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

76 LAT OF THE CAmro VT.
For thither came, in times afar,
Stern Lochlin's sons of roving war,
The Norsemen, trained to spoil and blood,
Skilled to prepare the raven's food;
Kings of the main their leaders brave,
Their barks the dragons of the wave.
And there, in many a stormy vale,.
The Scald had told his wondrous tale
And many a Runic column high
Had witnessed grim idolatry.
And thus had Harold, in his youth,
Learned many a Saga's rhymeuncouth,
Of that Sea-Snake, tremendous curled,
Whose monstrous circle girds the world;
Of those dread Maids, whose hideous yell
Maddens the battle's bloody swell;
Of chiefs, who, guided through the gloom
By the pale death-lights of the tomb,
Ransacked the graves of warriors old,
Their faulchions wrenched from corpses' hold,
Waked the deaf tomb with war's alarms,
And bade the dead arise to arms!
With war and wonder all on flame,
To Roslin's bowers young Harold came,
Where, by sweet glen and greenwood tree,
He learned a milder minstrelsy;
Yet something of the Northern spell
Mixed with the softer numbers well.
XXIII.
HAROLD. j
O listen, listen, ladies gay!
No haughty feat of arms I tell:
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.
-"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle ladye, deign to stayl
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.'The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch* and rock the sea-mews fly;
* Inch, Isle.