University of Virginia Library

XXXVI. WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN SAINT PETER'S.

1.

The wild deer, when the shaft is in his side
Seeks his first lair beneath the forest hoar:
Drawn back from reboant deeps the exhausted tide
Breathes his last sob on the forsaken shore:
When on the village green the sports have died
The child stands knocking at his grandsire's door:
So stands by this far tomb of Scotland's pride
Her greatest son, death-doomed, and travel-sore.
So stand, last Singer of the Heroic Age!
Dead are those years so loyal, brave, and high
That whilome blazoned History's Missal page,
Ring yet through thy glad Minstrel-Breviary:
Old Pilgrim, ended is thy pilgrimage
This hour. The shadows round thee close: now die!

XXXVII. WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN SAINT PETER'S.

2.

Staff-propt he stands and all his country's past
Streams back before his sadly-kindling eye;
King after King, as cloud on cloud when fast
The storm-rack rushes through the autumnal sky:
Aughrim to Flodden answers! on the blast
Now Mary's, now the Bruce's standards fly:
Those earliest, Irish, kings he sees at last
Cross-crowned on old Iona's shores who lie.
Thus as he gazed, a Voice from vault and shrine
Whispered around him—and from Peter's Tomb—
‘Not one alone but every Royal Line
To my strong gates, as thou to these, shall come
Heart-pierced at last: for mine they were; and mine
The cradles and the graves of Christendom.’