Still, with vain fondness, could I trace, Anew, each kind familiar face, That brightened at our evening fire! From the thatched mansion’s grey-haired sire, Wise without learning, plain and good, And sprung of Scotland’s gentler blood; Whose eye, in age, quick, clear, and keen, Showed what in youth its glance had been; Whose doom discording neighbours sought, Content with equity unbought; To him the venerable priest, Our frequent and familiar guest, Whose life and manners well could paint Alike the student and the saint; Alas! whose speech too oft I broke With gambol rude and timeless joke: For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-willed imp, a grandame’s child; But, half a plague, and half a jest, Was still endured, beloved, caressed. For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask The classic poet’s well-conned task? Nay, Erskine, nay—On the wild hill Let the wild heathbell flourish still; Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine: Nay, my friend, nay—Since oft thy praise Hath given fresh vigour to my lays; Since oft thy judgment could refine My flattened thought, or cumbrous line; Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, And in the minstrel spare the friend. Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale, Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale! CANTO THIRD. The Inn. I. The livelong day Lord Marmion rode: The mountain path the Palmer showed, By glen and streamlet winded still, Where stunted birches hid the rill. They might not choose the lowland road, For the Merse forayers were abroad, Who, fired with hate and thirst of prey, Had scarcely failed to bar their way. Oft on the trampling band, from crown Of some tall cliff, the deer looked down; On wing of jet, from his repose In the deep heath, the blackcock rose; Sprung from the gorse the timid roe, Nor waited for the bending bow; And when the stony path began, By which the naked peak they wan, Up flew the snowy ptarmigan. The noon had long been passed before They gained the height of Lammermoor; Thence winding down the northern way, Before them, at the close of day, Old Gifford’s towers and hamlet lay. II.