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 |  |
INTRODUCTION.
Fling from your folds the piercing shower;
Sing to the tower and leafless tree,
Ye cold winds of adversity;
Your blights, your chilling influence shed
On wareless heart and houseless head;
Your ruth or fury I disdain:
I've found my mountain Lyre again.
Companion of a happier day!
Thou gift of Heaven, thou pledge of good,
Harp of the mountain and the wood!
I little thought, when first I tried
Thy notes by lone Saint Mary's side,
When in a deep untrodden den,
I found thee in the bracken glen—
I little thought that idle toy
Should e'er become my only joy.
Around my heart the toils of love,
When first thy magic wires I rung,
And on the breeze thy numbers flung:
The fervid tear played in mine eye;
I trembled, wept, and wondered why.
Sweet was the thrilling ecstasy;
I know not if 'twas love or thee.
Friendship would fade or fortune frown;
When pleasure, love, and mirth were past,
That thou should'st prove my all at last.
Jeered by conceit and lordly pride,
I flung my soothing harp aside;
With wayward fortune strove a while,
Wrecked in a world of self and guile.
Again I sought the bracken hill;
Again sat musing by the rill;
My wild sensations all were gone,
And only thou wert left alone.
Long hast thou in the moorland lain,
Now welcome to my heart again!
No more shall round thy border play;
No more the brake-flowers o'er thee piled
Shall mar thy tones and measures wild:
Harp of the forest, thou shalt be
Fair as the bud on forest tree!
Sweet be thy strains as those that swell
In Ettrick's green and fairy dell;
Soft as the breeze of falling even,
And purer than the dews of heaven.
Of bards who sung in days of yore;
Of gallant chiefs in courtly guise;
Of ladies' smiles, of ladies' eyes;
Of royal feast and obsequies;
When Caledon with look severe,
Saw Beauty's hand her sceptre bear—
By cliff and haunted wild I'll sing,
Responsive to thy dulcet string.
When scarcely smiles the doubtful day,
Fair daughter of Dunedin, say,
Hast thou not heard at midnight deep
Soft music on thy slumbers creep?
At such a time, if careless thrown
Thy slender form on couch of down,
Hast thou not felt to nature true
The tear steal from thine eye so blue?
If then thy guiltless bosom strove
In blissful dreams of conscious love,
And even shrunk from proffer bland
Of lover's visionary hand;
On such ecstatic dream when brake
The music of the midnight Wake,
Hast thou not weened thyself on high,
List'ning to angels' melody,
'Scaped from a world of cares away,
To dream of love and bliss for aye?
Hast thou not, sighing, all alone
Proffered thy vows to Heaven, and then
Blest the sweet Wake, and slept again?
Though old the tale, and past the day;
Those Wakes, now played by minstrels poor,
At midnight's darkest, chillest hour,
Those humble Wakes, now scorned by all,
Were first begun in courtly hall,
When royal Mary, blithe of mood,
Kept holiday at Holyrood.
Groaned deep beneath her woes and toils,
And looked o'er meadow, dale, and lea,
For many a day her queen to see;
Hoping that then her woes would cease,
And all her valleys smile in peace.
The spring was passed, the summer gone,
Still vacant stood the Scottish throne:
But scarce had autumn's mellow hand
Waved her rich banner o'er the land,
When rang the shouts from tower and tree
That Scotland's queen was on the sea.
Swift spread the news o'er down and dale,
Swift as the lively autumn gale;
Away, away, it echoed still,
O'er many a moor and Highland hill,
Till rang each glen and verdant plain,
From Cheviot to the northern main.
And for Dunedin hied away;
Each harp was strung in woodland bower,
In praise of Beauty's bonniest flower.
The chiefs forsook their ladies fair,
The priest his beads and books of prayer;
The farmer left his harvest day,
The shepherd all his flocks to stray;
The forester forsook the wood,
And hasted on to Holyrood.
After a thousand sorrows past,
The lovely Mary once again
Set foot upon her native plain;
Kneeled on the pier with modest grace,
And turned to heaven her beauteous face.
'Twas then the caps in air were blended,
A thousand thousand shouts ascended;
Shivered the breeze around the throng;
Gray barrier cliffs the peals prolong;
And every tongue gave thanks to Heaven,
That Mary to their hopes was given.
Bespoke the lady and the queen;
The woes of one so fair and young
Moved every heart and every tongue.
Driven from her home, a helpless child,
To brave the winds and billows wild;
An exile bred in realms afar,
Amid commotion, broil, and war:
In one short year her hopes all crossed—
A parent, husband, kingdom lost,
And all ere eighteen years had shed
Their honours o'er her royal head;—
For such a queen, the Stuarts' heir,
A queen so courteous, young, and fair,
Who would not every foe defy?
Who would not stand? who would not die?
Around with golden tassels hung,
No chieftain there rode half so free,
Or half so light and gracefully.
How sweet to see her ringlets pale
Wide waving in the southland gale,
Which through the broom-wood blossoms flew,
To fan her cheeks of rosy hue!
Whene'er it heaved her bosom's screen,
What beauties in her form were seen!
And when her courser's mane it swung,
A thousand silver bells were rung.
A sight so fair, on Scottish plain,
A Scot shall never see again.
On rocks that seemed to prop the skies;
On lake, on river, sea, and isle;
O'er woods and meadows bathed in dew,
To distant mountains wild and blue;
She thought the isle that gave her birth
The sweetest, wildest land on earth.
Amid her lords and ladies gay.
Priest, abbot, layman, all were there,
And presbyter with look severe:
There rode the lords of France and Spain,
Of England, Flanders, and Lorraine,
While serried thousands round them stood,
From shore of Leith to Holyrood.
To find a home so wild and fair;
To see a gathered nation by,
And rays of joy from every eye;
Though frequent shouts the welkin broke,
Though courtiers bowed and ladies spoke,
An absent look they oft could trace
Deep settled on her comely face.
Was it the thought that all alone
She must support a rocking throne?
That Caledonia's rugged land
Might scorn a lady's weak command,
And the Red Lion's haughty eye
Scowl at a maiden's feet to lie?
Soft pealing from the countless throng:
So mellowed came the distant swell,
That on her ravished ear it fell
Like dew of heaven, at evening close,
On forest flower or woodland rose.
For Mary's heart, to nature true,
The powers of song and music knew:
But all the choral measures bland,
Of anthems sung in southern land,
Appeared an useless pile of art,
Unfit to sway or melt the heart,
Compared with that which floated by—
Her simple native melody.
She halted, reined, and bent the while:
She heard the Caledonian lyre
Pour forth its notes of Runic fire;
But scarcely caught the ravished queen
The minstrel's song that flowed between;
Entranced upon the strain she hung;
'Twas thus the gray-haired minstrel sung:
The Song.
But man is like th' inconstant moon:
Last night she smiled o'er lawn and lea;
That moon will change, and so will he.
Thy beauty is but a fading flower;
Watch thy young bosom and maiden eye,
For the shower must fall, and the floweret die.”
“Why fades upon her cheek the smile?
Say, rears your steed too fierce and high?
Or sits your golden seat awry?”
Of Rouen's calm and generous breed,
Has borne me over hill and plain,
Swift as the dun-deer of the Seine.
But such a wild and simple lay,
Poured from the harp of minstrel gray,
My every sense away it stole,
And swayed awhile my raptured soul.
O! say, my lord (for you must know
What strains along your valleys flow,
And all the hoards of Highland lore),
Was ever song so sweet before?—”
“Feeble the strain that minstrel sung!
My royal dame, if once you heard
The Scottish lay from Highland bard,
Then might you say in raptures meet,
No song was ever half so sweet.
To deeds of more than mortal might;
'Twill make the maid, in all her charms,
Fall weeping in her lover's arms;
'Twill charm the mermaid from the deep;
Make mountain oaks to bend and weep;
Thrill every heart with horrors dire,
And shape the breeze to forms of fire.
'Twill draw the spirits down from heaven;
And all the fays that haunt the wood,
To dance around in frantic mood,
And tune their mimic harps so boon
Beneath the cliff and midnight moon.
Ah! yes, my queen! if once you heard
The Scottish lay from Highland bard,
Then might you say, in raptures meet,
No song was ever half so sweet.”
Queen Mary joined the evening's sport;
Yet, though at table all were seen
To wonder at her air and mien;
Though courtiers fawned and ladies sung,
Still in her ear the accents rung—
“Watch thy young bosom and maiden eye
For the shower must fall, and the floweret die.”
These words prophetic seemed to be
Foreboding woe and misery;
And much she wished to prove, ere long,
The wondrous powers of Scottish song.
To view the city's ample round,
On high amid the gathered crowd,
A herald thus proclaimed aloud:—
To her dark heaths and Highland dales;
To her brave sons of warlike mood,
To all her daughters fair and good:
Peace o'er her ruined vales shall pour,
Like beam of heaven behind the shower.
Let every harp and echo ring;
Let maidens smile and poets sing;
For love and peace entwined shall sleep,
Calm as the moonbeam on the deep,
By waving wood and wandering rill,
On purple heath and Highland hill.
And bigotry and rage disarm,
Our Queen commands that every bard
Due honours have and high regard.
If to his song of rolling fire
He joins the Caledonian lyre,
And skill in legendary lore,
Still higher shall his honours soar.
For all the arts beneath the heaven,
That man has found or God has given,
None draws the soul so sweet away,
As music's melting mystic lay;
Slight emblem of the bliss above,
It soothes the spirit all to love.
To lull the passions, mend the heart,
And break the moping zealot's chains,
Hear what our lovely queen ordains:
Her courtly halls on Christmas week,
That then the royal Wake may be
Cheered by their thrilling minstrelsy.
No ribaldry the queen must hear,
No song unmeet for maiden's ear,
No jest, nor adulation bland,
But legends of our native land;
And he whom most the court regards,
High be his honours and rewards.
Let every Scottish bard give ear,
Let every Scottish bard appear,
He then before the court must stand,
In native garb with harp in hand.
At home no minstrel dare to tarry:
High the behest.—God save Queen Mary!
Of music's power or minstrel's song;
But crowding their young queen around,
Whose stately courser pawed the ground,
Her beauty more their wonder swayed
Than all the noisy herald said;
Judging the proffer all in sport,
An idle whim of idle court.
But many a bard preferred his prayer;
For many a Scottish bard was there.
Quaked each fond heart with raptures strong
Each thought upon his harp and song;
Conned his wild strain by mountain gray.
Of luckless love, of warrior bold,
Of ravished maid, or stolen child
By freakish fairy of the wild;
Of sheeted ghost, that had revealed
Dark deeds of guilt, from man concealed;
Of boding dreams, of wandering spright,
Of dead-lights glimmering through the night;
Yea, every tale of ruth or weir
Could waken pity, love, or fear,
Were decked anew, with anxious pain,
And sung to native airs again.
Are wrecked 'mid heaps of mouldering lore!
And feeble he who dares presume
That heavenly Wake-light to relume.
But, grieved the legendary lay
Should perish from our land for aye,
While sings the lark above the wold,
And all his flocks rest in the fold,
Fondly he strikes, beside the pen,
The harp of Yarrow's bracken glen.
Glared deadly o'er the mountain cairn;
A polar sheet was round him flung,
And ice-spears at his girdle hung;
O'er frigid field, and drifted cone,
He strode undaunted and alone;
Or, throned amid the Grampians gray,
Kept thaws and suns of heaven at bay.
Could quench the flame of minstrel's soul:
Little recked they, our bards of old,
Of autumn's showers or winter's cold.
Sound slept they on the nighted hill,
Lulled by the winds or babbling rill,
Curtained within the winter cloud,
The heath their couch, the sky their shroud;
Yet their's the strains that touch the heart,
Bold, rapid, wild, and void of art.
Delight in these degenerate days:
Their crystal spring and heather brown
Is changed to wine and couch of down;
Effeminate as lady gay,
Such as the bard, so is his lay!
Through drifting snows and rattling hail,
Each Caledonian minstrel true,
Dressed in his plaid and bonnet blue,
With harp across his shoulders slung,
And music murmuring round his tongue,
Forcing his way, in raptures high,
To Holyrood his skill to try.
When gaping rustics stood and gazed,
Each bard believed, with ready will,
Unmatched his song, unmatched his skill.
But when the royal halls appeared,
Each aspect changed, each bosom feared;
And when in court of Holyrood
Filed harps and bards around him stood,
His eye emitted cheerless ray,
His hope, his spirit sunk away:
There stood the minstrel, but his mind
Seemed left in native glen behind.
What joys the poet's hopes impart;
Unknown how his high soul is torn
By cold neglect or canting scorn:
That meteor torch of mental light
A breath can quench, or kindle bright.
Oft has that mind, which braved serene
The shafts of poverty and pain,
The summer toil, the winter blast,
Fallen victim to a frown at last.
Easy the boon he asks of thee;
O! spare his heart in courtesy!
Or strode his adversary by;
No cause was there for names to scan,
Each minstrel's plaid bespoke his clan;
And the blunt Borderer's plain array—
The bonnet broad and blanket gray.
Bard sought of bard a look to steal;
Eyes measured each from head to heel.
Much wonder rose, that men so famed,
Men save with rapture never named,
Looked only so—they could not tell—
Like other men, and scarce so well.
Though keen the blast, and long the way,
When twilight closed that dubious day,
When round the table all were set,
Small heart had they to talk or eat;
Red look askance, blunt whisper low,
Awkward remark, uncourtly bow,
Were all that pass'd in that bright throng,
That group of genuine sons of song.
Who seemed a courtier or a lord:
Strange his array and speech withal,
Gael deemed him southern—southern, Gael.
Courteous his mien, his accents weak,
Lady in manner as in make;
Yet round the board a whisper ran,
That that same gay and simpering man
A minstrel was, of wond'rous fame,
Who from a distant region came,
To bear the prize beyond the sea
To the green shores of Italy.
Insensibly it stole away.
And wondering skinkers dun for more;
Which vanished swifter than the first—
Little weened they the poet's thirst.
The eyes were cleared, the speech regained;
And latent sparks of fancy glowed,
Till one abundant torrent flowed
Of wit, of humour, social glee,
Wild music, mirth, and revelry.
Just when the laugh was long and loud,
Entered a squire with summons smart;
That was the knell that pierced the heart!
“The court awaits;” he bowed—was gone—
Our bards sat changed to busts of stone.
As ever ye heard the green-wood dell
On morn of June, one warbled swell,
If burst the thunder from on high,
How hushed the woodland melody:
Even so our bards shrunk at the view
Of what they wished, and what they knew.
To fix the names of first and last;
Then to the dazzling hall were led
Poor minstrels less alive than dead.
As heart of poet never knew.
'Twas not the flash of golden gear,
Nor blaze of silver chandelier;
Not Scotland's chiefs of noble air,
Nor dazzling rows of ladies fair;
'Twas one enthroned the rest above—
Sure 'twas the queen of grace and love!
Taper the form, and fair the breast
Yon radiant golden zones invest,
Where the vexed rubies blench in death,
Beneath yon lips and balmy breath;
Coronal gems of every dye
Look dim above yon beaming eye:
Yon cheeks outvie the dawning's glow,
Red shadowed on a wreath of snow.
Of charms by mankind never known,
Of virgins, pure as opening day,
Or bosom of the flower of May;
Oft dreamed of being free from stain,
Of maidens of the emerald main,
Of fairy dames in grove at even,
Of angels in the walks of heaven:
But, nor in earth, the sea, nor sky,
In fairy dream nor fancy's eye,
Vision his soul had ever seen
Like Mary Stuart, Scotland's queen.
In former days, the term wake was only used to distinguish the festive meeting which took place on the evening previous to the dedication of any particular church or chapel. The company sat up all the night, and, in England, amused themselves in various ways, as their inclinations were by habit or study directed. In Scotland, however, which was always the land of music and of song, music and song were the principal, often the only amusements of the wake. These songs were generally of a sacred or serious nature, and were chanted to the old simple melodies of the country. The Bush aboon Traquair, The Broom of Cowdenknows, John, come kiss me now, and many others, are still extant, set to the Psalms of David and other spiritual songs, the Psalms being turned into a rude metre corresponding to the various measures of the tunes.
The difference in the application of the term which exists in the two sister kingdoms sufficiently explains the consequences of the wakes in either. In England they have given rise to many fairs and festivals of long standing; and, from that origin, every fair or festival is denominated a wake. In Scotland the term is not used to distinguish anything either subsistent or relative, save those serenades played by itinerant and nameless minstrels in the streets and squares of Edinburgh, which are inhabited by the great and wealthy, after midnight, about the time of the Christmas holidays. These seem to be the only remainder of the ancient wakes now in Scotland, and their effect upon a mind that delights in music is soothing and delicious beyond all previous conception. A person who can relish the concord of sweet sounds, gradually recalled from sleep by the music of the wakes, of which he had no previous anticipation, never fails of being deprived, for a considerable time, of all recollection what condition, what place, or what world he is in. The minstrels, who, in the reign of the Stuarts, enjoyed privileges which were even denied to the principal nobility, were, by degrees, driven from the tables of the great to the second, and afterwards to the common hall, that their music and songs might be heard, while they themselves were unseen. From the common hall they were obliged to retire to the porch or court; and so low have the characters of the minstrels descended, that the performers of the Christmas wakes are wholly unknown to the most part of those whom they serenade. They seem to be despised, but enjoy some small privileges, in order to keep up a name of high and ancient origin.
Holinshed describes Queen Mary's landing in Scotland, with her early misfortunes and accomplishments, after this manner: “She arrived at Leith the 20th of August, in the year of our Lord 1561, where she was honourably received by the Earl of Argyle, the Lord Erskine, the prior of St. Andrew's, and the burgesses of Edinburgh, and conveyed to the Abbie of Holierood-house, for (as saith Buchanan) when some had spread abroad her landing in Scotland, the nobility and others assembled out of all parts of the realme, as it were to a common spectacle.
“This did they, partly to congratulate her return, and partly to show the dutie which they alwais bear unto her (when she was absent), either to have thanks therefor, or to prevent the slanders of the enemies; wherefore not a few, by these beginnings of her reign, did gesse what would follow, although, in those so variable notions of the minds of the people, every one was very desirous to see their queen offered unto them (unlooked for), after so many haps of both fortunes as had befallen her. For, when she was but six days old, she lost her father among the cruel tempests of battle, and was with great diligence brought up by her mother (being a chosen and worthy person), but yet left as a prize to others, by reason of civil sedition in Scotland, and of outward wars with other nations, being further led abroad to all the dangers of frowning fortune, before she could know what evil did mean.
“For leaving her own country, she was nourished as a banished person, and hardly preserved in life from the weapons of her enemies and violence of the seas. After which, fortune began to flatter her, in that she honoured her with a worthy marriage, which, in truth, was rather a shadow of joie to this queen than any comfort at all. For, shortly after the same, all things were turned to sorrow, by the death of her new young husband, and of her old and grieved mother, by loss of her new kingdom, and by the doubtful possession of her old heritable realme. But as for these things she was both pitied and praised, so was she also for gifts of nature as much beloved and favoured, in that beneficial nature (or rather good God) had indued her with a beautiful face, a well composed body, an excellent wit, a mild nature, and good behaviour, which she had artificially furthered by courtly education and affable demeanour. Whereby, at the first sight she wan unto her the hearts of most, and confirmed the love of her faithful subjects.” —Hol. p. 314. Arbroath Ed.
With regard to the music, which so deeply engaged her attention, we have different accounts by contemporaries, and those at complete variance with one another. Knox says, “Fyres of joy were set furth at night, and a companie of maist honest men, with instruments of musick, gave ther salutation at hir chalmer windo: the melodie, as sche alledged, lyked her weill, and sche willed the sam to be continued sum nychts efter with grit diligence.” But Dufresnoy, who was one of the party who accompanied the queen, gives a very different account of these Scottish minstrels. “We landed at Leith,” says he, “and went from thence to Edinburgh, which is but a short league distant. The queen went there on horseback, and the lords and ladies who accompanied her upon the little wretched hackneys of the country, and as wretchedly caparisoned; at sight of which the queen began to weep, and to compare them with the pomp and superb palfreys of France. But there was no remedy but patience. What was worst of all, being arrived at Edinburgh, and retired to rest in the Abbey (which is really a fine building, and not at all partaking of the rudeness of that country), there came under her window a crew of five or six hundred scoundrels from the city, who gave her a serenade with wretched violins and little rebecks, of which there are enough in that country, and began to sing psalms so miserably mistimed and mistuned, that nothing could be worse. Alas! what music! and what a night's rest!”
This Frenchman has had no taste for Scottish music—such another concert is certainly not in record.
| The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd | |