MARMION. CANTO SIXTH. The Battle. I. WHILE great events were on the gale, And each hour brought a varying tale, And the demeanour, changed and cold, Of Douglas fretted Marmion bold, And, like the impatient steed of war, He snuffed the battle from afar; And hopes were none, that back again Herald should come from Terouenne, Where England's King in leaguer lay, Before decisive battle-day; While these things were, the mournful Clare Did in the Dame's devotions share : For the good Countess ceaseless prayed, To Heaven and Saints, her sons to aid, From prayer to book, from book to mass, A life both dull and dignified ; Yet as Lord Marmion nothing pressed Upon her intervals of rest, Dejected Clara well could bear The formal state, the lengthened prayer, The hours that she might spend apart. II. I said, Tantallon's dizzy steep Hung o'er the margin of the deep, Many a rude tower and rampart there Repelled the insult of the air, Which, when the tempest vexed the sky, Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by. Above the rest, a turret square Did o'er its Gothic entrance bear, Of sculpture rude, a stony shield; The Bloody Heart was in the field, The cognizance of Douglas blood. The turret held a narrow stair, Which, mounted, gave you access where A parapet's embattled row Did seaward round the castle go; Sometimes in dizzy steps descending, Sometimes in narrow circuit bending, Its varying circle did combine Bulwark, and bartisan, and line, And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign; |