The Border slogan rent the sky!
A Home! a Gordon! was the cry:
Loud were the clanging blows;
Advanced, forced back,
The pennon sunk and rose;
As bends the bark's mast in the gale,
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,
It waver'd 'mid the foes.
No longer Blount the view could bear:
"By Heaven and all its saints I swear,
I will not see it lost!
Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare
May bid your beads, and patter prayer, -
I gallop to the host."
And to the fray he rode amain,
Follow'd by all the archer train.
The fiery youth, with desperate charge,
Made, for a space, an opening large,
The rescued banner rose,
But darkly closed the war around,
Like pine-tree, rooted from the ground,
It sunk among the foes.
Then Eustace mounted too: - yet staid,
As loath to leave the helpless maid,
When, fast as shaft can fly,
Blood-shot his eyes, his nostrils spread,
The loose rein dangling from his head,
Housing and saddle bloody red,
Lord Marmion's steed rush'd by;
And Eustace, maddening at the sight,
A look and sign to Clara cast,
To mark he would return in haste,
Then plunged into the fight.
Ask me not what the maiden feels,
Left in that dreadful hour alone:
Perchance her reason stoops, or reels;
Perchance a courage, not her own,
Braces her mind to desperate tone.
The scatter'd van of England wheels;
She only said, as loud in air
The tumult roar'd, "Is Wilton there?".
They fly, or, madden'd by despair,
Fight but to die, "Is Wilton there?"
With that, straight up the hill there rode
Two horsemen drench'd with gore,
And in their arms, a helpless load,
A wounded knight they bore.
His hand still strain'd the broken brand;
His arms were smear'd with blood and sand:
Dragg'd from among the horses' feet,
With dinted shield, and helmet beat,
The falcon-crest and plumage gone,
Can that be haughty Marmion!..
Young Blount his armour did unlace,
And, gazing on his ghastly face,
Said -"By Saint George, he's gone!
That spear-wound has our master sped,
And see the deep cut on his head!
Good-night to Marmion.".
"Unnurtured Blount! thy brawling cease: He opes his eyes," said Eustace; "peace!"
When, doff'd his casque, he felt free air,
Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare:-
"Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where?
Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare!
Redeem my pennon, - charge again!
Cry-Marmion to the rescue!' - Vain!
Last of my race, on battle-plain
That shout shall ne'er be heard again!
Yet my last thought is England's - fly,
To Dacre bear my signet-ring:
Tell him his squadrons up to bring.
Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie;
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down: my life is reft;
The Admiral alone is left.
Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.
They parted, and alone he lay; Clare drew her from the sight away, Till pain rung forth a lowly moan, And half he murmur'd, "Is there none, Of all my halls have nurst,
Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of blessed water from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst!"
O, woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish ring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!
Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the Baron's casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran:
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.
She stoop'd her by the runnel's side,
But in abhorrence backward drew;
For, oozing from the mountain's side,
Where raged the war, a dark-red tide
Was curdling in the streamlet blue.
Where shall she turn? - behold her mark
A little fountain cell,
Where water, clear as diamond-spark,
In a stone basin fell.
Above, some half-worn letters say,
Drink. weary. pilgrim . drink. and . pray
For the kind. soul. of . Sybil . Gray .
Who. built. this. cross, and . well.
She fill'd the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied
A Monk supporting Marmion's head
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrieve the dying, bless the dead.
Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave,
And, as she stoop'd his brow to lave
"Is it the hand of Clare," he said,
"Or injured Constance, bathes my head?"
Then, as remembrance rose,
"Speak not to me of shrift or prayer!
I must redress her woes.
Short space, few words, are mine to spare;
Forgive and listen, gentle Clare!"
"Alas!" she said, "the while,
O, think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Constance is your zeal;
died at Holy Isle."
Lord Marmion started from the ground,
As light as if he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide,
In torrents, from his wounded side.
"Then it was truth," he said "I knew
That the dark presage must be true.
I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would spare me but a day!
For wasting fire, and dying groan,
And priests slain on the altar stone
Might bribe him for delay.
It may not be! this dizzy trance
Curse on yon base marauder's lance,
And doubly cursed my failing brand!
A sinful heart makes feeble hand."
Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk,
Supported by the trembling Monk.
With fruitless labour, Clara bound,
And strove to stanch the gushing wound:
The Monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church's prayers.
Scott, Poetical Works. I.
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear
For that she ever sung,
"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!" So the notes rung;
"Avoid thee, Fiend! - with cruel hand,
Shake not the dying sinner's sand!
O look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer's grace divine;
O think on faith and bliss!
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,
But never aught like this."
The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swell'd the gale,
And-STANLEY! was the cry;
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted "Victory!
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.
By this, though deep the evening fell,
Still rose the battle's deadly swell,
For still the Scots, around their King,
Unbroken, fought in desperate ring.
Where's now their victor vanward wing,
Where Huntly, and where Home?
O for a blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
That to King Charles did come,
When Rowland brave, and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,
On Roncesvalles died?
Such blast might warn them, not in vain,
To quit the plunder of the slain,
And turn the doubtful day again,
|