Poetry > Lady of the lake

56
THE LADY OF THE LAKE.
Canto I.
Ellen, though more her looks display’d1
The simple grace of silvan maid,
In speech and gesture, form and face,
Show’d she was come of gentle race.
’Twere strange in ruder rank to find
Such looks, such manners, and such mind.
Each hint the Knight of Snowdoun gave,
Dame Margaret heard with silence grave ;
Or Ellen, innocently gay,
Turn’d all enquiry light away:—
“ Weird women we ! by dale and down
We dwell, afar from tower and town.
We stem the flood, we ride the blast,
On wandering knights our spells we cast;
While viewless minstrels touch the string,
’Tis thus our charmed rhymes we sing.”
She sung, and still a harp unseen
Fill’d up the symphony between.3
1 [MS.—“ Ellen, though more her looks betray'd
The simple heart of mountain maid,
In speech and gesture, form and grace,
Show’d she was come of gentle race;
’Twas strange, in birth so rude, to find
Such/ace, such manners, and such mind.
Each anxious hint the stranger gave,
The mother heard with silence grave.”]
* “ They” (meaning the Highlanders),” delight much in music,
but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The
strings of the clairschoes are made of brass wire, and the strings
of the harps of sinews; which strings they strike either with
their nayles, growing long, or else with an instrument appointed
for that use. They take great pleasure to decke their harps and