ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight ;—
Linked in the serried phalanx tight,

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well,

Till utter darkness closed her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded king:
Then skilful Surrey's sage commands
Led back from strife his shatter'd bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves, from wasted lands,
Sweep back to ocean blue.

Then did their loss his foemen know;

Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,

They melted from the field as snow,

When streams are swoln, and south winds blow,

Dissolves in silent dew.

Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,

While many a broken band,

Disordered, through her currents dash,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.

Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong :
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,
Of Flodden's fatal field,

Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield!

XXXVI.

Day dawns upon the mountain's side :-
There, Scotland! lay thy bravest pride,
Chiefs, knights, and nobles, many a one;
The sad survivors all are gone.—

View not that corpse mistrustfully,
Defaced and mangled though it be;

Nor to yon Border castle high

Look northward with upbraiding eye;

Nor cherish hope in vain,

That, journeying far on foreign strand,
The Royal Pilgrim to his land

May yet return again.

He saw the wreck his rashness wrought;
Reckless of life, he desperate fought,

And fell on Flodden plain :

And well in death his trusty brand,

Firm clenched within his manly hand,

Beseemed the monarch slain.

But, O! how changed since yon blithe night!—— Gladly I turn me from the sight,

Unto my tale again.

XXXVII.

Short is my tale :—Fitz-Eustace' care

A pierced and mangled body bare
To moated Litchfield's lofty pile;

And there, beneath the southern aisle,

19

A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair,

Did long Lord Marmion's image bear.
(Now vainly for its site you look;

'Twas levelled, when fanatic Brook

The fair cathedral stormed and took;

But, thanks to heaven, and good Saint Chad,
A guerdon meet the spoiler had!)

There erst was martial Marmion found,
His feet upon a couchant hound,

His hands to heaven upraised;

And all around, on scutcheon rich,
And tablet carved, and fretted niche,
His arms and feats were blazed.

And yet, though all was carved so fair,
And priests for Marmion breathed the prayer,
The last Lord Marmion lay not there.
From Ettrick woods, a peasant swain
Followed his lord to Flodden plain,—
One of those flowers, whom plaintive lay
In Scotland mourns as "wede away :”

Sore wounded, Sybil's Cross he spied,
And dragged him to its foot, and died,
Close by the noble Marmion's side.
The spoilers stripped and gashed the slain,
And thus their corpses were mista’en;
And thus, in the proud Baron's tomb,

The lowly woodsman took the room.

XXXVIII.

Less easy task it were, to shew

Lord Marmion's nameless grave, and low : They dug his grave e'en where he lay,

But every mark is gone;

Time's wasting hand has done away
The simple Cross of Sybil Grey,

And broke her font of stone:

But yet from out the little hill
Oozes the slender springlet still.

Oft halts the stranger there,

For thence may best his curious eye
The memorable field descry;

« 前へ次へ »