BY THE AUTHOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Ir is hardly to be expected that an author whom the public has honoured with some degree of applause, should not be again a trespasser on their kindness. Yet the author of MARMION must be supposed to feel some anxiety concerning its success, since he is sensible that he hazards, by this second intrusion, any reputation which his first poem may have procured him. The present story turns upon the private adventures of a fictitious character;, but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero's fate is connected with that memorable defeat, and the causes which led to it. The design of the author was, if possible, to apprise his readers, at the outset, of the date of his story, and to prepare them for the manners of the age- in which it is laid. Any historical narrative, far more an attempt at epic composition, exceeds his plan of a romantic tale; yet he may be permitted to hope, from the popularity of THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, that an attempt to paint the manners of the feudal times, upon a broader scale, and in the course of a more interesting story, will not be unacceptable to the public.

The Poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, 9th September, 1513.

Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled green-wood grew,
So feeble trill'd the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and briar, no longer green,
An angry brook it sweeps the glade,

Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with doubled speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer autumn's glowing red
Upon our Forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath pass'd the heather-bell
That bloom'd so rich on Needpath-fell;
Sallow his brow, and russet bare
Are now the sister-heights of Yare..
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To shelter'd dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sun-beam shines:
In meek despondency they eye
The wither'd sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill:
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold;
His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel;
A cowering glance they often cast,
As deeper moans the gathering blast.

My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild,
As best befits the mountain-child,
Feel the sad influence of the hour,"
And wail the daisy's vanish'd flower;

Their summer gambols tell, and mourn, And anxious ask,-Will spring return, And birds and lambs again be gay,

And blossoms clothe the hawthorn spray?

Yes, prattlers, yes. The daisy's flower Again shall paint your summer bower; Again the hawthorn shall supply The garlands you delight to tie; The lambs upon the lea shall bound, The wild birds carol to the round, And while you frolic light as they, Too short shall seem the summer day.

To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory re-appears.
But oh! my country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine
Where Glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow'd tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!
Say to your sons,-Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,

Short, bright, resistless course was given;
Where'er his country's foes were found,
Was heard the fated thunder's sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Roll'd, blazed, destroy'd,—and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perish'd worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launch'd that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia," Trafalgar, Who, born to guide such high emprize, For Britain's weal was carly wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave; His worth, who, in his mightiest hour, A bauble held the pride of power, Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain Strain'd at subjection's bursting rein, O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd, The pride he would not crush restrain'd, Show'd their fierce zeal a worthier cause, And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws.

Hadst thou but lived, though stripp'd of power, A watchman on the lonely tower,

Copenhagen.

Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;

By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;

As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,

The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,

The trumpet's silver sound is still,

The warder silent on the hill!

Oh! think, how to his latest day, When death, just hovering, claim'd his prey, With Palinure's unalter'd mood, Firm at his dangerous post he stood;

Each call for needful rest repell'd,

With dying hand the rudder held,

Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain's thousand plains
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallow'd day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,-
He who preserved them, PITT, lies here!

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employ'd and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow,-
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mourn'st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppress'd,
And sacred be the last long rest.

Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
Here where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song.

As if some angel spoke agen,

All peace on earth, good will to men;
If ever from an English heart,
O here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record, that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouch'd to France's yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian's purpose brave
Was barter'd by a timorous slave,
Even thea dishonour's peace he spurn'd,
The sullied olive-branch return'd,
Stood for his country's glory fast,
And nail'd her colours to the mast!

Heaven, to reward his firmness gave
A portion in this honour'd grave;
And ne'er held marble in its trust
Of two such wond'rous men the dust.

With more than mortal powers endow'd, How high they soar'd above the crowd! Theirs was no common party race, Jostling by dark intrigue for place; Like fabled gods', their mighty war Shook realms and nations in its jar; Beneath each banner proud to stand, Look'd up the noblest of the land, Till, through the British world were known The names of PITT and Fox alone. Spells of such force no wizard grave E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave; Though his could drain the ocean dry, And force the planets from the sky. These spells are spent, and spent with these, The wine of life is on the lees. Genius, and taste, and talent gone, For ever tomb'd beneath the stone, Where,―taming thought to human pride!— The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. Drop upon Fox's the tear,' 'T will trickle to his rival's bier; O'er PITT's the mournful requiem sound, And Fox's shall the notes rebound. The solemn echo seems to cry,«Here let their discord with them die; Speak not for those a separate doom, Whom fate made brothers in the tomb, But search the land of living men, Where wilt thou find their like agen?»>

grave

Rest, ardent spirits! till the cries
Of dying Nature bid you rise;
Not even your Britain's groans can pierce
The leaden silence of your hearse :
Then, O how impotent and vain

This grateful tributary strain!

Though not unmark'd from northern clime,

Ye heard the Border Minstrel's rhyme:

His Gothic harp has o'er you rung;

The bard you deign'd to praise, your deathless names lias sung.

Stay yet, illusion, stay a while,

My wilder'd fancy still beguile!
From this high theme how can I part,

Ere half unloaded is my heart!

For all the tears e'er sorrow drew,

And all the raptures fancy knew,

And all the keener rush of blood,

That throbs through bard in bard-like mood,
Were here a tribute mean and low,
Though all their mingled streams could flow-
Woe, wonder, and sensation high,
In one spring-tide of ecstasy!-
It will not be-it may not last-
The vision of enchantment 's past:
Like frost-work in the morning ray,
The fancied fabric melts away;
Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone,
And long, dim, lofty aisle are gone,

And, lingering last, deception dear,
The choir's high sounds die on my ear.
Now slow return the lonely down,
The silent pastures bleak and brown,
The farm begirt with copse-wood wild,
The gambols of each frolic child,
Mixing their shrill cries with the tone
Of Tweed's dark waters rushing on.

Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Thus Nature disciplines her son:
Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day,

In plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the Tweed;
Or idly list the shrilling lay

With which the milk-maid cheers her way,
Marking its cadence rise and fail,
As from the field, beneath her pail,
She trips it down the uneven dale:
Meeter for me, by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherd's tale to learn,
Though oft he stop in rustic fear,
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one, who, in his simple mind,
May boast of book-learn'd taste refined.

But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell (For few have read romance so well) How still the legendary lay

O'er poet's bosom holds its sway;
How on the ancient minstrel strain
Time lays his palsied hand in vain;
And how our hearts at doughty deeds,
By warriors wrought in steely weeds,
Still throb for fear and pity's sake;
As when the Champion of the Lake
Enters Morgana's fated house,
Or in the Chapel Perilous,
Despising spells and demons' force,
Holds converse with the unburied corse:

Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to move
(Alas! that lawless was their love),
He sought proud Tarquin in his den,
And freed full sixty knights; or, when,
A sinful man, and unconfess'd,
He took the Sangreal's holy quest,
And, slumbering, saw the vision high,
He might not view with waking eye. (2)

(1)

The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong:
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
And Dryden, in immortal strain,
Had raised the Table Round again,
But that a ribald king and court

Bade him toil on, to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,

Fit for their souls, a looser lay,

Licentious satire, song, and play; (3)

The world defrauded of the high design, Profaned the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.

Warm'd by such names, well may we then, Though dwindled sons of little men,

Essay to break a feeble lance

In the fair fields of old romance;
Or seek the moated castle's cell,

Where long through talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept,
Thy genius, Chivalry, hath slept:
There sound the harpings of the north,
Till he awake and sally forth,
On venturous quest to prick again,
In all his arms, with all his train,

Shield, lance, and brand, and plume and scarf,
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard, with his wand of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the Genius weave their spells,
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half-veiled and half-reveal'd ;
And Honour, with his spotless shield;
Attention, with fix'd eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale he shrinks to hear;
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning upon his own good sword.

Well has thy fair achievement shown A worthy meed may thus be won; Ytene's' oaks-beneath whose shade Their theme the merry minstrels made, Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold, (4) And that Red King, who, while of old Through Boldrewood the chace he led, By his loved huntsman's arrow bledYtene's oaks have heard again Renew'd such legendary strain; For thou hast sung how he of Gaul, That Amadis so famed in hall, For Oriana, foil'd in fight The necromancer's felon might; And well in modern verse hast wove Partenopex's mystic love: Hear then, attentive to my lay,

A knightly tale of Albion's elder day.

CANTO I.

THE CASTLE.

I.

DAY set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, (5)
And Cheviot's mountains lone:
The battled towers, the donjon keep, (6)
The loop-hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,

In yellow lustre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seem'd forms of giant height:
Their armour, as it caught the rays,
Flash'd back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.

The New Forest in Hampshire, anciently so called.
William Rufus.

A distant trampling sound he hears;
He looks abroad, and soon appears,
O'er Horncliffe-hill, a plump of spears,
Beneath a pennon gay:

A horseman, darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from the summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade,
That closed the castle barricade,

His bugle-horn he blew;
The warder hasted from the wall,
And warn'd the captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew ;
And joyfully that knight did call
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

IV.

<< Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe,
And quickly make the entrance free,
And bid my heralds ready be,
And every minstrel sound his glee,
And all our trumpets blow;
And from the platform spare ye not
To fire a noble salvo-shot;

Lord Marmion waits below!»-
Then to the castle's lower ward
Sped forty yeomen tall,
The iron-studded gates unbarr'd,
Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard,
The lofty palisade unsparr'd,

And let the draw-bridge fall.

Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
His forehead, by his casque worn bare,
His thin moustache, and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,
But more through toil than age;

His square-turn'd joints, and strength of limb,
Show'd him no carpet-knight so trim,
But, in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage.

VI.

Well was he arm'd from head to heel,
In mail and plate, of Milan steel; (7).
But his strong helm, of mighty cost,
Was all with burnish'd gold emboss'd;
Amid the plumage of the crest,

A falcon hover'd on her nest,

With wings outspread, and forward breast; .
E'en such a falcon on his shield,
Soar'd sable in an azure field;
The golden legend bore aright,

WHO CHECKS AT ME TO DEATH IS DIGHT. (8)
Blue was the charger's broider'd rein;
Blue ribands deck'd his arching mane;
The knightly housing's ample fold
Was velvet blue, and trapp'd with gold.

Four men-at-arms came at their backs,
With halberd, bill, and battle-axe:

They bore Lord Marmion's lance so strong,
Aud led his sumpter mules along,
And ambling palfrey, when at need,
Him listed ease his battle-steed.
The last and trustiest of the four,
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like swallow's tail in shape and hue,
Flutter'd the streamer glossy blue,
Where, blazon'd sable, as before,'
The towering falcon seem'd to soar.
Last, twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hosen black, and jerkins blue,
With falcons broider'd on each breast,
Attended on their lord's behest.
Each chosen for an archer good,
Knew hunting-craft by lake or wood;
Each one a six-foot bow could bend,
And far a cloth-yard shaft could send;
Each held a boar-spear tough and strong,
And at their belts their quivers rung.
Their dusty palfreys, and array,
Show'd they had march'd a weary way.

They marshall'd him to the castle-hall,
Where the guests stood all aside.
And loudly flourish'd the trumpet-call,
And the heralds loudly cried,

« Room, lordings, room for Lord Marmion,
With the crest and helm of gold!
Full well we know the trophies won
In the lists at Cottiswold:
There vainly Ralph de Wilton strove
'Gainst Marmion's force to stand:
To him he lost his lady-love,

And to the king his land. Ourselves beheld the listed field,

A sight both sad and fair;

We saw Lord Marmion pierce his shield,

And saw his saddle bare;