269
Save the wood-skirted river's eerie sound,
And the faint rustling of the trees that shower
Their brown leaves on the stream,
Mournfully gleaming in the moon's pale beam:
0! I could dwell for ever and for ever
In such a place as this, with such a night!
When, o'er thy waters and thy waving woods
The moon-beams sympathetically quiver,
And no ungentle thing on thee intrudes,
And every voice is dumb, and every object bright!
Forgive, old Cruxtoun, if, with step unholy,
Unwittingly a pilgrim should profane
The regal quiet, the august repose,
Wliich o'er thy desolated summit reign—
When the fair moon's abroad, at evening's close—
Or interrupt that touching melancholy—
Image of fallen grandeur—softly thrown
O'er every crumbling and moss-bedded stone,
And broken arch, and pointed turret hoar,
Which speak a tale of times that are no more;
Of triumphs they have seen,
When Minstrel-craft, in praise of Scotland's Queen,
Woke all the magic of the harp and song,
And the rich, varied, and fantastic lore
Of those romantic days was carped, I ween,
