The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott ... Notes & life of the author.

MARMION.
INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIRST.
To WILLIAM STEWART ROSE, Esq.
Ashestiel, Ettricke Porest.
NOVE MBER'S sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled green-wood grew,
So feeble trilled the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with doubled speed,
Hulrries its waters to the Tweed.
No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our Forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
[Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath passed the heather-bell,
That bloomed so rich on Needpath-fell;
Sallow his brow, and russet bare
Are now the sister-heights of Yare.
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To sheltered dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sun-beam shines:
In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their sunmer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill;
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold;
His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel;
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