Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/42

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MARMION.
Marking its cadence rise and fail, 240As from the field, beneath her pail,She trips it down the uneven dale:Meeter for me, by yonder cairn,The ancient shepherd's tale to learn;Though oft he stop in rustic fear, 245Lest his old legends tire the earOf one, who, in his simple mind,May boast of book-learn'd taste refined.
 But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell,(For few have read romance so well,) 250How still the legendary layO'er poet's bosom holds its sway;How on the ancient minstrel strainTime lays his palsied hand in vain;And how our hearts at doughty deeds, 255By warriors wrought in steely weeds,Still throb for fear and pity's sake;As when the Champion of the LakeEnters Morgana's fated house,Or in the Chapel Perilous, 260Despising spells and demons' force,Holds converse with the unburied corse;Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to move,(Alas, that lawless was their love!)He sought proud Tarquin in his den, 265And freed full sixty knights; or when,A sinful man, and unconfess'd,He took the Sangreal's holy quest,And, slumbering, saw the vision high,He might not view with waking eye. 270
 The mightiest chiefs of British songScorn'd not such legends to prolong:They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;And Dryden, in immortal strain, 275Had raised the Table Round again,
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