The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

140 THE LORD OF THE ISLES. [CANTO IV.
If he one Scottish head should spare,
Till stretch'd upon the bloody lair
Each rebel corpse was laid!
Such hate was his, when his last breath
Renounced the peaceful house of Death,
And bade his bones to Scotland's coast
Be borne by his remorseless host,
As if his dead and stony eye
Could still enjoy her misery!
Such hate was his-dark, deadly, long;
Mline,-as enduring, deep, and strong! "
V.
"Let women, Edward, war with words,
With curses monks, but men with swords:
Nor doubt of living foes to sate
Deepest revenge and deadliest hate.'
1 [" The Bruce was, unquestionably, of a temper never surpassed for its humanity, munificence, and nobleness; yet,to represent him sorrowing over the death of the first Plantagenet,
after the repeated and tremendous ills inflicted by that man
on Scotland-the patriot Wallace murdered by his order, as
well as the royal race of Wales, and the very brother of The
Bruce, slaughtered by his command-to represent the just
and generous Robert, we repeat, feeling an instant's compassion for the sudden fate of a miscreant like this, is, we are
compelled to say it, so monstrous, and in a Scottish poet, so
unnatural a violation of truth and decency, not to say patriotism, that we are really astonished that the author could
have conceived the idea, much more that he could suffer his
pen to record it. This wretched abasement on the part of
The Bruce, is farther heightened by the King's half reprehen