Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/41

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INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIRST.
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His Gothic harp has o'er you rung;The Bard you deign'd to praise, your deathless names has sung. 205
 Stay yet, illusion, stay a while,My wilder'd fancy still beguile!From this high theme how can I part,Ere half unloaded is my heart!For all the tears e'er sorrow drew, 210And all the raptures fancy knew,And all the keener rush of blood,That throbs through bard in bard-like mood,Were here a tribute mean and low,Though all their mingled streams could flow— 215Woe, wonder, and sensation high,In one spring-tide of ecstasy!-It will not be—it may not last—The vision of enchantment's past:Like frostwork in the morning ray, 220The fancied fabric melts away;Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone,And long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone;And, lingering last, deception dear,The choir's high sounds die on my ear. 225Now slow return the lonely down,The silent pastures bleak and brown,The farm begirt with copsewood wildThe gambols of each frolic child,Mixing their shrill cries with the tone 230Of Tweed's dark waters rushing on.
 Prompt on unequal tasks to run,Thus Nature disciplines her son:Meeter, she says, for me to stray,And waste the solitary day, 235In plucking from yon fen the reed,And watch it floating down the Tweed;Or idly list the shrilling lay,With which the milkmaid cheers her way,
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