DAY set on Norham's castled steep, The battled towers, the donjon keep, The warriors on the turrets high, Seemed forms of giant height: el Flashed back again the western blaze, In lines of dazzling light. II. Saint George's banner, broad and gay, Less bright, and less, was flung; So heavily it hung. The scouts had parted on their search, The Castle gates were barred; Above the gloomy portal arch, w/ The Warder kept his guard Low humming, as he paced along, III. A distant trampling sound he hears; A horseman, darting from the crowd, c/ That closed the Castle barricade, The warder hasted from the wall, And joyfully that knight did call IV. "Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie, And quickly make the entrance free, And, from the platform, spare ye not Lord MARMION waits below!" Then to the Castle's lower ward Sped forty yeomen tall, The iron-studded gates unbarred, Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard, The lofty palisade unsparred, And let the drawbridge fall. V. Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode, But more through toil than age; His square-turned joints, and strength of limb, But in close fight a champion grim, VI. Well was he armed from head to heel, In mail and plate of Milan steel; Was all with burnished gold embossed. A falcon hovered on her nest, With wings outspread, and forward breast; E'en such a falcon, on his shield, Soared sable in an azure field: The golden legend bore aright, "Who checks at me, to death is dight." |