From the white thorn the May-flower shed

Its dewy fragrance round our head:

Not Ariel lived more merrily

Under the blossomed bough, than we.

And blithesome nights, too, have been ours,

When Winter stript the summer's bowers;

Careless we heard, what now I hear,

The wild blast sighing deep and drear,

When fires were bright, and lamps beamed gay,

And ladies tuned the lovely lay;

And he was held a laggard soul,

Who shunned to quaff the sparkling bowl.

Then he, whose absence we deplore,

Who breathes the gales of Devon's shore,

The longer missed, bewailed the more;

And thou, and I, and dear-loved R

And one whose name I may not say,

For not Mimosa's tender tree

Shrinks sooner from the touch than he,

In merry chorus well combined,

With laughter drowned the whistling wind.

Mirth was within; and Care, without,

Might gnaw her nails to hear our shout.
Not but amid the buxom scene

Some grave discourse might intervene—
Of the good horse that bore him best,
His shoulder, hoof, and arching crest:
For, like mad Tom's,* our chiefest care,
Was horse to ride, and weapon wear.

Such nights we've had; and, though the game
Of manhood be more sober tame,

And though the field-day, or the drill,

Seem less important now-yet still

Such may we hope to share again.

The sprightly thought inspires my strain !

And mark, how, like a horseman true,

Lord Marmion's march I thus renew.

* See King Lear.

MARMION.

CANTO FOURTH.

The Camp.

MARMION.

CANTO FOURTH.

The Camp.

I.

EUSTACE, I said, did blithely mark

The first notes of the merry lark.
The lark sung shrill, the cock he crew,
And loudly Marmion's bugles blew,
And, with their light and lively call,

Brought groom and yeoman to the stall.
Whistling they came, and free of heart;

But soon their mood was changed:

Complaint was heard on every part,

Of something disarranged.