THE MAID OF NEIDPATH
by: Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
- H, lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
- And lovers' ears in hearing;
- And love, in life's extremity,
- Can lend an hour of cheering!
- Disease had been in Mary's bower
- And slow decay from mourning;
- Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
- To watch her Love's returning.
-
- All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
- Her form decay'd by pining,
- Till through her wasted hand, at night,
- You saw the taper shining.
- By fits a sultry hectic hue
- Across her cheek was flying;
- By fits so ashy pale she grew
- Her maidens thought her dying.
-
- Yet keenest powers to see and hear
- Seem'd in her frame residing:
- Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear,
- She heard her lover's riding;
- Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd,
- She knew and waved to greet him,
- And o'er the battlement did bend
- As on the wing to meet him.
-
- He came--he pass'd--a heedless gaze,
- As o'er some stranger glancing;
- Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
- Lost in his courser's prancing;
- The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
- Returns each whisper spoken,
- Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
- Which told her heart was broken.
"The Maid of Neidpath"
is reprinted from The Golden Treasury. Ed. Francis T.
Palgrave. London: Macmillan, 1875. |
MORE
POEMS BY SIR WALTER SCOTT |
|