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

CANTO I.] THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN.

3.5

In archly dimpled chin and cheek,
And laughter-lighted eyes.
XIX.
" The attributes of those high days
Now only live in minstrel-lays;
For Nature, now exhausted, still
Was then profuse of good and ill.
Strength was gigantic, valour high,
And wisdom soar'd beyond the sky,
And beauty had such matchless beam
As lights not now a lover's dream.
Yet e'en in that romantic age,
Ne'er were such charms by mortal seen,
As Arthur's dazzled eyes engage,
When forth on that enchanted stage,
With glittering train of maid and page,
Advanced the castle's Queen!
While up the hall she slowly pass'd,
Her dark eye on the King she cast,
That flash'd expression strong;
The longer dwelt that lingering look,
Her cheek the livelier colour took,
And scarce the shame-faced King could brook
The gaze that lasted long.
[" In the description of the Queen's entrance, as well as
in the contrasted enumeration of the levities of her attendants, the author, we think, has had in his recollection Gray's
celebrated description of the power of harmony to produce
all the graces of motion in the body."-Quarterly Review.]