A hundred winding steps convey That conclave to the upper day; But, ere they breathed the fresher air, They heard the shriekings of despair, And many a stifled groan: With speed their upward way they take, Such speed as age and fear can make, And crossed themselves for terror’s sake, As hurrying, tottering on: Even in the vesper’s heavenly tone, They seemed to hear a dying groan, And bade the passing knell to toll For welfare of a parting soul. Slow o’er the midnight wave it swung, Northumbrian rocks in answer rung; To Warkworth cell the echoes rolled, His beads the wakeful hermit told, The Bamborough peasant raised his head, But slept ere half a prayer he said; So far was heard the mighty knell, The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell, Spread his broad nostril to the wind, Listed before, aside, behind, Then couched him down beside the hind, And quaked among the mountain fern, To hear that sound so dull and stern. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THIRD. TO WILLIAM ERSKINE, ESQ. _Ashestiel_, _Ettrick Forest_. Like April morning clouds, that pass, With varying shadow, o’er the grass, And imitate, on field and furrow, Life’s chequered scene of joy and sorrow; Like streamlet of the mountain North, Now in a torrent racing forth, Now winding slow its silver train, And almost slumbering on the plain; Like breezes of the Autumn day, Whose voice inconstant dies away, And ever swells again as fast, When the ear deems its murmur past; Thus various, my romantic theme Flits, winds, or sinks, a morning dream. Yet pleased, our eye pursues the trace Of light and shade’s inconstant race; Pleased, views the rivulet afar, Weaving its maze irregular; And pleased, we listen as the breeze Heaves its wild sigh through Autumn trees; Then, wild as cloud, or stream, or gale, Flow on, flow unconfined, my tale! Need I to thee, dear Erskine, tell I love the license all too well, In sounds now lowly, and now strong, To raise the desultory song? Oft, when mid such capricious chime, Some transient fit of lofty rhyme To thy kind judgment seemed excuse For many an error of the muse, Oft hast thou said, “If, still misspent, Thine hours to poetry are lent, Go, and to tame thy wandering course, Quaff from the fountain at the source; Approach those masters, o’er whose tomb Immortal laurels ever bloom: Instructive of the feebler bard, Still from the grave their voice is heard; From them, and from the paths they showed, Choose honoured guide and practised road: Nor ramble on through brake and maze, With harpers rude, of barbarous days.