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

L&T or Tn CAWTo -I.
Retains each grief, retains each crime,
Its earliest course was doomed to know,
And, darker as it downward bears,
Is stained with past and present tears.
Low as that tide has ebbed with me,
It still reflects to memory's eye
The hour, my brave, my only boy,
Fell by the side of great Dundee.*
Why, when the volleying musket played
Against the bloody Highland blade,
Why was not I beside him laid IEnough —he died the death of fame;
Enough —he died with conquering Grmeo.
IlL
Now over Border dale and fell,
Full wide and far was terror spread;
For pathless marsh, and mountain cell,
The peasant left his lowly shed.
The frightened flocks and herds were pent
Beneath the peel's rude battlement;
And maids and matrons dropped' the tear,
While ready warriors seized the spear.
From Branksome's towers, the watchman's eye
Dun wreaths of distant smoke' can spy,
Which,curling in the rising sun,
Showed southern ravage was begun.
Now loud the heedful gate-ward cried —.
" Prepare ye all for blows and bloodI
Watt Tinlinn, from the Liddle-side,
Comes wading through the flood.
Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knock,
At his lone gate, and prove the lock;
It was but last St Barnabright
They sieged him a whole summer night,
But fled at morning; well they knew,
In vain he never twanged the yew.
Right sharp has been the evening shower,
That drove him from his Liddle tower;
And, by my faith," the gate-ward said,
"I think'twill prove a Warden-Raid."
* The Viscount of Dmdee, slain in the battle of
]illycrankie.
JLL~~___ I