INTRODUCTION. THE way was long, the wind was cold, His withered cheek, and tresses gray, For, well-a-day! their date was fled, No longer, courted and caressed, High placed in hall, a welcome guest, He poured, to lord and lady gay, The unpremeditated lay; Old times were changed, old manners gone, A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time Had called his harmless art a crime. A wandering harper, scorned and poor, He passed where Newark's stately tower Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower: The Minstrel gazed with wishful eyeNo humbler resting place was nigh. With hesitating step, at last, The embattled portal-arch he passed, Whose ponderous grate, and massy bar, Had oft rolled back the tide of war, But never closed the iron door Against the desolate and poor The Duchess marked his weary pace, His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell, That they should tend the old man well: For she had known adversity, Though born in such a high degree; In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb! When kindness had his wants supplied, And the old man was gratified, Began to rise his minstrel pride: * Anne, duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, representative of the ancient Lords of Buccleuch, and widow of the unfortunate James, Duke of Monmouth, who was beheaded in 1685. |