The lay of the last minstrel, a poem. With Ballads and lyrical pieces |
Common terms and phrases
ancient arms band banners Baron beneath betwixt blazed blood blood-hound Border bower Branksome Hall Branksome's towers Buccleuch bugles called CANTO castle Cessford Cessford Castle cheer chief clan clang coursers crest Dacre Dame dead death Deloraine Douglas dread Earl Earl of Angus English Eskdale Ettricke Ettricke Forest faithful song feudal fight foes foot-ball Froissart gallant hand Harden harp heard heart highnes horse Howard James Jedburgh king knight Ladye laird of Buccleuch lance land LAST MINSTREL Liddesdale loud Margaret Melrose merry Michael MINSTREL moss-trooper Musgrave Naworth Castle ne'er noble Note o'er ride rode Roslin round rung sayd Scot Scotland Scottish Scottish Border Seneschal shout Sir Gilbert Elliot Sir William slain song Spirit St Clair steed stone sword ta'en tell Teviot's Teviotdale theyre Thomas Musgrave thou tide Tinlinn truce Twixt Virgilius Walter Scott warriors wild William of Deloraine wound
Popular passages
Page 26 - When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruined central tower ; When buttress and buttress, alternately, Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; When silver edges the imagery, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die...
Page 1 - Ten of them were sheathed in steel, With belted sword, and spur on heel : They quitted not their harness bright, Neither by day, nor yet by night...
Page 35 - Loud sobs, and laughter louder, ran, And voices unlike the voice of man; As if the fiends kept holiday, Because these spells were brought to day. I cannot tell how the truth may be : I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
Page 144 - O Caledonia ! stern and wild, meet nurse for a poetic child, • land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, land of my sires!
Page 143 - BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, $ Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And,...
Page 144 - Caledonia ! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child ! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires ! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band, That knits me to thy rugged strand ! Still, as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems as, to me, of all bereft, Sole friends thy woods and streams were left ; And thus I love them better still, Even in extremity of ill.
Page 12 - In Eske or Liddel, fords were none, But he would ride them, one by one ; Alike to him was time or tide, December's snow, or July's pride ; Alike to him was tide or time, Moonless midnight, or matin prime : Steady of heart, and stout of hand, As ever drove prey from Cumberland ; Five times outlawed had he been, By England's King, and Scotland's Queen.
Page 150 - And glimmered all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair — So still they blaze, when fate is nigh The lordly line of high Saint Clair.