Then thundered forth a roll of names : The first was thine, unhappy James! Then all thy nobles came; Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle, Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle,— Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle, Was cited there by name; And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye, Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbay, De Wilton, erst of Aberley, The self-same thundering voice did say.-- But then another spoke: "Thy fatal summons I deny, Who burst the sinner's yoke."- The summoner was gone. Prone on her face the Abbess fell, And fast, and fast, her beads did tell ; Her nuns came, startled by the yell, And found her there alone. She marked not, at the scene aghast, What time, or how, the Palmer passed. XXVII. Shift we the scene.-The camp doth move, Dun-Edin's streets are empty now, Save when, for weal of those they love, They journey in thy charge: Lord Marmion rode on his right hand, The Palmer still was with the band; That none should roam at large. But in that Palmer's altered mien A wonderous change might now be seen; Freely he spoke of war, Of marvels wrought by single hand, When lifted for a native land; And still looked high, as if he planned Some desperate deed afar. His courser would he feed and stroke, Old Hubert said, that never one A steed so fairly ride. XXVIII. Some half-hour's march behind, there came, By Eustace governed fair, A troop escorting Hilda's Dame, With all her nuns, and Clare. No audience had Lord Marmion sought; Ever he feared to aggravate Clara de Clare's suspicious hate; And safer 'twas, he thought, To wait till, from the nuns removed, The influence of kinsmen loved, And suit by Henry's self approved, Her slow consent had wrought. His was no flickering flame, that dies Unless when fanned by looks and sighs, He longed to stretch his wide command O'er luckless Clara's ample land: Yet conquest, by that meanness won He almost loathed to think upon, Led him, at times, to hate the cause, Which made him burst through honour's laws. If e'er he loved, 'twas her alone, Who died within that vault of stone. XXIX. And now, when close at hand they saw Before a venerable pile, Whose turrets viewed, afar, The lofty Bass, the Lambie Isle, The ocean's peace or war. At tolling of a bell, forth came The convent's venerable Dame, And prayed Saint Hilda's Abbess rest With her, a loved and honoured guest, To waft her back to Whitby fair. |