We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot, and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When ‘gainst the oak his antlers frayed;
You shall see him brought to bay;
“Waken, lords and ladies gay.”
Louder, louder chant the lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth, and mirth, and glee,
Run a course as well as we;
Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk,
Stanch as hound, and fleet as hawk?
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay!
Sir Walter Scott.
The Riding to the Tournament
Over meadows purple-flowered,
Through the dark lanes oak-embowered,
Over commons dry and brown,
Through the silent red-roofed town,
Past the reapers and the sheaves,
Over white roads strewn with leaves,
By the gipsy’s ragged tent,
Rode we to the Tournament.
Over clover wet with dew,
Whence the sky-lark, startled, flew,
Through brown fallows, where the hare
Leapt up from its subtle lair,
Past the mill-stream and the reeds
Where the stately heron feeds,
By the warren’s sunny wall,
Where the dry leaves shake and fall,
By the hall’s ancestral trees,
Bent and writhing in the breeze,
Rode we all with one intent,
Gaily to the Tournament.
Golden sparkles, flashing gem,
Lit the robes of each of them,
Cloak of velvet, robe of silk,
Mantle snowy-white as milk,
Rings upon our bridle-hand,
Jewels on our belt and band,
Bells upon our golden reins,
Tinkling spurs and shining chains —
In such merry mob we went
Riding to the Tournament.
Laughing voices, scraps of song,
Lusty music loud and strong,
Rustling of the banners blowing,
Whispers as of rivers flowing.
Whistle of the hawks we bore
As they rise and as they soar,
Now and then a clash of drums
As the rabble louder hums,
Now and then a burst of horns
Sounding over brooks and bourns,
As in merry guise we went
Riding to the Tournament.
There were abbots fat and sleek,
Nuns in couples, pale and meek,
Jugglers tossing cups and knives,
Yeomen with their buxom wives,
Pages playing with the curls
Of the rosy village girls,
Grizzly knights with faces scarred,
Staring through their vizors barred,
Huntsmen cheering with a shout
At the wild stag breaking out,
Harper, stately as a king,
Touching now and then a string,
As our revel laughing went
To the solemn Tournament.
Charger with the massy chest,
Foam-spots flecking mane and breast,
Pacing stately, pawing ground,
Fretting for the trumpet’s sound,
White and sorrel, roan and bay,
Dappled, spotted, black, and grey,
Palfreys snowy as the dawn,
Ponies sallow as the fawn,
All together neighing went
Trampling to the Tournament.
Long hair scattered in the wind,
Curls that flew a yard behind,
Flags that struggled like a bird
Chained and restive — not a word
But half buried in a laugh;
And the lance’s gilded staff
Shaking when the bearer shook
At the jester’s merry look,
As he grins upon his mule,
Like an urchin leaving school,
Shaking bauble, tossing bells,
At the merry jest he tells, —
So in happy mood we went,
Laughing to the Tournament.
What a bustle at the inn,
What a stir, without — within;
Filling flagons, brimming bowls
For a hundred thirsty souls;
Froth in snow-flakes flowing down,
From the pitcher big and brown,
While the tankards brim and bubble
With the balm for human trouble;
How the maiden coyly sips,
How the yeoman wipes his lips,
How the old knight drains the cup
Slowly and with calmness up,
And the abbot, with a prayer,
Fills the silver goblet rare,
Praying to the saints for strength
As he holds it at arm’s length;
How the jester spins the bowl
On his thumb, then quaffs the whole;
How the pompous steward bends
And bows to half-a-dozen friends,
As in a thirsty mood we went
Duly to the Tournament.
Then again the country over
Through the stubble and the clover,
By the crystal-dropping springs,
Where the road dust clogs and clings
To the pearl-leaf of the rose,
Where the tawdry nightshade blows,
And the bramble twines its chains
Through the sunny village lanes,
Where the thistle sheds its seed,
And the goldfinch loves to feed,
By the milestone green with moss,
By the broken wayside cross,
In a merry band we went
Shouting to the Tournament.
Pilgrims with their hood and cowl,
Pursy burghers cheek by jowl,
Archers with their peacock’s wing
Fitting to the waxen string,
Pedlars with their pack and bags,
Beggars with their coloured rags,
Silent monks, whose stony eyes
Rest in trance upon the skies,
Children sleeping at the breast,
Merchants from the distant West,
All in gay confusion went
To the royal Tournament.
Players with the painted face
And a drunken man’s grimace,
Grooms who praise their raw-boned steeds,
Old wives telling maple beads, —
Blackbirds from the hedges broke,
Black crows from the beeches croak,
Glossy swallows in dismay
From the mill-stream fled away,
The angry swan, with ruffled breast,
Frowned upon her osier nest,
The wren hopped restless on the brake,
The otter made the sedges shake,
The butterfly before our rout
Flew like a blossom blown about,
The coloured leaves, a globe of life,
Spun round and scattered as in strife,
Sweeping down the narrow lane
Like the slant shower of the rain,
The lark in terror, from the sod,
Flew up and straight appealed to God,
As a noisy band we went
Trotting to the Tournament.
But when we saw the holy town,
With its river and its down,
Then the drums began to beat
And the flutes piped mellow sweet;
Then the deep and full bassoon
Murmured like a wood in June,
And the fifes, so sharp and bleak,
All at once began to speak.
Hear the trumpets clear and loud,
Full-tongued, eloquent and proud,
And the dulcimer that ranges
Through such wild and plaintive changes
;
Merry sounds the jester’s shawm,
To our gladness giving form;
And the shepherd’s chalumeau,
Rich and soft and sad and low;
Hark! the bagpipes squeak and groan —
Every herdsman has his own;
So in measured step we went
Pacing to the Tournament.
All at once the chimes break out,
Then we hear the townsmen shout,
And the morris-dancers’ bells
Tinkling in the grassy dells;
The bell thunder from the tower
Adds its sound of doom and power,
As the cannon’s loud salute
For a moment made us mute;
Then again the laugh and joke
On the startled silence broke; —
Thus in merry mood we went
Laughing to the Tournament.
G. W. Thornbury.
VARIOUS
A Red, Red Rose
O, my love is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O, my love is like the melody
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry.
Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee well, my only love,
And fare thee well a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!
Robert Burns.
Blow, Bugle, Blow
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
West and East
Rome is chiefly known to young readers through the medium of Macaulay’s spirited “Lays,” which, however, are only a re-telling, in English ballad form, of some of the legends which survived into historical times concerning the infant city, about which nothing certain is known. They give no idea of the Rome of history, the world-power, or of the brooding immensity of her influence through centuries. This and the following poem illustrate, to some slight extent, the later Rome.
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crown’d his hair with flowers —
No easier nor no quicker pass’d
The impracticable hours.
The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swell’d and swell’d,
And on her head was hurled.
The East bow’d low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
Matthew Arnold.
Genseric
Genseric, King of the Vandals, who, having laid waste seven lands,
From Tripolis far as Tangier, from the sea to the great desert sands,
Was lord of the Moor and the African, — thirsting anon for new slaughter,
Sail’d out of Carthage, and sail’d o’er the Mediterranean water;
Plunder’d Palermo, seiz’d Sicily, sack’d the Lucanian coast,
And paused, and said, laughing, “Where next?”
Then there came to the Vandal a Ghost
From the Shadowy Land that lies hid and unknown in the Darkness Below.
And answered, “To Rome!”
Said the King to the Ghost, “And whose envoy art thou?
Whence com’st thou? and name me his name that hath sent thee: and say what is thine.”
“From far: and His name that hath sent me is God,” the Ghost answered, “and mine
Was Hannibal once, ere thou wast: and the name that I now have is Fate.
But arise, and be swift, and return. For God waits, and the moment is late.”
And, “I go,” said the Vandal. And went. When at last to the gates he was come,
Loud he knock’d with his fierce iron fist. And full drowsily answer’d him Rome.
“Who is it that knocketh so loud? Get thee hence. Let me be. For ’tis late.”
“Thou art wanted,” cried Genseric. “Open! His name that hath sent me is Fate,
And mine, who knock late, Retribution.”
Rome gave him her glorious things;
The keys she had conquer’d from kingdoms: the crowns she had wrested from kings:
And Genseric bore them away into Carthage, avenged thus on Rome,
And paused, and said, laughing, “Where next?”
And again the Ghost answer’d him, “Home!
For now God doth need thee no longer.”
“Where leadest thou me by the hand?”
Cried the King to the Ghost. And the Ghost answer’d, “Into the Shadowy Land.”
Owen Meredith.
Kubla Khan
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a
dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play’d,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Something to Remember
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that.
And also you are living after,
And the memory I started at —
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone
‘Mid the blank miles round about:
For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.
Robert Browning.
Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
Complete Works of Kenneth Grahame Page 31