Poetry > Lady of the lake

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THE LADY OF THE LAKE.
Canto III
Their feathers dance, their tartans float,
Their targets gleam, as by the boat
A wild and warlike group they stand,
That well became such mountain-strand.
XXVIII.
Their Chief, with step reluctant, still
Was lingering on the craggy hill,
Hard by where turn’d apart the road
To Douglas’s obscure abode.
It was but with that dawning mom,
That Roderick Dhu had proudly sworn
To drown his love in war’s wild roar,1
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more ;
But he who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove—
By firm resolve to conquer love I
Eve finds the Chief, like restless ghost.
Still hovering near his treasure lost;
For though his haughty heart deny
A parting meeting to his eye,
Still fondly strains his anxious ear,
The accents of her voice to hear,
And inly did he curse the breeze
That waked to sound the rustling trees.
But hark! what mingles in the strain ?
It is the harp of Allan-Bane,
1 [MS.—“ To drown his grief in war’s wild roar,
Nor think of love and Ellen more.”]