thou return'd from travel vain,
Wrapp'd in thy plaid, and pale with pain,
Didst gaze with vacant eye,
For stern disease had drank the fount
Of mental vision dry.
Ah! what avails, with giant power,
To wrest the trophies of an hour;
One moment write, with sparkling eye,
Our name on castled turrets high,
And yield the next, a broken trust,
To earth, to ashes, and to dust.
And now farewell, whose hand did sweep
Away the damps of ages deep,
And fire with proud baronial strain
The harp of chivalry again,
And make its wild, forgotten thrill
To modern ears delightful still.
Thou, who didst make, from shore to shore,
Bleak Caledonia's mountains hoar,
Her blue lakes bosom'd in their shade,
Her sheepfolds scatter'd o'er the glade,
Her rills, with music, leaping down,
The perfume of her heather brown,
Familiar as their native glen
To differing tribes of distant men,
Patriot and bard! old Scotia's care
Shall keep thine image fresh and fair,
Embalming to remotest time
The Shakspeare of her tuneful clime.