The Poem is intended to illustrate the customs and manners which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scotland. The inhabitants, living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rude spirit of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. As the description of scenery and manners was more the object of the author than a combined and regular narrative, the plan of the Ancient Metrical Romance was adopted, which allows greater latitude in this respect than would be consistent with the dignity of a regular Poem. The same model offered other facilities, as it permits an occasional alteration of measure, which, in some degree, authorises the change of rhythm in the text. The machinery, also, adopted from popular belief, would have seemed puerile in a poem which did not partake of the rudeness of the old Ballad, or Metrical Romance.

For these reasons the poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstrel, the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, might have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his original model. The date of the tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied by the action is Three Nights and Three Days.

INTRODUCTION.

And he, neglected and oppressid, The way was long, the wind was cold, 'Wish'd to be with them, and at rest. The Minstrel was infirm and old; No more on prancing palfrey borne, His wither'd cheek, and tresses gray, : He caroli'd, light as lark at morn ; Seem'd to have known a better day; Yo longer courted and caress'd, The harp, his sole remaining joy, High placed in hall, a welcome griest, Was carried by an orphan boy. He pour'd to lord and lady gay The last of all the Bards was he, The unpremeditated lay: Who sung of Border chivalry; Old times were changed, old manners For, welladay! their date was fled,

gone; His tuneful brethren all were dead; A stranger fill'd the Stuarts' throne;

B

The bigots of the iron time

The humble boon was soon obtain'd; Had call’d his harmless art a crime. The aged Minstrel audience gain'd. Awandering Harper, scorn’dand poor, But, when he reach'd the room of He begg'd his bread from door to door, state, And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, where she with all her ladies sate, The harp a king had loved to hear. Perchance he wish'd his boon denied : He pass'd where Newark's stately For, when to tune his harp he tried,

His trembling hand had lost the ease, tower

Which marks security to please; Looks out from Yarrow's birchen

And scenes long past, of joy and pain, bower : The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye

Came wildering o'er his aged brain

He tried to tune his harp in vain ! No humbler resting-place was nigh ;

The pitying Duchess prais'd its With hesitating step at last

chime, The embattled portal arch he pass’d, Whose ponderous grate and massy bar

And gave him heart, and gave him Had oft roll'd back the tide of war,

time,

Till every string's according glee
But never closed the iron door

Was blended into harmony.
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess mark'd his weary pace,

And then, he said, he would full fain

He could recall an ancient strain His timid mien, and reverend face,

He never thought to sing again. And bade her page the menials tell

It was not framed for village churls, That they should tend the old man

But for high dames and mighty earls; well : For she had known adversity,

He had play'd it to King Charles the

Good, Though born in such a high degree;

When he kept court in Holyrood; In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,

And much he wish’d, yet fear'd, to try Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody

The long-forgotten melody. tomb !

Amid the strings his fingers stray'd, When kindness had his wants sup And an uncertain warbling made, plied,

And oft he shook his hoary head. And the old man was gratified, But when he caught the measure Began to rise his minstrei pride :

wild, And he began to talk anon

The old man rais'd his face, and Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,

smil'd; And of Earl Walter, rest him, God! And lighten’d up his faded eye A braver ne'er to battle rode ;

With all a poet's ecstasy. And how full many a tale he knew In varying cadence, soft or strong, Of the old warriors of Buccleuch : He swept the sounding chords along: And, would the noble Duchess deign The present scene, the future lot, To listen to an old man's strain, His toils, his wants, were all forgot; Though stiff his hand, his voice though Cold diffidence, and age's frost, weak,

In the full tide of song were lost; He thought even yet, the sooth to Each blank, in faithless memory void, speak,

The poet's glowing thought supplied; That, if she loved the harp to hear, And, while his harp responsive rung, He could make music to her ear. 'Twas thus the Latest MINSTRELsung.