The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To Ellen
TO ELLEN.
he Scottish Border Minstrel’s lay
Entranced me oft in boyhood’s day;
His forests, glens, and streams,
Mountains, and heather blooming fair,
And Highland lake, and lady, were
The playmates of my dreams.
Years passed away—my dreams were gone;
My pilgrim footsteps passed at noon
Loch Katrine’s storied shores:
In silence slept the fairy lake,
Nor did the mountain-echoes wake
At music of my oars.
No tramp of warrior-men I heard;
Welcome-song, or challenge-word,
I listened, but in vain;
And, moored beside his favorite tree,
As vainly wooed the minstrelsy
Of gray-haired Allan Bane.
I saw the Highland heath-flower smile
In beauty, upon Ellen’s isle;
And, couched in Ellen’s bower,
I watched, beneath its latticed leaves,
Her coming, through a summer eve’s
Youngest and loveliest hour.
She came not—lonely was her home;
Herself of airy shapes “that come
Like shadows, so depart.”
Are there two Ellens of the mind?
Or have I lived at last to find
The Ellen of my heart?
For music, like Sir Walter’s, now
Rings round me, and again I bow
Before the shrine of song,
Devoutly as I bowed in youth;
For hearts that worship there, in truth
And joy, are ever young.
And dear the harp that sings to-day,
And well its gladdened strings obey
Its minstrel’s loved command—
A minstrel-maid’s, whose infant eyes
Looked on Ohio’s woods and skies,
My youth’s unheard-of land.
And beautiful that wreath she twines
Round Albi cottage bowered in vines,
Or blest in sleigh-bell mirth;
And loveliest is her song that seems
To bid me welcome in my dreams,
Beside its winter hearth.
And must I deem her beckoning smile
But pleasant mockery, to beguile
Some lonely hour of care?
And will this Ellen prove to be
But like her namesake o’er the sea,
A being of the air?
Or shall I take the morning wing,
Armed with a parson and a ring,
Speed hill and dale along;
And, at her cottage-fire ere night,
Change into flutterings of delight,
Or what’s more likely, of affright,
The merry mockbird’s song?