He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone; The bride had consented; the gallant came late; 5 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. So boldly he entered the Netherby hall, 'Mong bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and all; Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 10 (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?" "I long wooed your daughter; my suit you denied— Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide; 15 And now I am come, with this lost love of mine To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up; 20 He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand ere her mother could bar "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar. 25 So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; And the bride-maidens whispered, ""Twere better by far 30 To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall door and the charger stood near; 10 So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung! "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur! They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar. There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan; But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? NOTES AND QUESTIONS Biography. Walter Scott (1771-1832) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Even in his childhood he loved nothing better than to wander through Scotland, looking up castles and ruins and listening to the stories connected with them as told by the old people of the villages. He became familiar with all the ballads and legends of his locality, and these, with Bishop Percy's collection of ballads, which he read later, exerted a strong influence on his life. He loved the history and romance of Scotland and made them known to all the world through his poems and novels. In his metrical romance, Marmion, Scott represents Lady Heron as singing the ballad, "Lochinvar," to the accompaniment of the harp. Discussion. 1. What geographical references tell you that the scene of this story is laid in Scotland? 2. What names mentioned do you recognize as Scotch names? 3. Read a line from the first stanza which sums up the character of Lochinvar. 4. Read a line from the second stanza which gives the character of the bridegroom. 5. Read a line from the third stanza which adds to the picture of the bridegroom given in the second stanza. 6. How is the reader affected by the contrast between the two men? 7. Read the question asked by the bride's father. Why was his hand on his sword as he asked it? 8. What impression did Lochinvar give the bride's father by his answer? 9. Is this answer worthy of as brave a man as we are told Lochinvar was? 10. Describe the picture the sixth stanza makes you see. 11. What did Lochinvar accomplish by means of the dance? 12. What were we told in the first stanza that explains Lochinvar's escape? 13. Who are mentioned as the pursuers? 14. What do you know of the geography of the region which would make the fourth line of the last stanza possible? 15. What do you know of the methods of travel and communication before 1800 which makes this possible? 16. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: Border; brake; measure; bar; galliard; croup; scaur. 17. Pronounce: Lochinvar; dauntless; gallant. The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avatar and its seal-the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at 5 the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body, and especially upon the face, of the victim were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellowmen. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour. 10 But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was 15 an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the Prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers, and welded the bolts. 10 They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of 5 itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The Prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death." It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me 15 tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven-an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding-doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been 20 expected from the Prince's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window 25 looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass, whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue-and vividly blue were its windows. 30 The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange, the fifth with white, the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries 35 that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But, in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet-a deep blood-color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of 5 any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy 10 and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered that there were few of the company bold enough to set 15 foot within its precincts at all. It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minutehand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, 20 there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers per25 force ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, 30 a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three 35 thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. |