The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, in Six Cantos |
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The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, in Six Cantos (Classic Reprint) Walter Scott No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
50 cents ancient armor arms band bard Baron Beattison beneath blaze blood blood-hound Boards bold Border bower Branksome Castle Branksome Hall Branksome's Branksome's towers Buccleuch Carlisle wall cheer chief clan Cloth coursers crest cross D. H. MONTGOMERY dark dead Douglas dread Dwarf Earl Edited EDWIN GINN Eildon hills English Epictetus Eskdale Fair Margaret fair on Carlisle falchions fierce fight fire Galliard goblin harp Hawick heart holy Howard knight Ladye Ladye's lances Liddesdale Lord Cranstoun lordly loud Lyke-wake dirge magic Melrose Abbey Michael Scott Minstrel moss-trooper Musgrave ne'er Norsemen o'er OUTLINE OF CANTO pale poem raven's nest ride rode round rung scarce Scotland Scott Scottish seen Seneschal song soul spear spur steed stood story stout sun shines fair sung sword tale tell Teviot's thee thou tide Twas Tynedale wandering warden warriors Watt Tinlinn wave ween wild William of Deloraine
Popular passages
Page 7 - THE way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old ; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy. The last of all the bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry. For, well-a-day! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead ; •And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest.
Page 133 - Clair. There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold Lie buried within that proud chapelle; Each one the holy vault doth hold— But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle. And each St Clair was buried there, With candle, with book, and with knell ; But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung, The dirge of lovely Rosabelle ! XXIV.
Page 117 - 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...
Page 138 - That day of wrath, .that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay ? How shall he meet that dreadful day ? When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, The flaming heavens together roll ; When louder yet, and yet more dread, Swells the high trump that wakes the dead ! Oh ! on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be THOU the trembling sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away ! HUSH'D is the harp — the Minstrel...
Page 30 - 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 30 - IF thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moon-light; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
Page 131 - The blackening wave is edged with white : To inch and rock the sea-mews fly ; The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, Whose screams forbode that wreck is nigh.
Page 117 - 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 concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Page 34 - The moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined ; Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand, 'Twixt poplars straight, the osier wand, In many a freakish knot had twined ; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow- wreaths to stone.
Page 13 - The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all ; Knight and page and household squire Loitered through the lofty hall, Or crowded round the ample fire : The stag-hounds, weary with the chase, Lay stretched upon the rushy floor, And urged in dreams the forest race, From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor.