Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie:
Tunstall lies dead upon the field;
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down :-my life is reft ;-
The Admiral alone is left.

Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,--
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.-
Must I bid twice?-hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone-to die."
They parted, and alone he lay ;
Clare drew her from the sight away,
Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmur'd,-" Is there none,
Of all my halls have nurst,

Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of blessed water, from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst!"

O Woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quiv'ring aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!—

Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the Baron's casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran:

Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.

She stoop'd her by the runnel's side,

But in abhorrence backward drew;
For, oozing from the mountain wide,
Where rag'd the war, a dark red tide
Was curdling in the streamlet blue.
Where shall she turn ?-behold her mark
A little fountain-cell,

Where water, clear as diamond-spark,
In a stone basin fell.

Above, some half-worn letters say,

"Drink. weary. pilgrim. drink. and. prag.
For the kind, soul, of. Sybil. Grey.
Who. built. this. cross., and . well."
She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied

A Monk supporting Marmion's head;
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrive the dying, bless the dead.

Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave.

With fruitless labour, Clara bound,
And strove to staunch, the gushing wound:
The Monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church's prayers;
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,

And that the priest he could not hear,

For that she ever sung,

"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,

Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!"

So the notes rung;

"Avoid thee, Fiend!-with cruel hand

Shake not the dying sinner's sand!

Oh look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer's grace divine;
Oh think on faith and bliss!--
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,
But never aught like this."-
The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swell'd the gale,
And-STANLEY! was the cry ;—
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fir'd his glazing eye:
With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"

Were the last words of Marmion.2

[Clara, as the night falls, is extricated from the field by the monk.]

But as they left the dark'ning heath,

More desp'rate grew the strife of death.

The English shafts in volleys hail'd,

In headlong charge their horse assail'd:

Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep,
To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their king.

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,
Unbroken was the ring;

He thinks of the nun, Constance, whom he had seduced from her convent, and afterwards left to the cruel death which the church awarded to breach of monastic vows, -See canto ii. The words "In the lost," &c., are from the song of Fitz-Eustace in canto iii. The Lady of the Lake' has nothing so good as the death of Marmion."-Mackintosh.

2

The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

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

No thought was there of dastard flight ;—
Link'd in the serried phalanx tight,

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

Till utter darkness clos'd 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,

Disorder'd, 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,1
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 shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield 12

The "Flowers of the Forest," for example.

The powerful poetry of these passages can receive no illustration from any praises or observations of ours. It is superior, in our apprehension, to all that this author has hitherto produced. From the moment the author gets in sight of Flodden field, indeed, to the end of the poem, there is no tame writing-he does not once flag. There is a flight of five or six hundred lines in which he never stoops his wing, nor wavers in his

And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light,
And mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.

High on the south, huge Benvenue
Down on the lake in masses threw

Crags, knolls, and mounds, confus'dly hurl'd,
The fragments of an earlier world:
A 'wildering forest feathered o'er
His ruin'd sides and summit hoar;
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.'

STANZA XIX.

THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

A chieftain's daughter seem'd the maid;
Her satin snood,2 her silken plaid,
Her golden brooch, such birth betray'd.
And seldom was a snood amid

Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid,
Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven's wing:
And seldom o'er a breast so fair
Mantled a plaid with modest care;
And never brooch the folds combined
Above a heart more good and kind.
Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;
Not Katrine, in her mirror blue,
Gives back the shaggy banks more true,
Than every free-born glance confess'd
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claim'd a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion pour'd a prayer,
Or tale of injury call'd forth

The indignant spirit of the north.

course, but carries the reader forward with a more rapid, sustained, and lofty movement, than any epic bard we can at present remember."-Jeffrey.

So popular was the dead king, that his affectionate subjects would not believe in his death, but had long a strong faith that he would return. The French peasantry seem to have some similar superstition about Napoleon. For other examples of this in history, see p. 256, supra.

Perhaps the art of landscape-painting in poetry has never been displayed in higher perfection than in these stanzas "-Critical Review, Aug. 1820. "Benvenue, the little mountain, i. e. as contrasted with Ben-Ledi and Ben-Lomond; Benan, a diminutive of Ben." "Giants" and "enchanted land," imagery from Scott's favourite romances: allusions to this literature are scattered profusely over his poetry.

2 A band encircling the forehead, and confining the hair, worn in Scotland by an unmarried female: "when she passed, by marriage, into the matron state, it was exchanged for the curch, toy, or coif."

One only passion unreveal'd,

With maiden pride the maid conceal'd,
Yet not less purely felt the flame ;-
O need I tell that passion's name?

CANTO II. STANZA XXII.

PATERNAL AFFECTION.

Some feelings are to mortals given,
With less of earth in them than heaven :
And if there be a human tear

From passion's dross refined and clear,
A tear so limpid and so meek,

It would not stain an angel's cheek,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head!

He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.

The font, reappearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,

But the voice of the weeper

Wails manhood in glory.

The autumn winds rushing,

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing,
When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,2

Sage counsel in cumber,

Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!

Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,

Thou art gone, and for ever!

A Highland dirge; compare the form and use of this word by Dunbar, p. 31, supra. This coronach, and the succeeding song, occur in that splendid passage of the poem, the summoning of the Clan Alpine, by sending the fiery cross through the chief's territories. 2 Or corri, "the hollow side of the hill where game usually lies:" this word gives name to many places in Scotland-Foray (forage), a Highland plundering expedition; on the Borders, where horses were used, the word was Raid (ride).