The Shepherd of Lammermoor

Ha! Winter comes! on rein-deer car, Like hunter to the chase; And Summer’s smiles he drives afar, To give his horrors place. Earth withers ’neath his blasting tread, The tuneful tenants leave the mead; Dunpender’s sides are shining hoar; Pressminnen’s lake is frozen o’er, And Heartrim wood is bare. The squirrel leaves his nutty bower; The hawthorn bush has lost its flower, So solitary fair! Yon ancient Tower is capt with snow, And trembles to the ground, Threatening the passenger below, Who lists the gathering sound Of streamlet, in its windings lost, Where, bursting through its chains of frost, It crisps and foams around. Far on the distant mountain’s head The tyrant rears his pyramid; While from his nostrils, wildly driven, Clouds darken all the face of heaven! It makes my warmest vein run chill! To view the distant wold, Where, hastening from the mossy hill, The shepherd seeks his fold, And sinks upon the drifted heath Into the freezing arms of death, To be in snowy coffin hid Till thaws dissolve the frozen lid. Thus, o’er the heights of Lammermoor, The wanderer held his way, When night, in clouds, began to lower, Deceitful as the day; Then, through the foliage glimmering bright, Like sunshine on the face of night, His cottage-light by fits he spied Upon his native mountain’s side; And heard the sheep-bell’s tinkling sound, Now in the tempest lost and drown’d. Within that cottage Ellen wept, And watch’d her baby as it slept; But while she mourn’d the luckless hour Her husband with his flocks departed, A glow of gladness mantled o’er Her cheeks when nearly broken-hearted; For Edmund oft had traced the road When fiercer storms had been abroad; Led by the smile of wedded bliss, He tarried not for hour like this; For, oh! he knew his Ellen’s breast Would prove a charming place of rest, And he would sleep more soft and sound Where joy and welcome still were found.

But who, in this mysterious state, Can read thy page, futurity? Or knows—until he knows too late— Whether ’tis best to smile or sigh?— For Ellen deem’d not, when array’d She saw her husband in his plaid, Wending along the mountains blue, He bade them all a last adieu!— She deem’d not, that the morn’s embrace, Affection beaming in each face, As her and the sweet babe he prest Transported to his manly breast;— She deem’d not that embrace the last, Else still she’d fondly held him fast, And warn’d him never to depart, In pity to her breaking heart.— But, hark! she hears the dog’s long howl; (’Twas but the tempest’s passing scowl,) She raised the latch, unbarr’d the door, Yet all was silent as before.

As when the sailor, tempest-toss’d, At midnight, on a shoally coast, Drops his toil’d arm upon the billow, And thinks each wave will be his pillow, Sees, bursting ’midst the storm’s dismay, The light-house tower’s revolving ray, Then wakes to sorrow and despair, Deluded by the meteor’s glare: So gleam’d the shepherd’s lattice-light, Deceitful on that stormy night; And now his sunk heart warmer glow’d, For he had reach’d the wish’d-for road; His Ellen’s fond embrace, and smile, Repaid his long and weary toil; Sprung to his knee his favourite boy, Playful, demands the promised toy; While the small infant, at the breast, Smiles too to see the welcome guest. O deepest wo to mortal given, To perish at the gates of heaven! Benumb’d the shepherd sunk to rest, With nature’s shroud upon his breast!