Through Douglas burn, up Yarrow stream, Their horses prance, their lances gleam.
They came to St. Mary's Lake ere day;But the chapel was void, and the Baron away.
They burned the chapel for very rage, And cursed Lord Cranstoun's goblin-page."The Scotts were a rough clan enough to burn a holy chapel because they failed to kill their enemy within the sacred walls. But, as Iread again, for the twentieth time, Sir Walter's poem, floating on the lonely breast of the lake, in the heart of the hills where Yarrow flows, among the little green mounds that cover the ruins of chapel and castle and lady's bower, I asked myself whether Sir Walter was indeed a great and delightful poet, or whether he pleases me so much because I was born in his own country, and have one drop of the blood of his Border robbers in my own veins?
It is not always pleasant to go back to places, or to meet people, whom we have loved well, long ago. If they have changed little, we have changed much. The little boy, whose first book of poetry was "The Lady of the Lake," and who naturally believed that there was no poet like Sir Walter, is sadly changed into the man who has read most of the world's poets, and who hears, on many sides, that Scott is outworn and doomed to deserved oblivion. Are they right or wrong, the critics who tell us, occasionally, that Scott's good novels make up for his bad verse, or that verse and prose, all must go? Pro captu lectoris, by the reader's taste, they stand or fall;yet even pessimism can scarcely believe that the Waverley Novels are mortal. They were once the joy of every class of minds; they cannot cease to be the joy of those who cling to the permanently good, and can understand and forgive lapses, carelessnesses, and the leisurely literary fashion of a former age. But, as to the poems, many give them up who cling to the novels. It does not follow that the poems are bad. In the first place, they are of two kinds--lyric and narrative. Now, the fashion of narrative in poetry has passed away for the present. The true Greek epics are read by a few in Greek;by perhaps fewer still in translations. But so determined are we not to read tales in verse, that prose renderings, even of the epics, nay, even of the Attic dramas, have come more or less into vogue. This accounts for the comparative neglect of Sir Walter's lays. They are spoken of as Waverley Novels spoiled. This must always be the opinion of readers who will not submit to stories in verse; it by no means follows that the verse is bad. If we make an exception, which we must, in favour of Chaucer, where is there better verse in story telling in the whole of English literature?
The readers who despise "Marmion," or "The Lady of the Lake," do so because they dislike stories told in poetry. From poetry they expect other things, especially a lingering charm and magic of style, a reflective turn, "criticism of life." These things, except so far as life can be criticised in action, are alien to the Muse of narrative. Stories and pictures are all she offers: Scott's pictures, certainly, are fresh enough, his tales are excellent enough, his manner is sufficiently direct. To take examples: every one who wants to read Scott's poetry should begin with the "Lay."From opening to close it never falters:-"Nine and twenty knights of fame Hung their shields in Branksome Hall;Nine and twenty squires of name Brought their steeds to bower from stall, Nine and twenty yeomen tall Waited, duteous, on them all . . .
Ten of them were sheathed in steel, With belted sword, and spur on heel;They quitted not their harness bright Neither by day nor yet by night:
They lay down to rest With corslet laced, Pillowed on buckler cold and hard;They carved at the meal With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred."Now, is not that a brave beginning? Does not the verse clank and chime like sword sheath on spur, like the bits of champing horses?
Then, when William of Deloraine is sent on his lonely midnight ride across the haunted moors and wolds, does the verse not gallop like the heavy armoured horse?
"Unchallenged, thence passed Deloraine, To ancient Riddell's fair domain, Where Aill, from mountains freed, Down from the lakes did raving come;Each wave was crested with tawny foam, Like the mane of a chestnut steed, In vain! no torrent, deep or broad, Might bar the bold moss-trooper's road;At the first plunge the horse sunk low, And the water broke o'er the saddle-bow."These last two lines have the very movement and note, the deep heavy plunge, the still swirl of the water. Well I know the lochs whence Aill comes red in flood; many a trout have I taken in Aill, long ago. This, of course, causes a favourable prejudice, a personal bias towards admiration. But I think the poetry itself is good, and stirs the spirit, even of those who know not Ailmoor, the mother of Aill, that lies dark among the melancholy hills.
The spirit is stirred throughout by the chivalry and the courage of Scott's men and of his women. Thus the Lady of Branksome addresses the English invaders who have taken her boy prisoner:-"For the young heir of Branksome's line, God be his aid, and God be mine;Through me no friend shall meet his doom;Here, while I live, no foe finds room.
Then if thy Lords their purpose urge, Take our defiance loud and high;Our slogan is their lyke-wake dirge, Our moat, the grave where they shall lie."Ay, and though the minstrel says he is no love poet, and though, indeed, he shines more in war than in lady's bower, is not this a noble stanza on true love, and worthy of what old Malory writes in his "Mort d'Arthur"? Because here Scott speaks for himself, and of his own unhappy and immortal affection:-"True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the Heaven.
It is not Fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it dock not die:
