Scott's Lady of the Lake

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D. C. Heath & Company, 1902 - 179 pages
Walter Scott, the ninth of a family of twelve children, was born at Edinburgh in August, 1771. His first consciousness of existence dated from the time when he was sent, a lame, delicate child, to Sandyknowe, the residence of his paternal grandfather. Here he "was often carried out and laid down beside the old shepherd among the crags or rocks round which he fed his sheep." If Scott's genius was late in flowering, who can say that the budding did not begin in that early, close companionship with the Highland country which he was to reproduce so vividly in his verse and fiction? With strength increased by open-air life, although still slightly lame, we find him later a sturdy, active, not over-studious boy at school at Edinburgh and Kelso, and at fifteen beginning in his father's office the legal studies which he continued at the university.
 

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Page 7 - The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o'er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle...
Page 64 - He is gone on the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a summer-dried fountain, When our need was the sorest. The font reappearing, From the rain-drops shall borrow, But to us comes no cheering, To Duncan no morrow ! The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, But the voice of the weeper Wails manhood in glory. The autumn winds rushing Waft the leaves that are searest, But our flower was in flushing, When blighting was nearest.
Page 6 - I little thought, when first thy rein I slacked upon the banks of Seine, That Highland eagle e'er should feed On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed ! Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, That costs thy life, my gallant grey!
Page 111 - Where heath and fern were waving wide : • The sun's last gla.nce was glinted back From spear and glaive, from targe and jack ; The next, all unreflected, shone On bracken green, and cold gray stone.
Page 110 - Watching their leader's beck and will, All silent there they stood, and still, Like the loose crags whose threatening mass Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass, As if an infant's touch could urge Their headlong passage down the verge, With step and weapon forward flung, Upon the mountain-side they hung.
Page 116 - Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright ! But hate and fury ill supplied The stream of life's exhausted tide, And all too late the advantage came, To turn the odds of deadly game ; For, while the dagger gleamed on high, Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye. Down came the blow ! but in the heath The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
Page 12 - And seldom was a snood amid Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, Whose glossy black to shame might bring The plumage of the raven's wing; And seldom o'er a breast so fair Mantled a plaid with modest care; And never brooch the folds combined Above a heart more good and kind...
Page 115 - Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield. He practised every pass and ward, To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard; While less expert, though stronger far, The Gael maintained unequal war. Three times in closing strife they stood. And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood; No stinted draught, no scanty tide, The gushing flood the tartans dyed.
Page 5 - And turned him from the opposing rock ; Then, dashing down a darksome glen, Soon lost to hound and Hunter's ken, In the deep Trosachs' wildest nook His solitary refuge took.
Page 54 - The torrent showed its glistening pride ; Invisible in flecked sky, The lark sent down her revelry; The blackbird and the speckled thrush Good-morrow gave from brake and bush ; In answer cooed the cushat dove, Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.

About the author (1902)

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 15, 1771. He began his literary career by writing metrical tales. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and The Lady of the Lake made him the most popular poet of his day. Sixty-five hundred copies of The Lay of the Last Minstrel were sold in the first three years, a record sale for poetry. His other poems include The Vision of Don Roderick, Rokeby, and The Lord of the Isles. He then abandoned poetry for prose. In 1814, he anonymously published a historical novel, Waverly, or, Sixty Years Since, the first of the series known as the Waverley novels. He wrote 23 novels anonymously during the next 13 years. The first master of historical fiction, he wrote novels that are historical in background rather than in character: A fictitious person always holds the foreground. In their historical sequence, the Waverley novels range in setting from the year 1090, the time of the First Crusade, to 1700, the period covered in St. Roman's Well (1824), set in a Scottish watering place. His other works include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, and The Bride of Lammermoor. He died on September 21, 1832.

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