XXIII.
Allan, with wistful look the while,
Mark’d Roderick landing on the isle;
His master piteously he eyed,
Then gazed upon the Chieftain’s pride,
Then dash’d, with hasty hand, away
From his dimm’d eye the gathering spray;
And Douglas, as his hand he laid
On Malcolm’s shoulder, kindly said,
“Canst thou, young friend, no meaning spy
In my poor follower’s glistening eye?
I’ll tell thee:—he recalls the day
When in my praise he led the lay
O’er the arch’d gate of Bothwell proud,
While many a minstrel answer’d loud,
When Percy’s Norman pennon,[133] won
In bloody field, before me shone,
And twice ten knights, the least a name
As mighty as yon Chief may claim,
Gracing my pomp, behind me came.
Yet trust me, Malcolm, not so proud
Was I of all that marshal’d crowd,
Though the waned crescent[134] own’d my might,
And in my train troop’d lord and knight,
Though Blantyre[135] hymn’d her holiest lays,
And Bothwell’s bards flung back my praise,
As when this old man’s silent tear,
And this poor maid’s affection dear,
A welcome give more kind and true,
Than aught my better fortunes knew.
Forgive, my friend, a father’s boast,
Oh! it out-beggars[136] all I lost!“