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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!

XXXV.

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.

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To moated Lichfield's lofty pile;

And there, beneath the southern aisle,
A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair,
Did long Lord Marmion's image bear.
(Now vainly for its scite 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
The last Lord Marmion lay not there.
From Ettrick woods, a peasant swain
Followed his lord to Flodden plain,-

prayer,

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.

XXXVII.

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;

And shepherd boys repair

To seek the water flag and rush,
And rest them by the hazel bush,

And plait their garlands fair;

Nor dream they sit upon the grave,

That holds the bones of Marmion brave.

When thou shalt find the little hill,

With thy heart commune, and be still.

If ever, in temptation strong,

Thou left'st the right path for the wrong;

If every devious step, thus trode,

Still led thee further from the road;

Dread thou to speak presumptuous doom,

On noble Marmion's lowly tomb;

But say, "He died a gallant knight,

With sword in hand, for England's right."

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