Lady of the Lake

Please you, meanwhile, in fitting bower
Repose you till his waking hour;
Female attendance shall obey
Your hest, for service or array.
Permit I marshal you the way.'

But, ere she followed, with the grace
And open bounty of her race, 
She bade her slender purse be shared
Among the soldiers of the guard.

The rest with thanks their guerdon took;
But Brent, with shy and awkward look,
On the reluctant maiden's hold 
Forced bluntly back the proffered gold:

'Forgive a haughty English heart,
And O forget its ruder part!
The vacant purse shall be my share,
Which in my barret-cap I'll bear.

Perchance, in jeopardy of war,
Where gayer crests may keep afar.'
With thanks—'twas all she could—the maid
His rugged courtesy repaid.

XI

When Ellen forth with Lewis went, 
Allan made suit to John of Brent:
'My lady safe, O let your grace
Give me to see my master's face!
His minstrel I—to share his doom
Bound from the cradle to the tomb. 

Tenth in descent, since first my sires
Waked for his noble house their lyres,
Nor one of all the race was known
But prized its weal above their own.

With the Chief's birth begins our care; 
Our harp must soothe the infant heir,
Teach the youth tales of fight, and grace
His earliest feat of field or chase;

In peace, in war, our ranks we keep,
We cheer his board, we soothe his sleep, 
Nor leave him till we pour our verse—
A doleful tribute!—o'er his hearse.

Then let me share his captive lot;
It is my right—deny it not!'

'Little we reck,' said John of Brent, 
'We Southern men, of long descent;
Nor wot we how a name—a word—
Makes clansmen vassals to a lord;
Yet kind my noble landlord's part—
God bless the house of Beaudesert! 

And, but I loved to drive the deer,
More than to guide the laboring steer,
I had not dwelt an outcast here.
Come, good old Minstrel, follow me;
Thy Lord and Chieftain shalt thou see.'

XII

Then, from a rusted iron hook,
A bunch of ponderous keys he took,
Lighted a torch, and Allan led
Through grated arch and passage dread.

Portals they passed, where, deep within, 
Spoke prisoner's moan, and fetters' din;
Through rugged vaults, where, loosely stored,