From “The Lady of the Lake” (Canto I)
Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan’s spring
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,—
O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?
Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,
Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,
When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,
Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud.
At each according pause was heard aloud
Thine ardent symphony sublime and high!
Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed;
For still the burden of thy minstrelsy
Was Knighthood’s dauntless deed, and Beauty’s matchless eye.
O, wake once more! how rude soe’er the hand
That ventures o’er thy magic maze to stray;
O, wake once more! though scarce my skill command
Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:
Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 21, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
Sir Walter Scott began his composition of The Lady of the Lake in 1809 while on holiday with his wife and daughter along the shores of Loch Katrine in the Trossachs area of the Scottish Highlands. Comprising six cantos, with each canto detailing the events of a single day, Scott published the first two in March 1810 and the subsequent two in April. The completed poem, a long-form narrative influenced by the romance of the Arthurian legend of the same name, depicted the struggle between King James V and the powerful Douglas clan. It was published on May 8, 1810, by his longtime friend and printer, John Ballantyne of John Ballantyne and Company. Of The Lady of the Lake, English antiquary and satirical poet George Ellis wrote, “To attract the earnest attention of the reader; to captivate his imagination by a series of pleasing illusions; to awaken and vary at pleasure all his emotions; and to conduct him, without impatience or languor through a poem of four or five thousand lines, is a task of which the accomplishment affords, in our opinion, the most obvious and satisfactory proof of poetical talent; and he who is able, like Mr. Scott, to recal [sic] the same reader with unabated eagerness to repeated perusals, may fairly claim a place amongst the greatest masters of his art.”
Sir Walter Scott
