Lady of the Lake

'Hear, gentle friends! ere yet for me,
Ye break the bands of fealty.
My life, my honor, and my cause, 
I tender free to Scotland's laws.

Are these so weak as must require
The aid of your misguided ire?
Or, if I suffer causeless wrong,
Is then my selfish rage so strong, 
My sense of public weal so low,
That, for mean vengeance on a foe,
Those cords of love I should unbind,
Which knit my country and my kind?

O no! Believe, in yonder tower 
It will not soothe my captive hour,
To know those spears our foes should dread,
For me in kindred gore are red;

To know, in fruitless brawl begun,
For me, that mother wails her son; 
For me, that widow's mate expires;
For me, that orphans weep their sires;
That patriots mourn insulted laws,
And curse the Douglas for the cause.
O let your patience ward such ill, 
And keep your right to love me still!'

XXIX

The crowd's wild fury sunk again
In tears, as tempests melt in rain.

With lifted hands and eyes, they prayed
For blessings on his generous head, 
Who for his country felt alone,
And prized her blood beyond his own.

Old men, upon the verge of life,
Blessed him who stayed the civil strife;
And mothers held their babes on high, 
The self-devoted Chief to spy,
Triumphant over wrongs and ire,
To whom the prattlers owed a sire.

Even the rough soldier's heart was moved;
As if behind some bier beloved, 
With trailing arms and drooping head,
The Douglas up the hill he led,
And at the Castle's battled verge,
With sighs resigned his honored charge.

XXX

The offended Monarch rode apart, 
With bitter thought and swelling heart,
And would not now vouchsafe again
Through Stirling streets to lead his train.

'O Lennox, who would wish to rule
This changeling crowd, this common fool? 
Hear'st thou,' he said, 'the loud acclaim,
With which they shout the Douglas name?

With like acclaim, the vulgar throat
Strained for King James their morning note;
With like acclaim they hailed the day 
When first I broke the Douglas' sway;

And like acclaim would Douglas greet,
If he could hurl me from my seat.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain! 

Vain as the leaf upon the stream,