The harp, a King had loved to hear.
He passed where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:3
The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye?
No humbler resting place was nigh.
With hesitating step, at last,
The embattled portal-arch he passed,
Whose ponderous grate, and massy bar,
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
35 But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess marked his weary pace,
His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials0 tell, servants That they should tend the old man well:
For she had known adversity,
Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!4
45 When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride.
And he began to talk, anon,
Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him God!5
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew,
2. William III, who in 1688 ascended to the Brit-whose black magic will figure in the minstrel's ish throne after Parliament coerced the last Stuart story, the widow of the duke of Monmouth. A bas-
monarch, the Catholic James II, into fleeing to tard son of Charles II, Monmouth was executed in
France. 1685 after his unsuccessful insurrection against
3. Newark Castle, located in the Border district, his uncle James II. at a bend of the river Yarrow. 5. In footnotes Scott identifies Earl Francis and
4. The Duchess, identified in Scott's footnote as Earl Walter as the father and grandfather of the Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch, was, in addition to Duchess.
being a descendant of the Lady of Branksome
.
TH E LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL / 40 9 55Of the old warriors of Buccleuch; And, would the noble Duchess deign To listen to an old man's strain, Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak, He thought even yet, the sooth0 to speak, That, if she loved the harp to hear, He could make music to her ear. truth 60657075so859095IOO The humble boon was soon obtained; The aged Minstrel audience gained. But, when he reached the room of state, Where she, with all her ladies, sate, Perchance he wished his boon denied; For, when to tune his harp he tried, His trembling hand had lost the ease, Which marks security to please; And scenes, long past, of joy and pain, Came wildering o'er his aged brain? He tried to tune his harp in vain. The pitying Duchess praised its chime, And gave him heart, and gave him time, Till every string's according glee Was blended into harmony. And then, he said, he would full fain He could recall an ancient strain, He never thought to sing again. It was not framed for village churls, But for high dames and mighty earls; He had played it to King Charles the Good When he kept court at Holyrood;6 And much he wished, yet feared, to try The long-forgotten melody. Amid the strings his fingers strayed, And an uncertain warbling made? And oft he shook his hoary0 head. But when he caught the measure wild, The old man raised his face, and smiled; And lightened up his faded eye, With all a poet's extacy! In varying cadence, soft or strong, He swept the sounding chords along; The present scene, the future lot, His toils, his wants, were all forgot; Cold diffidence, and age's frost, In the full tide of song were lost. Each blank, in faithless memory void, The poet's glowing thought supplied; And, while his harp responsive rung, 'Twas thus the LATEST MINSTREL sung. gray with age 1805
6. Having ascended to the throne of England in 1626, Charles I traveled to the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh in 1633 to receive the crown of Scotland.
.
41 0 / SIR WALTER SCOTT
Proud Maisie1
Proud Maisie is in the wood Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush, Singing so rarely.
5 'Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?'? 'When six braw? gentlemen fine Kirkward shall carry ye.'
