Old David

Old David rose ere it was day,
And climbed old Wonfell's wizard brae ;
Looked round, with visage grim and sour,
O'er Ettrick woods and Eskdale-moor.
An outlaw from the south he came,
And Ludlow was his father's name ;
His native land had used him ill,
And Scotland bore him no good-will.

As fixed he stood, in sullen scorn,
Regardless of the streaks of morn.
Old David spied, on Wonfell cone,
A fairy band come riding on.
A lovelier troop was never seen ;
Their steeds were white, their doublets green,
Their faces shone like opening morn,
And bloomed like roses on the thorn.
At every flowing mane was hung
A silver bell that lightly rung ;
That sound, borne on the breeze away,
Oft set the mountaineer to pray.

Old David crept close in the heath,
Scarce moved a limb, scarce drew a breath ;
But as the tinkling sound came nigh,
Old David's heart beat wondrous high.
He thought of riding on the wind ;
Of leaving hawk and hern behind ;
Of sailing lightly o'er the sea,
In mussel shell, to Germany ;
Of revel raids by dale and down ;
Of lighting torches at the moon ;
Or through the sounding spheres to sing,
Borne on the fiery meteor's wing :
Of dancing 'neath the moonlight sky ;
Of sleeping in the dew-cup's eye.

And then he thought — O ! dread to tell ! —
Of tithes the fairies paid to hell !

David turned up a reverend eye,
And fixed it on the morning sky ;
He knew a mighty One lived there,
That sometimes heard a warrior's prayer —
No word, save one, could David say ;
Old David had not learned to pray.

Scarce will a Scotsman yet regard
What David saw, and what he heard.
He heard their horses snort and tread,
And every word the riders said ;
While green portmanteaus, long and low,
Lay bended o'er each saddle-bow.
A lovely maiden rode between,
Whom David judged the Fairy Queen ;
But strange ! he heard her moans resound,
And saw her feet with fetters bound.

Fast spur they on through bush and brake ;
To Ettrick woods their course they take.
Old David followed still in view,
Till near the Lochilaw they drew ;
There, in a deep and wondrous dell,
Where wandering sunbeam never fell,
Where noontide breezes never blew,
From flowers to drink the morning dew ;
There, underneath the sylvan shade,
The fairies' spacious bower was made.
Its rampart was the tangling sloe,
The bending briar, and mistletoe ;
And o'er its roof the crooked oak
Waved wildly from the frowning rock.

This wondrous bower, this haunted dell,
The forest shepherd shunned as hell !
When sound of fairies' silver horn
Came on the evening breezes borne,
Homeward he fled, nor made a stand,
Thinking the spirits hard at hand.
But when he heard the eldritch swell
Of giggling laugh and bridle bell,
Or saw the riders troop along,
His orisons were loud and strong,
His household fare he yielded free
To this mysterious company,
The fairest maid his cot within
Resigned with awe and little din :
True he might weep, but nothing say,
For none durst say the fairies nay.

Old David hasted home that night,
A wondering and a wearied wight.
Seven sons he had, alert and keen,
Had all in Border battles been ;
Had wielded brand, and bent the bow,
For those who sought their overthrow.
Their hearts were true, their arms were stron
Their faulchions keen, their arrows long ;
The race of fairies they denied —
No fairies kept the English side.

Our yeomen on their armour threw
Their brands of steel and bows of yew,
Long arrows at their backs they sling,
Fledged from the Snowdon eagle's wing,
And boun' away brisk as the wind,
The sire before, the sons behind.

That evening fell so sweetly still,
So mild on lonely moor and hill,
The little genii of the fell
Forsook the purple heather-bell,
And all their dripping beds of dew,
In wind-flower, thyme, and violet blue ;
Aloft their viewless looms they heave,
And dew- webs round the helmets weave.
The waning moon her lustre threw
Pale round her throne of softened blue ;
Her circuit round the southland sky
Was languid, low, and quickly bye ;
Leaning on cloud so faint and fair,
And cradled on the golden air,
Modest and pale as maiden bride,
She sunk upon the trembling tide.

What late in daylight proved a jest,
Was now the doubt of every breast.

That fairies ivere, was not disputed ;
But what they were was greatly doubted.

Each argument was guarded well,
With " if," and " should," and " who can tell J
" Sure He that made majestic man,
And framed the world's stupendous plan ;
Who placed on high the steady pole,
And sowed the stars that round it roll ;
And made that sky, so large and blue —
Had power to make a fairy too."

The sooth to say, each valiant core
Knew feelings never felt before.
Oft had they darned the midnight brake,
Fearless, of aught save bog and lake ;
But now the nod of sapling fir,
The heath-cock's loud exulting whirr,
The cry of hern from sedgy pool,
Or airy bleeter's rolling howl,
Came fraught with more dismaying dread
Than warder's horn, or warrior's tread.

Just as the gloom of midnight fell
They reached the fairies' lonely dell.
O Heavens ! that dell was dark as death !
Perhaps the pit-fall yawned beneath !
Perhaps that lane that winded low,
Led to a nether world of woe !
But stern necessity's control
Resistless sways the human soul.

The bows are bent, the tinders smoke
With fire by sword struck from the rock.
Old David held the torch before ;
His right hand heaved a dread claymore,
Whose Rippon edge he meant to try
On the first fairy met his eye.
Above his head his brand was raised ;
Above his head the taper blazed ;
A sterner or a ghastlier sight,
Ne'er entered bower at dead of night.
Below each lifted arm was seen
The barbed point of arrow keen,
Which waited but the twang of bow
To fly like lightning on the foe.
Slow move they on, with steady eye,
Resolved to conquer or to die.

At length they spied a massive door,
Deep in a nook, unseen before ;
And by it slept, on wicker chair,
A sprite of dreadful form and air.
His grisly beard flowed round his throat,
Like shaggy hair of mountain goat
His open jaws and visage grim,
His half-shut eye so deadly dim,
Made David's blood to's bosom rush,
And his gray hair his helmet brush.
He squared, and made his faulchion wheel
Around his back from head to heel ;
Then, rising tiptoe, struck amain-
Down fell the sleeper's head in twain ;
And springing blood, in veil of smoke'
Whizzed high against the bending oak.

" By Heaven !" said George, with jocund air,
" Father, if all the fairies there
Are of the same materials made,
Let them beware the Rippon blade !"
A ghastly smile was seen to play
O'er David's visage, stern and gray ;
He hoped, and feared ; but ne'er till then
Knew whether he fought with sprites or men.

The massy door they next unlock,
That oped to hall beneath the rock,
In which new wonders met the eye :
The room was ample, rude, and high,
The arches cavern ed, dark, and torn,
On Nature's rifted columns borne ;
Of moulding rude the embrasure,
And all the wild entablature ;
And far o'er roof and architrave.
The ivy's ringlets bend and wave.
In each abrupt recess was seen
A couch of heath and rushes green ;
While every alcove's sombre hue,
Was gemmed with drops of midnight dew.

Why stand our heroes still as death,
Nor muscle move, nor heave a breath ?
See how the sire his torch has lowered,
And bends recumbent o'er his sword !
The arcubalister has thrown
His threatening, thirsty arrows down !
Struck in one moment, all the band
Entranced like moveless statues stand !

Enchantment sure arrests the spear,
And stints the warrior's bold career ?

List, list, what mellow angel-sound
Distils from yonder gloom profound !
'Tis not the note of gathering shell,
Of fairy horn, nor silver bell !
No, 'tis the lute's mellifluous swell,
Mixed with a maiden's voice so clear,
The flitting bats flock round to hear !

So wildly o'er the vault it rung,
That song, if in the green- wood sung,
Would draw the fays of wood and plain
To kiss the lips that poured the strain.
The lofty pine would listening lean ;
The wild birch wave her tresses green ;
And larks, that rose the dawn to greet,
Drop lifeless at the singer's feet.
The air was old, the measure slow,
The words were plain, but words of woe.

Soft died the strain ; the warriors stand,
Nor rested lance, nor lifted brand,
But listening bend, in hopes again
To hear that sweetly plaintive strain.
'Tis gone ! and each uplifts his eye,
As waked from dream of ecstasy.

Why stoops young Owen's gilded crest ?
Why heave those groans from Owen's breast ?
While kinsmen's eyes in rapture speak,
Why steals the tear o'er Owen's cheek ?

That melting song, that song of pain,
Was sung to Owen's favourite strain ;
The words were new, but that sweet lay
Had Owen heard in happier day.

Fast press they on ; in close-set row,
Winded the lab'rinth far and low,
Till, in the cave's extremest bound,
Arrayed in sea-green silk, they found
Five beauteous dames, all fair and young ;
And she, who late so sweetly sung,
Sat leaning o'er a silver lute,
Pale with despair, with terror mute.

When back her auburn locks she threw,
And raised her eyes so lovely blue,
'Twas like the woodland rose in dew !
That look was soft as morning flower,
And mild as sunbeam through the shower.
Old David gazed, and weened the while,
He saw a suffering angel smile ;
Weened he had heard a seraph sing,
And sounds of a celestial string.
But when young Owen met her view,
She shrieked, and to his bosom flew :
For, oft before, in Moodlaw bowers,
They two had passed the evening hours.
She was the loveliest mountain maid
That e'er by grove or riv'let strayed ;
Old Raeburn's child, the fairest flower
That ever bloomed in Eskdale-moor ;
'Twas she the sire that morn had seen,
And judged to be the Fairy Queen ;
'Twas she who framed the artless lay
That stopt the warriors on their way.

Close to her lover's breast she clung,
And round his neck enraptured hung : —
" O my dear Owen ! haste and tell,
What caused you dare this lonely dell,
And seek your maid, at midnight still,
Deep in the bowels of the hill ?
Hear in this dark and drear abode,
By all deserted but my God,
Must I have reft the life he gave,
Or lived in shame a villain's slave.
I was, at midnight's murkest hour,
Stole from my father's stately tower,
And never thought again to view
The sun or sky's ethereal blue ;
But since the first of Border-men
Has found me in this dismal den,
I to his arms for shelter fly,
With him to live, or with him die."

How glowed brave Owen's manly face
While in that lady's kind embrace !
Warm tears of joy his utterance staid —
" O, my loved Ann !" was all he said.
Though well they loved, her high estate
Caused Owen aye aloof to wait ;
And watch her bower, beside the rill,
When twilight rocked the breezes still,
And waked the music of the grove
To hymn the vesper song of love.

Then underneath the green-wood bough,
Oft had they breathed the tender vow.

With Ann of Raeburn here they found
The flowers of all the Border round ;
From whom the strangest tale they hear,
That e'er astounded warrior's ear,
'Twould make even Superstition blush,
And all her tales of spirits hush.

That night the spoilers ranged the vale,
By Dryhope towers, and Meggat-dale :
Ah ! little trowed the fraudful train,
They ne'er should see their wealth again !
Their lemans, and their mighty store,
For which they nightly toils had bore
Full twenty Autumn moons and more !
They little deemed, when morning dawned,
To meet the deadly Rippon brand ;
And only find, at their return.
In their loved cave an early urn.
Ill suits it simple bard to tell
Of bloody work that there befell :
He lists not deeds of death to sing,
Of splintered spear, and twanging string,
Of piercing arrow's purpled wing,
How faulchions flash, and helmets ring.
Not one of all that prowling band,
So long the terror of the land,
Not one escaped their deeds to tell ;
All in the winding lab'rinth fell.
The spoil was from the cave conveyed,
Where in a heap the dead were laid ;
The outer cave our yeomen fill,
And left them in the hollow hill.

But still that dell, and bourn beneath,
The forest shepherd dreads as death.
Not there at evening dares he stray,
Though love impatient points the way ;
Though throbs his heart the maid to see,
That's waiting by the trysting tree.

Even the old sire, so reverend gray,
Ere turns the scale of night and day,
Oft breathes the short and ardent prayer,
That Heaven may guard his footsteps there
His eyes, meantime, so dim with dread,
Scarce ken the turf his foot must tread.
For still 'tis told, and still believed,
That there the spirits were deceived,
And maidens from their grasp retrieved :
That this they still preserve in mind,
And watch, when sighs the midnight wind,
To reck their rage on humankind.

Old David, for this doughty raid,
Was keeper of the forest made ;
A trooper he of gallant fame,
And first of all the Laidlaw name.

E'er since, in Ettrick's glens so green,
Spirits, though there, are seldom seen ;
And fears of elf, and fairy raid,
Have like a morning dream decayed,
The bare-foot maid, of rosy hue,
Dares from the heath-flower brush the dew,
To meet her love in moon-light still,
By flowery den or tinkling rill ;
And well dares she till midnight stay,
Among the coils of fragrant hay.

True, some weak shepherds, gone astray,
As fell the dusk of Hallow-day,
Have heard the tinkling sound aloof,
And gentle tread of horse's hoof ;
And flying swifter than the wind,
Left all their scattered flocks behind.

True, when the evening tales are told,
When winter nights are dark and cold,
The boy dares not to barn repair
Alone, to say his evening prayer ;
Nor dare the maiden ope the door,
Unless her lover walk before ;
Then well can counterfeit the fright,
If star-beam on the water light ;
And to his breast in terror cling,
For 4 e such a dread and dangerous thing!"

O, Ettrick ! shelter of my youth !
Thou sweetest glen of all the south !
Thy fairy tales, and songs of yore,
Shall never fire my bosom more.
Thy winding glades, and mountains wild,
The scenes that pleased me when a child,
Each verdant vale, and flowery lea,
Still in my midnight dreams I see ;
And waking oft, I sigh for thee ;
Thy hapless bard, though forced to roam,
Afar from thee without a home,
Still there his glowing breast shall turn,
Till thy green bosom fold his urn :
Then, underneath thy mountain stone,
Shall sleep unnoticed and unknown,