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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=519651" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Marmion: Introduction to Canto VI.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;<br>But let it whistle as it will,<br>We'll keep our Christmas merry still.<br>Each age has deemed the new-born year<br>The fittest time for festal cheer;<br>E'en, heathen yet, the savage Dane<br>At Iol more deep the mead did drain;<br>High on the beach his galleys drew,<br>And feasted all his pirate crew;<br>Then in his low and pine-built hall,<br>Where shields and axes decked the wall,<br>They gorged upon the half-dressed steer;<br>Caroused in seas of sable beer;<br>While round, in brutal jest, were thrown<br>The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone;<br>Or listened all, in grim delight,<br>While scalds yelled out the joys of fight.<br>Then forth, in frenzy, would they hie,<br>While wildly-loose their red locks fly,<br>And dancing round the blazing pile,<br>They make such barbarous mirth the while,<br>As best might to the mind recall<br>The boist'rous joys of Odin's hall.<br>And well our Christian sires of old<br>Loved, when the year its course had rolled,<br>And brought blithe Christmas back again,<br>With all his hospitable train.<br>Domestic and religious rite<br>Gave honour to the holy night;<br>On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;<br>On Christmas Eve the mass was sung;<br>That only night in all the year<br>Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.<br>The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;<br>The hall was dressed with holly green;<br>Forth to the wood did merry men go,<br>To gather in the mistletoe.<br>Then opened wide the baron's hall<br>To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;<br>Power laid his rod of rule aside,<br>And Ceremony doffed his pride.<br>The heir, with roses in his shoes,<br>That night might village partner choose;<br>The lord, underogating, share<br>The vulgar game of 'post and pair.'<br>All hailed, with uncontrolled delight,<br>And general voice, the happy night,<br>That to the cottage, as the crown,<br>Brought tidings of salvation down.<br>The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,<br>Went roaring up the chimney wide;<br>The huge hall table's oaken face,<br>Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,<br>Bore then upon its massive board<br>No mark to part the squire and lord.<br>Then was brought in the lusty brawn,<br>By old blue-coated serving-man;<br>Then the grim boar's head frowned on high,<br>Crested with bays and rosemary.<br>Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,<br>How, when, and where, the monster fell:<br>What dogs before his death he tore,<br>And all the baiting of the boar.<br>The wassail round, in good brown bowls,<br>Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.<br>There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by<br>Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;<br>Nor failed old Scotland to produce,<br>At such high tide, her savoury goose.<br>Then came the merry maskers in,<br>And carols roared with blithesome din;<br>If unmelodious was the song,<br>It was a hearty note, and strong.<br>Who lists may in their mumming see<br>Traces of ancient mystery;<br>White shirts supplied the masquerade,<br>And smutted cheeks the visors made;<br>But oh! what maskers richly dight<br>Can boast of bosoms half so light!<br>England was merry England, when<br>Old Christmas brought his sports again.<br>'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;<br>'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale:<br>A Christmas gambol oft could cheer<br>The poor man's heart through half the year.<br>Still linger, in our Northern clime,<br>Some remnants of the good old time;<br>And still, within our valleys here,<br>We hold the kindred title dear,<br>Even when, perchance, its far-fetched claim<br>To Southern ear sounds empty name;<br>For course of blood, our proverbs deem,<br>Is warmer than the mountain-stream.<br>And thus my Christmas still I hold<br>Where my great grandsire came of old,<br>With amber beard, and flaxen hair,<br>And reverend apostolic air -<br>The feast and holy-tide to share,<br>And mix sobriety with wine,<br>And honest mirth with thoughts divine:<br>Small thought was his in after time<br>E'er to be hitched into a rhyme.<br>The simple sire could only boast,<br>That he was loyal to his cost;<br>The banished race of kings revered,<br>And lost his land-but kept his beard.<br>In these dear halls, where welcome kind<br>Is with fair liberty combined;<br>Where cordial friendship gives the hand,<br>And flies constraint the magic wand<br>Of the fair dame that rules the land.<br>Little we heed the tempest drear,<br>While music, mirth, and social cheer,<br>Speed on their wings the passing year.<br>And Mertoun's halls are fair e'en now,<br>When not a leaf is on the bough.<br>Tweed loves them well, and turns again,<br>As loth to leave the sweet domain,<br>And holds his mirror to her face,<br>And clips her with a close embrace:<br>Gladly as he, we seek the dome,<br>And as reluctant turn us home.<br>How just that, at this time of glee,<br>My thoughts should, Heber, turn to thee!<br>For many a merry hour we've known,<br>And heard the chimes of midnight's tone.<br>Cease, then, my friend! a moment cease,<br>And leave these classic tomes in peace!<br>Of Roman and of Grecian lore<br>Sure mortal brain can hold no more.<br>These ancients, as Noll Bluff might say,<br>'Were pretty fellows in their day;'<br>But time and tide o'er all prevail -<br>On Christmas eve a Christmas tale,<br>Of wonder and of war-'Profane!<br>What! leave the loftier Latian strain,<br>Her stately prose, her verse's charms,<br>To hear the clash of rusty arms:<br>In Fairy Land or Limbo lost,<br>To jostle conjuror and ghost,<br>Goblin and witch!' Nay, Heber dear,<br>Before you touch my charter, hear;<br>Though Leyden aids, alas! no more,<br>My cause with many-languaged lore,<br>This may I say:- in realms of death<br>Ulysses meets Alcides' WRAITH;<br>AEneas, upon Thracia's shore,<br>The ghost of murdered Polydore;<br>For omens, we in Livy cross,<br>At every turn, locutus Bos.<br>As grave and duly speaks that ox,<br>As if he told the price of stocks<br>Or held in Rome republican,<br>The place of common-councilman.<br>All nations have their omens drear,<br>Their legends wild of woe and fear.<br>To Cambria look-the peasant see<br>Bethink him of Glendowerdy,<br>And shun 'the spirit's blasted tree.'<br>The Highlander, whose red claymore<br>The battle turned on Maida's shore,<br>Will, on a Friday morn, look pale,<br>If asked to tell a fairy tale:<br>He fears the vengeful elfin king,<br>Who leaves that day his grassy ring:<br>Invisible to human ken,<br>He walks among the sons of men.<br>Did'st e'er, dear Heber, pass along<br>Beneath the towers of Franchemont,<br>Which, like an eagle's nest in air,<br>Hang o'er the stream and hamlet fair;<br>Deep in their vaults, the peasants say,<br>A mighty treasure buried lay,<br>Amassed through rapine and through wrong,<br>By the last Lord of Franchemont.<br>The iron chest is bolted hard,<br>A huntsman sits, its constant guard;<br>Around his neck his horn is hung,<br>His hanger in his belt is slung;<br>Before his feet his blood-hounds lie:<br>And 'twere not for his gloomy eye,<br>Whose withering glance no heart can brook,<br>As true a huntsman doth he look,<br>As bugle e'er in brake did sound,<br>Or ever hallooed to a hound.<br>To chase the fiend, and win the prize,<br>In that same dungeon ever tries<br>An aged necromantic priest:<br>It is an hundred years at least,<br>Since 'twixt them first the strife begun,<br>And neither yet has lost nor won.<br>And oft the conjuror's words will make<br>The stubborn demon groan and quake;<br>And oft the bands of iron break,<br>Or bursts one lock, that still amain,<br>Fast as 'tis opened, shuts again.<br>That magic strife within the tomb<br>May last until the day of doom,<br>Unless the adept shall learn to tell<br>The very word that clenched the spell,<br>When Franchemont locked the treasure cell.<br>A hundred years are past and gone,<br>And scarce three letters has he won.<br>Such general superstition may<br>Excuse for old Pitscottie say;<br>Whose gossip history has given<br>My song the messenger from heaven,<br>That warned, in Lithgow, Scotland's king,<br>Nor less the infernal summoning;<br>May pass the monk of Durham's tale,<br>Whose demon fought in Gothic mail;<br>May pardon plead for Fordun grave,<br>Who told of Gifford's goblin-cave.<br>But why such instances to you,<br>Who in an instant can renew<br>Your treasured hoards of various lore,<br>And furnish twenty thousand more?<br>Hoards, not like theirs whose volumes rest<br>Like treasures in the Franchemont chest,<br>While gripple owners still refuse<br>To others what they cannot use;<br>Give them the priest's whole century,<br>They shall not spell you letters three;<br>Their pleasure in the books the same<br>The magpie takes in pilfered gem.<br>Thy volumes, open as thy heart,<br>Delight, amusement, science, art,<br>To every ear and eye impart;<br>Yet who, of all who thus employ them,<br>Can like the owner's self enjoy them?<br>But, hark! I hear the distant drum!<br>The day of Flodden Field is come.<br>Adieu, dear Heber! life and health,<br>And store of literary wealth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Sir+Walter+Scott">Sir Walter Scott</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=519651" data-title="Marmion: Introduction to Canto VI. de Sir Walter Scott" data-description="Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer;
E'en, heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did dr..."></div>
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