The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott

Front matter

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. %iceDtErcob Day iSan, THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. EDITED, WITH A CRITICAL MEMOIR, BY WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTL ILLUSTRATED LONDON: WARD, LOCK, & CO., WARWICK HOUSE. DORSET BUILDINGS, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. CONTENTS. TAGE Prefatory Notice by W. M. RossETsl . vn The Lay of the Last Minstrel . . . i Marmion : A Tale of Flodden Field ... . 64 The Lady of the Lake . . . . .188 The Vision of Don Roderick .... 288 Rokehy ....... 507 The Bridal of Triermain ; or, The Vale of St John . 408 The Lord of the Isles ..... 45s BALLADS. Glenfinlas ; or, Lord Ronald's Coronach . . 550 The Eve of St John ..... 556 Cadyow Castle . . . . . .561 The Gray Brother. A Fragment . . . 366 Thomas the Rhymer. In Three Parts . . . 569 War Song of the Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons 577 MISCELLANEOUS1.

IlELVELLYN . . ■ . - -579 The Maid of Toro . . . • . ■ ;So The Palmer ...... 5 So Wandering Willie ..... 5Si The Maid of Neidpath . . . . - 5S2 vi CONTENTS. PA_E The Bard's Incantation. Written under the threat of Invasion, in the Autumn of 1804 . . . 5^3 To a Lady. With Flowers from a Roman Wall . 5^4 The Violet ...... 585 Hunting Song ...... 585 The Resolve. In Imitation of an old English Poem . 5S6 The Dying Bard ...... 5^7 The Norman Horse-Shoe .... 5S7 The Poacher ...... 588 Song . . . . . . 591 Epitaph ....... 592 TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS OF GERMAN BALLADS. The Wild Huntsman ..... 593 William and Helen ..... 59S The Fire-King ...... 604 Frederick and Alice ..... 607 The Erl- King. From the German of Goethe . . 609 Notes . . . . . . ,611 PREFATORY NOTICE. Walter Scott is, fiari passu with Lord Byron (and still more signally in the popular sense), the British-born author of by far the greatest world-wide fame among all who have flourished within a century past.

Dickens might be added to their company so far as prose-writing is concerned : the double tiara of prose and of poetry belongs to Scott alone among the three. He was born in Edinburgh on the 15th of August 1771 (the same day ofthe month as the great Napoleon, but two years later on), and died at Abbotsford, the creation of his own genius and enthusiasm, on the 21st of September 1S32. This space of but sixty-one years must always seem short to his admirers for the multifarious product and activity of his life — a life in which literary exertion, though the pre dominant, was by no means the sole, thing open to the notice of his contemporaries. Born with a naturally strong constitution, Walter Scott suffered nevertheless much early illness. He had attained the twenty-second month of his infancy when one morning his right leg was found to be powerless and perfectly cold : hence ensued a lameness which proved unsusceptible of cure, and which remained with him all his life.

Preface

TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1805. The Poem now offered to the Public is intended to illustrate the customs and manners, which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scot land. The inhabitants, living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rude spirit of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. As the description of scenery and manners was more the object of the Author, than a combined and regular narrative, the plan of the ancient metrical romance was adopted, which allows greater latitude, in this respect, than would be consistent with the dignity of a regular poem. The same model offered other facilities, as it permits an occasional alteration of measure, which, in some degree, authorises the changes of rhythm in the text.

The machinery' also, adopted from popular belief, would have seemed puerile in a poem, which tlid not partake ofthe rudeness ofthe old Ballad, or Metrical Romance. For these reasons, the Poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstrel, the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, mi'ht have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his original model. The date of the tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied by the action is three nights and three days.