The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd Centenary Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson ... Poems and Life. With Many Illustrative Engravings [by James Hogg] |
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 | The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd |  |
“I hold it best, my lords,” she said,
“For knight, for dame, and lovely maid,
At wassail, wake, or revel hall,
To part before the senses pall.
Sweet though the draught of pleasure be,
Why should we drain it to the lee?
Though here the minstrel's fancy play,
Light as the breeze of summer day;
Though there in solemn cadence flow,
Smooth as the night wind o'er the snow;
Now bound away with rolling sweep,
Like tempest o'er the raving deep;
High on the morning's golden screen,
Or casemate of the rainbow lean:—
Such beauties were in vain prolonged,
The soul is cloyed, the minstrel wronged.
“For knight, for dame, and lovely maid,
At wassail, wake, or revel hall,
To part before the senses pall.
Sweet though the draught of pleasure be,
Why should we drain it to the lee?
Though here the minstrel's fancy play,
Light as the breeze of summer day;
Though there in solemn cadence flow,
Smooth as the night wind o'er the snow;
Now bound away with rolling sweep,
Like tempest o'er the raving deep;
High on the morning's golden screen,
Or casemate of the rainbow lean:—
Such beauties were in vain prolonged,
The soul is cloyed, the minstrel wronged.
| The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd | |