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Quotes from The Lay of the Last Minstrel — Walter Scott

1771–1832 Scotland

← All quotes by Walter Scott

18 quotes

Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Call it not vain;—they do not err,
Who say, that when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

It [true love] is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

I was not always a man of woe.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

For ne'er
Was flattery lost on poet's ear:
A simple race! they waste their toil
For the vain tribute of a smile.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Steady of heart, and stout of hand.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Haste, holy Friar,
Haste, ere the sinner shall expire!
Of all his guilt let him be shriven,
And smooth his path from earth to heaven!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Along thy wild and willow'd shore.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed to have known a better day.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd and unsung.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Walter Scott (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.