His sword hangs rusting on the wall,
Beside his broken spear.

Bards long shall tell,

How Lord Walter fell!

When startled burghers fled, afar,
The furies of the Border war;
When the streets of high Dunedin
Saw lances gleam, and falchions redden,
And heard the slogan's deadly yell-
Then the Chief of Branksome fell.

8. Can piety the discord heal,

Or stanch the death-feud's enmity?
Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal,
Can love of blessed charity?
No! vainly to each holy shrine,

In mutual pilgrimage, they drew;
Implored, in vain, the grace divine

For chiefs their own red falchions slew.
While Cessford owns the rule of Carr,

While Ettricke boasts the line of Scott, The slaughtered chiefs, the mortal jar, The havoc of the feudal war,

Shall never, never be forgot!

9. In sorrow, o'er Lord Walter's bier
The warlike foresters had bent,
And many a flower, and many a tear,
Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent:
But o'er her warrior's bloody bier
The Ladye dropped nor flower nor tear!
Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain,
Had locked the source of softer woe;
And burning pride, and high disdain,
Forbade the rising tear to flow;
Until, amid his sorrowing clan,

Her son lisped from the nurse's knee"And, if I live to be a man,

My father's death revenged shall be!"
Then fast the mother's tears did seek
To dew the infant's kindling cheek.

10. All loose her negligent attire,

All loose her golden hair,

Hung Margaret o'er her slaughtered sire,
And wept in wild despair.

But not alone the bitter tear

Had filial grief supplied;

For hopeless love, and anxious fear,

Had lent their mingled tide:

Nor in her mother's altered eye
Dared she to look for sympathy.

Her lover, 'gainst her father's clan,

With Carr in arms had stood,
When Mathouse burn to Melrose ran
All purple with their blood.

And well she knew, her mother dread,
Before Lord. Cranstoun she should wed,
Would see her on her dying bed.

II. Of noble race the Ladye came;
Her father was a clerk of fame,

Of Bethune's line of Picardie:

He learned the art, that none may name,
In Padua, far beyond the sea.

Men said, he changed his mortal frame
By feat of magic mystery;

For when, in studious mood, he paced
St Andrew's cloistered hall,

His form no darkening shadow traced
Upon the sunny wall!

12. And of his skill, as bards avow,
He taught that Ladye fair,
Till to her bidding she could bow
The viewless forms of air.
And now she sits in secret bower,
In old Lord David's western tower,
And listens to a heavy sound,

That moans the mossy turrets round.

Is it the roar of Teviot's tide,

That chafes against the scaur's red side?

Is it the wind that swings the paks?

Is it the echo from the rocks?

What may it be, the heavy sound,

That moans old Branksome's turrets round?

13. At the sullen, moaning sound,

The ban-dogs bay and howl;
And, from the turrets round,
Loud whoops the startled owl.
In the hall, both squire and knight
Swore that a storm was near,
And looked forth to view the night;
But the night was still and clear!

14. From the sound of Teviot's tide,

Chafing with the mountain's side,
From the groan of the wind-swung oak,
From the sullen echo of the rock,
From the voice of the coming storm,

The Ladye knew it well!

It was the Spirit of the Flood that spoke,
And he called on the Spirit of the Fell.

RIVER SPIRIT.

15. "Sleepest thou, brother?"

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT.
"Brother, nay--

On my hills the moon-beams play.
From Craik-cross to Skelfhill-pen,
By every rill, in every glen,

Merry elves their morrice pacing,
To aerial minstrelsy,

Emerald rings on brown heath tracing,
Trip it deft and merrily.

Up, and mark their nimble feet!
Up, and list their music sweet!”
RIVER SPIRIT.

16. "Tears of an imprisoned maiden
Mix with my polluted stream;
Margaret of Branksome, sorrow-laden,
Mourns beneath the moon's pale beam.
Tell me, thou, who view'st the stars,
When shall cease these feudal jars?
What shall be the maiden's fate?
Who shall be the maiden's mate?"

17.

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT.

"Arthur's slow wain his course doth roll,
In utter darkness round the pole;

The Northern Bear lowers black and grim;
Orion's studded belt is dim;

Twinkling faint, and distant far,

Shimmers through mist each planet star;
Ill may I read their high decree :
But no kind influence deign they shower
On Teviot's tide, and Branksome's tower,
Till pride be quelled, and love be free,"

18. The unearthly voices ceased,

And the heavy sound was still;
It died on the river's breast,

It died on the side of the hill-
But round Lord David's tower
The sound still floated near;
For it rung in the Ladye's bower,
And it rung in the Ladye's ear.
She raised her stately head,

And her heart throbbed high with pride:"Your mountains shall bend,

And your streams ascend,

Ere Margaret be our foeman's bride!"

19. The Ladye sought the lofty hall,
Where many a bold retainer lay,

And, with jocund din, among them all,
Her son pursued his infant play.
A fancied moss-trooper, the boy
The truncheon of a spear bestrode,
And round the hall, right merrily,

In mimic foray rode.

Even bearded knights, in arms grown old,
Share in his frolic gambols bore,
Albeit their hearts, of rugged mould,
Were stubborn as the steel they wore.
For the gray warriors prophesied,
How the brave boy, in future war,
Should tame the Unicorn's pride,
Exalt the Crescents and the Star.
20. The Ladye forgot her purpose high,
One moment, and no more;

One moment gazed with a mother's eye,
As she paused at the arched door:
Then, from amid the armèd train,
She called to her William of Deloraine.
21. A stark moss-trooping Scot was he,

As e'er couched Border lance by knee:
Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,
Blindfold, he knew the paths to cross;
By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds,
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.
22. "Sir William of Deloraine, good at need,
Mount thee on the wightest steed;
Spare not to spur, nor stint to ride,
Until thou come to fair Tweedside;
And in Melrose's holy pile

Seek thou the Monk of St Mary's aisle.
Greet the father well from me;

Say, that the fated hour is come,
And to-night he shall watch with thee,
To win the treasure of the tomb:

For this will be St Michael's night,

And, though stars be dim, the moon is bright;
And the Cross, of bloody red,

Will point to the grave of the mighty dead.

23.

"What he gives thee, see thou keep;

Stay not thou for food or sleep:

Be it scroll, or be it book,

Into it, knight, thou must not look;

If thou readest, thou art lorn!
Better hadst thou ne'er been born."

24. "O swiftly can speed my dapple-gray steed, Which drinks of the Teviot clear;

Ere break of day," the warrior 'gan say,
Again will I be here:

And safer by none may thy errand be done,
Than, noble dame, by me;

Letter nor line know I never a one,

Were't my neck-verse at Hairibee."

25. Soon in his saddle sate he fast,

And soon the steep descent he passed,
Soon crossed the sounding barbican,
And soon the Teviot side he won.
Eastward the wooded path he rode;
Green hazels o'er his basnet nod:
He passed the Peel of Coldiland,

And crossed old Borthwick's roaring strand;
Dimly he viewed the Moat-hill's mound,
Where Druid shades still flitted round;
In Hawick twinkled many a light;
Behind him soon they set in night;
And soon he spurred his courser keen
Beneath the tower of Hazeldean.

26. The clattering hoofs the watchmen mark ;-
"Stand, ho! thou courier of the dark."
"For Branksome, ho!" the knight rejoined,
And left the friendly tower behind.

He turned him now from Teviotside,
And, guided by the tinkling rill,
Northward the dark ascent did ride,

And gained the moor at Horseliehill;

Broad on the left before him lay,
For many a mile, the Roman way.

27. A moment now he slacked his speed,
A moment breathed his panting steed;
Drew saddle-girth and corslet-band,
And loosened in the sheath his brand.
On Minto-crags the moon-beams glint
Where Barnhill hewed his bed of flint;
Who flung his outlawed limbs to rest,
Where falcons hang their giddy nest,
'Mid cliffs, from whence his cagle eye
For many a league his prey could spy;
Cliffs, doubling, on their echoes borne,
The terrors of the robber's horn;
Cliffs, which, for many a later year,
The warbling Doric reed shall hear,

When some sad swain shall teach the grove,
Ambition is no cure for love.

28. Unchallenged, thence passed Deloraine
To ancient Riddell's fair domain,