A kindly heart had brave Fitz-James; Fast poured his eyes at pity's claims, And now, with mingled grief and ire, He saw the murdered maid expire. 'God, in my need, be my relief, As I wreak this on yonder Chief!' A lock from Blanche's tresses fair He blended with her bridegroom's hair; The mingled braid in blood he dyed. And placed it on his bonnet-side: 'By Him whose word is truth! I swear No other favor will I wear, Till this sad token I imbrue In the best blood of Roderick Dhu! —But hark! what means yon faint halloo? The chase is up—but they shall know, The stag at bay's a dangerous foe.' Barred from the known but guarded way, Through copse and cliffs Fitz-James must stray, And oft must change his desperate track, By stream and precipice turned back. Heartless, fatigued, and faint, at length, From lack of food and loss of strength, He couched him in a thicket hoar, And thought his toils and perils o'er: 'Of all my rash adventures past, This frantic feat must prove the last! Who e'er so mad but might have guessed, That all this Highland hornet's nest Would muster up in swarms so soon As e'er they heard of bands at Doune? Like bloodhounds now they search me out— Hark, to the whistle and the shout!— If further through the wilds I go, I only fall upon the foe. I'll couch me here till evening gray, Then darkling try my dangerous way.'
XXIX
The shades of eve come slowly down, The woods are wrapped in deeper brown, The owl awakens from her dell, The fox is heard upon the fell; Enough remains of glimmering light To guide the wanderer's steps aright, Yet not enough from far to show His figure to the watchful foe. With cautious step, and ear awake, He climbs the crag and threads the brake; And not the summer solstice, there, Tempered the midnight mountain air, But every breeze, that swept the wold, Benumbed his drenched limbs with cold. In dread, in danger, and alone, Famished and chilled, through ways unknown, Tangled and steep, he journeyed on; Till, as a rock's huge point he turned, A watch-fire close before him burned.
