The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott

And did he wander forth alone?

       Alone, in indigence and age,

       To linger out his pilgrimage?

       No; close beneath proud Newark’s tower,

       Arose the Minstrel’s lowly bower;

       A simple hut; but there was seen

       The little garden hedged with green,

       The cheerful hearth, and lattice clean.

       There shelter’d wanderers, by the blaze,

       Oft heard the tale of other days;

       For much he lov’d to ope his door,

       And give the aid he begg’d before.

       So pass’d the winter’s day; but still,

       When summer smil’d on sweet Bowhill,

       And July’s eve, with balmy breath,

       Wav’d the blue-bells on Newark heath;

       When throstles sung in Harehead-shaw,

       And corn was green on Carterhaugh,

       And flourish’d, broad, Blackandro’s oak,

       The aged Harper’s soul awoke!

       Then would he sing achievements high,

       And circumstance of chivalry,

       Till the rapt traveller would stay,

       Forgetful of the closing day;

       And noble youths, the strain to hear,

       Forsook the hunting of the deer;

       And Yarrow, as he roll’d along,

       Bore burden to the Minstrel’s song.

      ROKEBY

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       Canto I

       Canto II

       Canto III

       Canto IV

       Canto V

       Canto VI

       TO

      JOHN R. S. MORRITT, ESQ.

      THIS POEM,

      THE SCENE OF WHICH IS LAID IN HIS BEAUTIFUL

      DEMESNE OF ROKEBY,

      IS INSCRIBED,

      IN TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP,

      BY

      WALTER SCOTT.

      DEC. 31, 1812.

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      The scene of this poem is laid at Rokeby, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, and shifts to the adjacent fortress of Barnard Castle, and to other places in that vicinity.

       The time occupied by the action is a space of five days, three of which are supposed to elapse between the end of the Fifth and beginning of the Sixth Canto.

       The date of the supposed events is immediately subsequent to the great battle of Marston Moor, 3d July, 1644. This period of public confusion has been chosen, without any puipose of combining the Fable with the Military or Political Events of the Civil War, but only as affording a degree of probability to the fictitious narrative now presented to the Public.