The Sunset's evanescent smile
That gilds each long and shadowy aisle,
Of Dryburgh's old monastic pile
Seems slow to fade,
From this sepulchral marble bed
Where lies the venerable head
Of Scott — with his forefathers' dead
All lowly laid.
Fit place of rest!
Around him famous champions lie,
His ancestry of years gone by,
Each with his sculptured effigy
Stretched o'er the dust!
Bones of grave monks repose around,
Of knights in feudal wars renowned
Of mailed nobles, each one crowned
With his grim bust.
Dead saints their holy palms expand,
Dark soldiers grasp the stony brand:
The plumed casque, the priestly wand,
Watch o'er his sleep.
Well did he love your lives to paint
Rough vassal, and monastic saint,
With lifelike tale or lyric quaint,
In colorings deep.
Well did he love the shadows dim
That o'er departed ages swim,
To pierce, 'till they revealed to him
Their deeds of gloom.
Well did the Great Magician wield
His staff till each ensanguined field,
Its dead at his command would yield
From time's dark womb.
He spake! and the soft landscape spread
Its verdurous borders to the tread,
Groves mingled their thick tops o'erhead
Herds roamed below.
The stag and the wild boar swept by;
Loud peals the hunter's cheery cry;
Whistling, the cloth-yard arrows fly;
Loud twangs the bow.
He sang! and in the lofty strain,
Cheviot's bald summits gleamed again;
Each mount in Scotland's broad domain
Uprose to view,
Loch-Lomond and Loch-Katrine's roar
Resound along the idle shore,
And Tweed's melodious channels pour
Their waves of blue.
He sang! The brier-rose oped its bloom,
The sweet fern mingled its perfume,
The heath-flower tossed its colored plume
O'er hill and vale.
His voice aroused deep solitudes
Drear deserts and primeval woods,
Amid whose brown impetuous floods
Trod the wild Gael!
The fisher in his rocking skiff,
Beneath Ben Nevis' craggy cliff
Heard the wild song.
The sheep-boy tending his soft fold
And maiden with her locks of gold
In silken snood, or tartan rolled,
Dancing along!
He sang! and the hold mountaineer
Whose bones for many a circling year
'Neath savage cairn, or snow-drift drear,
Forgot had lain,
Flashed his long spear and struck his shield,
His claymore with stout arm would wield,
And o'er the ancient battle-field
Stalked forth again.
Montrose awoke! and Moray's star
Shone o'er the lurid clouds of war,
While Argyle and bluff Earl of Mar
At Sheriff Muir,
Again the barbed horsemen led;
Again the lowland sword grew red,
Again the stalwart clansmen bled,
O'er heath and moor.
He sleeps! where Dryburgh flaunts the weed,
And ivies their green tendrils lead,
While fast beside the silver Tweed
Perpetual pours:
Yon towers of Abbotsford arise,
And watch the spot where low he lies;
And near the latest sunbeam dies
On fair Melrose!