THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

by: Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

      H, lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
      And lovers' ears in hearing;
      And love, in life's extremity,
      Can lend an hour of cheering!
      Disease had been in Mary's bower
      And slow decay from mourning;
      Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
      To watch her Love's returning.
       
      All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
      Her form decay'd by pining,
      Till through her wasted hand, at night,
      You saw the taper shining.
      By fits a sultry hectic hue
      Across her cheek was flying;
      By fits so ashy pale she grew
      Her maidens thought her dying.
       
      Yet keenest powers to see and hear
      Seem'd in her frame residing:
      Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear,
      She heard her lover's riding;
      Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd,
      She knew and waved to greet him,
      And o'er the battlement did bend
      As on the wing to meet him.
       
      He came--he pass'd--a heedless gaze,
      As o'er some stranger glancing;
      Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
      Lost in his courser's prancing;
      The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
      Returns each whisper spoken,
      Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
      Which told her heart was broken.

"The Maid of Neidpath" is reprinted from The Golden Treasury. Ed. Francis T. Palgrave. London: Macmillan, 1875.

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