Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant-- Bound to thy service with unceasing care, The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant For naught but what thy happiness could spare. Speak--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird’s-nest fill’d with snow ’Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine-- Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know! SIR WALTER SCOTT 1771-1832 _542._ _Proud Maisie_ Proud Maisie is in the wood, Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush, Singing so rarely. ‘Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?’ --‘When six braw gentlemen Kirkward shall carry ye.’ ‘Who makes the bridal bed, Birdie, say truly?’ --‘The grey-headed sexton That delves the grave duly. ‘The glow-worm o’er grave and stone Shall light thee steady; The owl from the steeple sing Welcome, proud lady!’ _543._ _Brignall Banks_ O Brignall banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there, Would grace a summer queen: And as I rode by Dalton Hall, Beneath the turrets high, A Maiden on the castle wall Was singing merrily:-- ‘O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green! I’d rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English Queen.’ ‘If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me To leave both tower and town, Thou first must guess what life lead we, That dwell by dale and down: And if thou canst that riddle read, As read full well you may, Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed As blithe as Queen of May.’ Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are green! I’d rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English Queen. ‘I read you by your bugle horn And by your palfrey good, I read you for a Ranger sworn To keep the King’s green-wood.’ ‘A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn, And ’tis at peep of light; His blast is heard at merry morn, And mine at dead of night.’ Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are gay! I would I were with Edmund there, To reign his Queen of May! ‘With burnish’d brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum.’ ‘I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear; But when the beetle sounds his hum, My comrades take the spear.