William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
St. Swithins ChairSir Walter Scott (17711832)
O
Ever beware that your couch be bless’d;
Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,
Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.
And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side,
Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,
Sailing through moonshine or swath’d in the cloud.
The dew of the night has damp’d her hair:
Her cheek was pale—but resolved and high
Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.
When his naked foot traced the midnight wold,
When he stopp’d the Hag as she rode the night,
And bade her descend, and her promise plight.
When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air,
Questions three, when he speaks the spell,
He may ask, and she must tell.
These three long years in battle and siege;
News there are none of his weal or his woe
And fain the Lady his fate would know.
Is it the moody owl that shrieks?
Or is that sound, betwixt laughter and scream,
The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream?
And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow;
The calm was more dreadful than raging storm,
When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly form!