Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field in Six CantosScott, Walter
General
Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field in Six Cantos
Scott, Walter
Flodden, Battle of, England, 1513 -- Poetry
line 106. 'The late Alexander Pringle, Esq., of Whytbank--whose
beautiful seat of the Yair stands on the Tweed, about two miles
below Ashestiel.'--LOCKHART.
line 108. 'The sons of Mr. Pringle of Whytbank.'--LOCKHART.
line 113. Cp. VI. 611, below.
line 115. 'There is, on a high mountainous ridge above the farm of
Ashestiel, a fosse called Wallace's Trench.'--SCOTT.
line 124. Cp. Gray's 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,'
especially lines 6l-2:--
'These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind.'
lines 126-33. Cp. Wordsworth variously, particularly in the Matthew
poems, the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, and Tintern Abbey,
especially in its last twenty-five lines:--
'Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk,' &c.
line 143. Cp. I Kings xix. 12.
lines 147-73. 'This beautiful sheet of water forms the reservoir
from which the Yarrow takes its source. It is connected with a
smaller lake, called the Loch of the Lowes, and surrounded by
mountains. In the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild
swans; hence my friend Mr. Wordsworth's lines:--
"The swan on sweet St. Mary's lake
Floats double, swan and shadow."
Near the lower extremity of the lake are the ruins of Dryhope tower,
the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope,
and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was
married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his
depredations than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation
was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary
Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The
author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of
Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her
the name. The words usually sung to the air of "Tweedside,"
beginning "What beauties does Flora disclose," were composed in her
honour.'--SCOTT.
Quoting from memory, Scott gives 'sweet' for STILL in Wordsworth's
lines. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in 'Essays Chiefly on Poetry,' ii. 277,
reports an interview with Wordsworth, in which the poet, referring
to St. Mary's Lake, says: 'The scene when I saw it, with its still
and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter loneliness;
there was one swan, and one only, stemming the water, and the
pathetic loneliness of the region gave importance to the one
companion of that swan--its own white image in the water.' For a
criticism, deeply sympathetic and appreciative, of Scott's
description of St. Mary's Loch in calm, see Prof. Veitch's 'Feeling
for Nature in Scottish Poetry,' ii. 196. The scene remains very much
what it was in Scott's time, 'notwithstanding that the hand of the
Philistine,' says Prof. Veitch, 'has set along the north shore of
St. Mary's, as far as his power extended, a strip of planting.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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