O lovers’ eyes are sharp to see, <br />And lovers’ ears in hearing; <br />And love, in life’s extremity, <br />Can lend an hour of cheering. <br />Disease had been in Mary’s bower <br />And slow decay from mourning, <br />Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower <br />To watch her Love’s returning. <br /> <br />All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, <br />Her form decay’d by pining, <br />Till through her wasted hand, at night, <br />You saw the taper shining. <br />By fits a sultry hectic hue <br />Across her cheek was flying; <br />By fits so ashy pale she grew <br />Her maidens thought her dying. <br /> <br />Yet keenest powers to see and hear <br />Seem’d in her frame residing; <br />Before the watch-dog prick’d his ear <br />She heard her lover’s riding; <br />Ere scarce a distant form was kenn’d <br />She knew and waved to greet him, <br />And o’er the battlement did bend <br />As on the wing to meet him. <br /> <br />He came—he pass’d—an heedless gaze <br />As o’er some stranger glancing: <br />Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase, <br />Lost in his courser’s prancing— <br />The castle-arch, whose hollow tone <br />Returns each whisper spoken, <br />Could scarcely catch the feeble moan <br />Which told her heart was broken.<br /><br />Sir Walter Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-maid-of-neidpath/
