MARMION. CANTO FIRST. The Castle. I. DAY set on Norham's Castled steep, And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, And Cheviot's mountains lone : The battled towers, the Donjon Keep, 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. II. Saint George's banner, broad and gay, Now faded, as the fading ray Less bright, and less, was flung; The evening gale had scarce the power To wave it on the Donjon Tower, So heavily it hung. The scouts had parted on their search, Above the gloomy portal arch, The Warder kept his guard; Low humming, as he paced along, Some ancient Border gathering-song. III. A distant trampling sound he hears ; He looks abroad, and soon appears, Beneath a pennon gay; A horseman, darting from the crowd, 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, * This word properly applies to a flight of water-fowl; but is applied, by analogy, to a body of horse. There is a Knight of the North Country, Flodden Field. 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. V. Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode. Proudly his red-roan charger trod, |