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[ROSABELLE]6-
O listen, listen, ladies gay!
No haughty feat of arms I tell;
Soft is the note, and
sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.
"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And,
gentle ladye, deign to stay,
Rest thee in Castle
Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.
"The blackening wave is edg'd with white:
To inch
and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the
Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is
nigh.
"Last night the gifted Seer did view
A
wet shroud swathed round ladye gay;
Then stay thee,
Fair, in Ravensheuch:
Why cross the gloomy firth
to-day?"--
"'Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my ladye-mother
there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.
"'Tis
not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the
ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will
chide,
If 'tis not fill'd by Rosabelle."--
O'er Roslin all that dreary night
A wondrous blaze
was seen to gleam;
'Twas broader than the
watch-fire's light,
And redder than the bright
moon-beam.
It glar'd on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
'Twas seen from
Dryden's groves of oak,
And seen from cavern'd
Hawthorn-den.
Seem'd all on fire that chapel
proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie,
Each
Baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheath'd in his iron
panoply.
Seem'd all on fire, within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale,
Shone every pillar
foliage-bound,
And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail.
Blaz'd battlement and pinnet high,
Blaz'd every
rose-carved buttress fair--
So still they blaze when
fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.
There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie
buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy
vault doth hold--
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!
And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle,
with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung,
and the wild winds sung
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.
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