32
MARMION.
INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SECOND.
TO THE REV JOHN MARRIOTT, A. M.
Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.
The scenes are desert now, and bare
Where flourish'd once a forest fair,
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
5Yon Thorn—perchance whose prickly spears
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers—
Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell,
10Since he, so grey and stubborn now,
Waved in each breeze a sapling bough;
Would he could tell how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made;
How broad the shadows of the oak,
15How clung the rowan to the rock,
And through the foliage show'd his head,
With narrow leaves and berries red;
What pines on every mountain sprung,
O'er every dell what birches hung,
20In every breeze what aspens shook,
What alders shaded every brook!
The scenes are desert now, and bare
Where flourish'd once a forest fair,
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
5Yon Thorn—perchance whose prickly spears
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers—
Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell,
10Since he, so grey and stubborn now,
Waved in each breeze a sapling bough;
Would he could tell how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made;
How broad the shadows of the oak,
15How clung the rowan to the rock,
And through the foliage show'd his head,
With narrow leaves and berries red;
What pines on every mountain sprung,
O'er every dell what birches hung,
20In every breeze what aspens shook,
What alders shaded every brook!
'Here, in my shade,' methinks he'd say,
'The mighty stag at noon-tide lay:
The wolf I've seen, a fiercer game,
25(The neighbouring dingle bears his name,)
'The mighty stag at noon-tide lay:
The wolf I've seen, a fiercer game,
25(The neighbouring dingle bears his name,)
