XXVIII.
“Short be my speech;—nor time affords,
Nor my plain temper, glozing[141] words.
Kinsman and father,—if such name
Douglas vouchsafe to Roderick’s claim;
Mine honor’d mother;—Ellen—why,
My cousin, turn away thine eye?—
And Græme; in whom I hope to know—
Full soon a noble friend or foe,
When age shall give thee thy command
And leading in thy native land,—
List all!—The King’s vindictive pride
Boasts to have tamed the Border-side,
Where chiefs, with hound and hawk who came
To share their monarch’s silvan game,
Themselves in bloody toils were snared;
And when the banquet they prepared,
And wide their loyal portals flung,
O’er their own gateway struggling hung.[142]
Loud cries their blood from Meggat’s[143] mead,
From Yarrow[144] braes,[145] and banks of Tweed,
Where the lone streams of Ettrick[146] glide,
And from the silver Teviot’s[147] side;
The dales, where martial clans did ride,
Are now one sheep-walk,[148] waste and wide.
This tyrant of the Scottish throne,
So faithless and so ruthless known,
Now hither comes; his end the same,
The same pretext of silvan game.
What grace for Highland Chiefs, judge ye
By fate of Border chivalry.
Yet more; amid Glenfinlas green,
Douglas, thy stately form was seen—
This by espial sure I know:
Your counsel, in the streight I show.”[149]