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

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Whose eye in age, quick, clear, and keels,
Showed what in youth its glance had been;
Whose doom discording neighbours sougi:~.L
Content with equity unbought;
To him the venerable Priest,
Our frequent and familiar guest,
Whose life and manners well could pai&n
Alike the student and the saint;
Alas! whose:speech too oft I broke
With gambol rude and timeless joke:
For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child;
But half a plague, and half a jest,
Was still endured, beloved, carest.
From me, thus nurtured, dost thou as2'The classic poet's well-conned task?
Nay, Erskine, nay-on the wild hill
Let the wild heathbell flourish still;
Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,
But freely let the woodbine twine,
And leave untrimmed the eglantine:
Nay, my friend, nay-since oft thy praiis
Hath given fresh vigour to my lays,
Since oft thy judgment could refine
3My flattened thought, or cumbrous line,
Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
And in the minstrel spare the friend.
Though wild as cloud, as streams, as gab
Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my taleb
CANTO THIRBD
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THE livelong day Lord Marmion rode:
The mountain path the Palmer showed;
By glen and streamlet winded still,
Where stunted birches hid the rill.
They might not choose the lowland roiad
For the Merse forayers were abroad,
Who, fired with hate and thirst of prey,
Had scarcely failed to bar their way.