Good evening, Sir Priest, and so late as you ride, <br />With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide; <br />But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill. <br />There is one that has warrant to wait on you still. <br />Back, back, <br />The volume black! <br />I have a warrant to carry it back. <br /> <br />What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here <br />To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier? <br />Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise, <br />Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize. <br />Back, back. <br />There's death in the track! <br />In the name of my master I bid thee bear back. <br /> <br />'In the name of MY Master,' said the astonished monk, 'that name before which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art that hauntest me thus?' <br />The same voice replied,- <br /> <br />That which is neither ill nor well, <br />That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell, <br />A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream, <br />'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream; <br />A form that men spy <br />With the half-shut eye. <br />In the beams of the setting sun, am I. <br /> <br />Vainly, Sir Prior, wouldst thou bar me my right! <br />Like the star when it shoots, I can dart through the night; <br />I can dance on the torrent and ride on the air, <br />And travel the world with the bonny night-mare. <br />Again, again, <br />At the crook of the glen, <br />Where bickers the burnie, I'll meet thee again. <br /> <br />Men of good are bold as sackless <br />Men of rude are wild and reckless, <br />Lie thou still <br />In the nook of the hill. <br />For those be before thee that wish thee ill.<br /><br />Sir Walter Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-sub-prior/
