Marmion. The sheep, before the pinching heaven, As best befits the mountain child, Yes, prattlers, yes; the daisy's flower Again shall paint your summer bower; Again the hawthorn shall supply The lambs upon the lea shall bound, The garlands you delight to tie ; The wild birds carol to the round, Too short shall seem the summer day. And, while you frolic light as they, To mute and to material things New life revolving summer brings; The genial call dead Nature hears, But oh my country's wintry state 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 hallowed tomb! Deep grav'd 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, blaz'd, destroy'd,- and was no more. Nor mourn ye less his perish'd Who bade the conqueror go forth, 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. Had'st thou but liv'd, though stripp'd of power, A watchman on the lonely tower, Thy thrilling trump had rous'd the land, When fraud or danger were at hand; throne: Now is the stately column broke, Oh think, how to his latest day, When Death, just hovering, claim'd his prey, With Palinure's unalter'd mood, One unpolluted church remains, 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; Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung; Here, where the fretted aisles prolong If ever from an English heart, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, 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, The names of PITT and Fox alone. Spells of such force no wizard grave E'er fram'd 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. And Fox's shall the notes rebound. '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?' Rest, ardent Spirits! till the cries The leaden silence of your hearse; Though not unmark'd, from northern Marking its cadence rise and fail, 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 has 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, ear. Now slow return the lonely down, The silent pastures bleak and brown, The farm begirt with copsewood 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 milkmaid cheers her way, (Alas, that lawless was their love!) 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; The world defrauded of the high For Oriana, foil'd in fight design, Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line. Warm'd by such names, well may Though dwindled sons of little men, In the fair fields of old romance; Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf, And Valour, lion-mettled lord, 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, And that Red King, who, while of old, Through Boldrewood the chase 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, The Necromancer's felon might; 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 loophole grates, where captives weep, The flanking walls that round it sweep, 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. St. 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, The Castle gates were barr'd; Above the gloomy portal arch, Timing his footsteps to a march, 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 |