A kindly heart had brave Fitz-James;
Fast poured his eyes at pity’s claims;
And now, with mingled grief and ire,
He saw the murdered maid expire. 
’God, in my need, be my relief,
As I wreak this on yonder Chief!’
A lock from Blanche’s tresses fair
He blended with her bridegroom’s hair;
The mingled braid in blood he dyed,
And placed it on his bonnet-side: 
’By Him whose word is truth, I swear,
No other favour will I wear,
Till this sad token I imbrue
In the best blood of Roderick Dhu!—­
But hark! what means yon faint halloo? 
The chase is up,—­but they shall know,
The stag at bay ‘s a dangerous foe.’ 
Barred from the known but guarded way,
Through copse and cliffs Fitz-James must stray,
And oft must change his desperate track,
By stream and precipice turned back. 
Heartless, fatigued, and faint, at length,
From lack of food and loss of strength
He couched him in a thicket hoar
And thought his toils and perils o’er:—­
’Of all my rash adventures past,
This frantic feat must prove the last! 
Who e’er so mad but might have guessed
That all this Highland hornet’s nest
Would muster up in swarms so soon
As e’er they heard of bands at Doune?—­
Like bloodhounds now they search me out,—­
Hark, to the whistle and the shout!—­
If farther through the wilds I go,
I only fall upon the foe: 
I’ll couch me here till evening gray,
Then darkling try my dangerous way.’

XXIX.

The shades of eve come slowly down,
The woods are wrapt in deeper brown,
The owl awakens from her dell,
The fox is heard upon the fell;
Enough remains of glimmering light
To guide the wanderer’s steps aright,
Yet not enough from far to show
His figure to the watchful foe. 
With cautious step and ear awake,
He climbs the crag and threads the brake;
And not the summer solstice there
Tempered the midnight mountain air,
But every breeze that swept the wold
Benumbed his drenched limbs with cold. 
In dread, in danger, and alone,
Famished and chilled, through ways unknown,
Tangled and steep, he journeyed on;
Till, as a rock’s huge point he turned,
A watch-fire close before him burned.

XXX.

Beside its embers red and clear
Basked in his plaid a mountaineer;
And up he sprung with sword in hand,—­
‘Thy name and purpose!  Saxon, stand!’
‘A stranger.’  ‘What cost thou require?’
’Rest and a guide, and food and fire
My life’s beset, my path is lost,
The gale has chilled my limbs with frost.’ 
‘Art thou a friend to Roderick?’ ‘No.’ 
‘Thou dar’st not call thyself a foe?’
’I dare! to him and all the band
He brings to aid his murderous hand.’ 
’Bold words!—­but, though the beast of game
The privilege of chase may claim,