The voices / 158 fragments

Sir Walter Scott

1771 AD — 1832 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗truth love peace nature death faith mind life

Historical source references

Lay of the Last Minstrel
Marmion
L' Envoy
Lady of the Lake
Lord of the Isles
Bridal of Triermain
Rokeby
Pibroch of Donald Dhu
Guy Mannering
The Antiquary
Ivanhoe
Rob Roy
Old Mortality
Answer to the Author of Waverley to the Letter of Captain Clutterbuck
The Monastery
Quentin Durward
The Betrothed
Chronicles of the Canongate
Woodstock
The Talisman
The Heart of Midlothian
St
Peveril of the Peak
Life of Napoleon
Conversation · anthology attribution: Sir Walter Scott
Guilt · anthology attribution: Sir Walter Scott
Zeal · anthology attribution: Scott
Intemperance · anthology attribution: Walter Scott
Love · anthology attribution: Walter Scott
Reason · anthology attribution: Walter Scott

Archive entries

01c. 1801 AD

Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

02c. 1801 AD

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

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

03c. 1801 AD

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

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

04c. 1801 AD

I was not always a man of woe.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

05c. 1801 AD

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

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

06c. 1801 AD

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.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

07c. 1801 AD

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

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

08c. 1801 AD

Along thy wild and willow'd shore.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

09c. 1801 AD

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

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

10c. 1801 AD

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

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

11c. 1801 AD

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.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

12c. 1801 AD

Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well! For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,— 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.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

13c. 1801 AD

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!

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

14c. 1801 AD

Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

15c. 1801 AD

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

16c. 1801 AD

When, musing on companions gone, We doubly feel ourselves alone.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

17c. 1801 AD

'T is an old tale and often told; But did my fate and wish agree, Ne'er had been read, in story old, Of maiden true betray'd for gold, That loved, or was avenged, like me.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

18c. 1801 AD

When Prussia hurried to the field, And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

19c. 1801 AD

In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

20c. 1801 AD

Where 's the coward that would not dare To fight for such a land?

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

21c. 1801 AD

Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue; Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain, For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

22c. 1801 AD

With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

23c. 1801 AD

But woe awaits a country when She sees the tears of bearded men.

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

24c. 1801 AD

And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall?

Sir Walter Scott / quote

↗

Sir Walter Scott

Archive entries

Read further

Meditations

Tao Te Ching

The Prophet