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From “Marmion,” Canto 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, | 5 |
| The flanking walls that round it sweep, | |
| In yellow lustre shone. | |
| The warriors on the turrets high, | |
| Moving athwart the evening sky, | |
| Seemed forms of giant height; | 10 |
| Their armor, as it caught the rays, | |
| Flashed back again the western blaze | |
| In lines of dazzling light. | |
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| Saint George’s banner, broad and gay, | |
| Now faded, as the fading ray | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| The castle gates were barred; | |
| Above the gloomy portal arch, | |
| Timing his footsteps to a march, | |
| The warder kept his guard; | |
| Low humming, as he paced along, | 25 |
| Some ancient Border-gathering song. | |
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| A distant trampling sound he hears; | |
| He looks abroad, and soon appears, | |
| O’er Horncliff hill, a plump of spears, | |
| Beneath a pennon gay; | 30 |
| A horseman, darting from the crowd, | |
| Like lightning from a summer cloud, | |
| Spurs on his mettled courser proud | |
| Before the dark array. | |
| Beneath the sable palisade, | 35 |
| That closed the castle barricade, | |
| His bugle-horn he blew; | |
| The warder hasted from the wall, | |
| And warned the captain in the hall, | |
| For well the blast he knew; | 40 |
| And joyfully that knight did call | |
| To sewer, squire, and seneschal. | |
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| “Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie, | |
| Bring pasties of the doe, | |
| And quickly make, the entrance free, | 45 |
| And bid my heralds ready be, | |
| And every minstrel sound his glee, | |
| And all our trumpets blow; | |
| And, from the platform, spare ye not | |
| To fire a noble salvo-shot: | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| The lofty palisade unsparred, | |
| And let the drawbridge fall. | |
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| Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode, | |
| Proudly his red-roan charger trode, | |
| His helm hung at the saddle-bow; | 60 |
| Well by his visage you might know | |
| He was a stalworth knight, and keen, | |
| And had in many a battle been. | |
| The scar on his brown cheek revealed | |
| A token true of Bosworth field; | 65 |
| His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire, | |
| Showed spirit proud, and prompt to ire; | |
| Yet lines of thought upon his cheek | |
| Did deep design and counsel speak. | |
| His forehead, by his casque worn bare, | 70 |
| His thick mustache, and curly hair, | |
| Coal-black, and grizzled here and there, | |
| But more through toil than age; | |
| His square-turned joints, and strength of limb, | |
| Showed him no carpet-knight so trim, | 75 |
| But in close fight a champion grim, | |
| In camps a leader sage. | |
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| Well was he armed from head to heel, | |
| In mail and plate of Milan steel; | |
| But his strong helm, of mighty cost, | 80 |
| Was all with burnished gold embossed; | |
| Amid the plumage of the crest, | |
| A falcon hovered on her nest, | |
| With wings outspread, and forward breast; | |
| E’en such a falcon, on his shield, | 85 |
| Soared sable in an azure field: | |
| The golden legion bore aright, | |
| Who checks at me to death is dight. | |
| Blue was the charger’s broidered rein; | |
| Blue ribbons decked his arching mane; | 90 |
| The knightly housing’s ample fold | |
| Was velvet blue, and trapped with gold. | |
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| Behind him rode two gallant squires | |
| Of noble name and knightly sires; | |
| They burned the gilded spurs to claim; | 95 |
| For well could each a war-horse tame, | |
| Could draw the bow, the sword could sway, | |
| And lightly bear the ring away; | |
| Nor less with courteous precepts stored, | |
| Could dance in hall, and carve at board, | 100 |
| And frame love-ditties passing rare, | |
| And sing them to a lady fair. | |
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| Four men-at-arms came at their backs, | |
| With halbert, bill, and battle-axe; | |
| They bore Lord Marmion’s lance so strong, | 105 |
| And led his sumpter-mules along, | |
| And ambling palfrey, when at need | |
| Him listed ease his battle-steed. | |
| The last and trustiest of the four | |
| On high his forky pennon bore; | 110 |
| Like swallow’s tail, in shape and hue, | |
| Fluttered the streamer glossy blue, | |
| Where, blazoned sable, as before, | |
| The towering falcon seemed to soar. | |
| Last, twenty yeomen, two and two, | 115 |
| In hosen black, and jerkins blue, | |
| With falcons broidered on each breast, | |
| Attended on their lord’s behest: | |
| Each, chosen for an archer good, | |
| Knew hunting-craft by lake or wood; | 120 |
| Each one a six-foot bow could bend, | |
| And far a cloth-yard shaft could send; | |
| Each held a boar-spear tough and strong, | |
| And at their belts their quivers rung. | |
| Their dusty palfreys and array | 125 |
| Showed they had marched a weary way. | |
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