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(From Marmion)
AT length up that wild dale they wind, | |
| Where Crichtoun Castle crowns the bank; | |
| For there the Lion’s care assigned | |
| A lodging meet for Marmion’s rank. | |
| That Castle rises on the steep | 5 |
| Of the green vale of Tyne: | |
| And far beneath, where slow they creep | |
| From pool to eddy, dark and deep, | |
| Where alders moist and willows weep, | |
| You hear her streams repine. | 10 |
| The towers in different ages rose; | |
| Their various architecture shows | |
| The builders’ various hands; | |
| A mighty mass, that could oppose, | |
| When deadliest hatred fired its foes, | 15 |
| The vengeful Douglas bands. | |
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| Crichtoun! though now thy miry court | |
| But pens the lazy steer and sheep, | |
| Thy turrets rude, and tottered Keep, | |
| Have been the minstrel’s loved resort. | 20 |
| Oft have I traced, within thy fort, | |
| Of mouldering shields the mystic sense, | |
| Scutcheons of honor or pretence, | |
| Quartered in old armorial sort, | |
| Remains of rude magnificence. | 25 |
| Nor wholly yet had time defaced | |
| Thy lordly gallery fair; | |
| Nor yet the stony cord unbraced, | |
| Whose twisted notes, with roses laced, | |
| Adorn thy ruined stair. | 30 |
| Still rises unimpaired, below, | |
| The courtyard’s graceful portico; | |
| Above its cornice, row and row | |
| Of fair hewn facets richly show | |
| Their pointed diamond form, | 35 |
| Though there but houseless cattle go, | |
| To shield them from the storm. | |
| And, shuddering, still may we explore, | |
| Where oft whilom were captives pent, | |
| The darkness of thy Massy More; | 40 |
| Or, from thy grass-grown battlement, | |
| May trace, in undulating line, | |
| The sluggish mazes of the Tyne. | |
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