Marmion

by Walter Scott

The judges felt the victim’s dread;

  No hand was moved, no word was said,

  Till thus the Abbot’s doom was given,

  Raising his sightless balls to heaven:-

  ‘Sister, let thy sorrows cease;

  Sinful brother, part in peace!’

  From that dire dungeon, place of doom,

  Of execution too, and tomb,

  Paced forth the judges three;

  Sorrow it were, and shame, to tell

  The butcher-work that there befell,

  When they had glided from the cell

  Of sin and misery.

  XXXIII.

  An hundred winding steps convey

  That conclave to the upper day;

  But, ere they breathed the fresher air,

  They heard the shriekings of despair,

  And many a stifled groan:

  With speed their upward way they take,

  (Such speed as age and fear can make,)

  And cross’d themselves for terror’s sake,

  As hurrying, tottering on,

  Even in the vesper’s heavenly tone,

  They seem’d to hear a dying groan,

  And bade the passing knell to toll

  For welfare of a parting soul.

  Slow o’er the midnight wave it swung,

  Northumbrian rocks in answer rung;

  To Warkworth cell the echoes roll’d,

  His beads the wakeful hermit told,

  The Bamborough peasant raised his head,

  But slept ere half a prayer he said;

  So far was heard the mighty knell,

  The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,

  Spread his broad nostril to the wind,

  Listed before, aside, behind,

  Then couch’d him down beside the hind,

  And quaked among the mountain fern,

  To hear that sound, so dull and stern.

  INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THIRD.

  TO WILLIAM ERSKINE, ESQ.

  Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

  Like April morning clouds, that pass,

  With varying shadow, o’er the grass,

  And imitate, on field and furrow,

  Life’s chequer’d scene of joy and sorrow;

  Like streamlet of the mountain north,

  Now in a torrent racing forth,

  Now winding slow its silver train,

  And almost slumbering on the plain;

  Like breezes of the autumn day,

  Whose voice inconstant dies away,

  And ever swells again as fast,

  When the ear deems its murmur past;

  Thus various, my romantic theme

  Flits, winds, or sinks, a morning dream.

  Yet pleased, our eye pursues the trace

  Of Light and Shade’s inconstant race;

  Pleased, views the rivulet afar,

  Weaving its maze irregular;

  And pleased, we listen as the breeze

  Heaves its wild sigh through Autumn trees;

  Then, wild as cloud, or stream, or gale,

  Flow on, flow unconfined, my Tale!

  Need I to thee, dear Erskine, tell

  I love the license all too well,

  In sounds now lowly, and now strong,

  To raise the desultory song?

  Oft, when ‘mid such capricious chime,

  Some transient fit of lofty rhyme

  To thy kind judgment seem’d excuse

  For many an error of the muse,

  Oft hast thou said, ‘If, still misspent,

  Thine hours to poetry are lent,

  Go, and to tame thy wandering course,

  Quaff from the fountain at the source;

  Approach those masters, o’er whose tomb

  Immortal laurels ever bloom:

  Instructive of the feebler bard,

  Still from the grave their voice is heard;

  From them, and from the paths they show’d,

  Choose honour’d guide and practised road;

  Nor ramble on through brake and maze,

  With harpers rude of barbarous days.

  ‘Or deem’st thou not our later time

  Yields topic meet for classic rhyme?

  Hast thou no elegiac verse

  For Brunswick’s venerable hearse?

  What! not a line, a tear, a sigh,

  When valour bleeds for liberty?-

  Oh, hero of that glorious time,

  When, with unrivall’d light sublime,-

  Though martial Austria, and though all

  The might of Russia, and the Gaul,

  Though banded Europe stood her foes-

  The star of Brandenburgh arose!

  Thou couldst not live to see her beam

  For ever quench’d in Jena’s stream.

  Lamented Chief!-it was not given

  To thee to change the doom of Heaven,

  And crush that dragon in its birth,

  Predestined scourge of guilty earth.

  Lamented Chief!-not thine the power,

  To save in that presumptuous hour,

  When Prussia hurried to the field,

  And snatch’d the spear, but left the shield!

  Valour and skill ‘twas thine to try,

  And, tried in vain, ‘twas thine to die.

  Ill had it seem’d thy silver hair

  The last, the bitterest pang to share,

  For princedoms reft, and scutcheons riven,

  And birthrights to usurpers given;

  Thy land’s, thy children’s wrongs to feel,

  And witness woes thou could’st not heal!

  On thee relenting Heaven bestows

  For honour’d life an honour’d close;

  And when revolves, in time’s sure change,

  The hour of Germany’s revenge,

  When, breathing fury for her sake,

  Some new Arminius shall awake,

  Her champion, ere he strike, shall come

  To whet his sword on BRUNSWICK’S tomb,

  ‘Or of the Red-Cross hero teach

  Dauntless in dungeon as on breach:

  Alike to him the sea, the shore,

  The brand, the bridle, or the oar:

  Alike to him the war that calls

  Its votaries to the shatter’d walls,

  Which the grim Turk, besmear’d with blood,

  Against the Invincible made good;

  Or that, whose thundering voice could wake

  The silence of the polar lake,

  When stubborn Russ, and metal’d Swede,

  On the warp’d wave their death-game play’d;

  Or that, where Vengeance and Affright

  Howl’d round the father of the fight,

  Who snatch’d, on Alexandria’s sand,

  The conqueror’s wreath with dying hand.

  ‘Or, if to touch such chord be thine,

  Restore the ancient tragic line,

  And emulate the notes that rung

  From the wild harp, which silent hung

  By silver Avon’s holy shore,

  Till twice an hundred years roll’d o’er;

  When she, the bold Enchantress, came,

  With fearless hand and heart on flame!

  From the pale willow snatch’d the treasure,

  And swept it with a kindred measure,

  Till Avon’s swans, while rung the grove

  With Montfort’s hate and Basil’s love,

  Awakening at the inspired strain,

  Deem’d their own Shakspeare lived again.’

  Thy friendship thus thy judgment wronging,

  With praises not to me belonging,

  In task more meet for mightiest powers,

  Wouldst thou engage my thriftless hours.

  But say, my Erskine, hast thou weigh’d

  That secret power by all obey’d,

  Which warps not less the passive mind,

  Its source conceal’d or undefined;

  Whether an impulse, that has birth

/>   Soon as the infant wakes on earth,

  One with our feelings and our powers,

  And rather part of us than ours;

  Or whether fitlier term’d the sway

  Of habit, form’d in early day?

  Howe’er derived, its force confest

  Rules with despotic sway the breast,

  And drags us on by viewless chain,

  While taste and reason plead in vain.

  Look east, and ask the Belgian why,

  Beneath Batavia’s sultry sky,

  He seeks not eager to inhale

  The freshness of the mountain gale,

  Content to rear his whiten’d wall

  Beside the dank and dull canal?

  He’ll say, from youth he loved to see

  The white sail gliding by the tree.

  Or see yon weatherbeaten hind,

  Whose sluggish herds before him wind,

  Whose tatter’d plaid and rugged cheek

  His northern clime and kindred speak;

  Through England’s laughing meads he goes,

  And England’s wealth around him flows;

  Ask, if it would content him well,

  At ease in those gay plains to dwell,

  Where hedge-rows spread a verdant screen,

  And spires and forests intervene,

  And the neat cottage peeps between?

  No! not for these will he exchange

  His dark Lochaber’s boundless range;

  Not for fair Devon’s meads forsake

  Bennevis grey, and Carry’s lake.

  Thus while I ape the measure wild

  Of tales that charm’d me yet a child,

  Rude though they be, still with the chime

  Return the thoughts of early time;

  And feelings, roused in life’s first day,

  Glow in the line, and prompt the lay.

  Then rise those crags, that mountain tower

  Which charm’d my fancy’s wakening hour.

  Though no broad river swept along,

  To claim, perchance, heroic song;

  Though sigh’d no groves in summer gale,

  To prompt of love a softer tale;

  Though scarce a puny streamlet’s speed

  Claim’d homage from a shepherd’s reed;

  Yet was poetic impulse given,

  By the green hill and clear blue heaven.

  It was a barren scene, and wild,

  Where naked cliff’s were rudely piled;

  But ever and anon between

  Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green;

  And well the lonely infant knew

  Recesses where the wall-flower grew,

  And honey-suckle loved to crawl

  Up the low crag and ruin’d wall.

  I deem’d such nooks the sweetest shade

  The sun in all its round survey’d;

  And still I thought that shatter’d tower

  The mightiest work of human power;

  And marvell’d as the aged hind

  With some strange tale bewitch’d my mind,

  Of forayers, who, with headlong force,

  Down from that strength had spurr’d their horse,

  Their southern rapine to renew,

  Far in the distant Cheviots blue,

  And, home returning, fill’d the hall

  With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl.

  Methought that still with trump and clang,

  The gateway’s broken arches rang;

  Methought grim features, seam’d with scars,

  Glared through the window’s rusty bars,

  And ever, by the winter hearth,

  Old tales I heard of woe or mirth,

  Of lovers’ slights, of ladies’ charms,

  Of witches’ spells, of warriors’ arms;

  Of patriot battles, won of old

  By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold;

  Of later fields of feud and fight,

  When, pouring from their Highland height,

  The Scottish clans, in headlong sway,

  Had swept the scarlet ranks away.

  While stretch’d at length upon the floor,

  Again I fought each combat o’er,

  Pebbles and shells, in order laid,

  The mimic ranks of war display’d;

  And onward still the Scottish Lion bore,

  And still the scattered Southron fled before.

  Still, with vain fondness, could I trace,

  Anew, each kind familiar face,

  That brighten’d at our evening fire!

  From the thatch’d mansion’s grey-hair’d Sire,

  Wise without learning, plain and good,

  And sprung of Scotland’s gentler blood;

  Whose eye, in age, quick, clear, and keen,

  Show’d what in youth its glance had been;

  Whose doom discording neighbours sought,

  Content with equity unbought;

  To him the venerable Priest,

  Our frequent and familiar guest,

  Whose life and manners well could paint

  Alike the student and the saint;

  Alas! whose speech too oft I broke

  With gambol rude and timeless joke:

  For I was wayward, bold, and wild,

  A self-will’d imp, a grandame’s child;

  But half a plague, and half a jest,

  Was still endured, beloved, caress’d.

  From me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask

  The classic poet’s well-conn’d task?

  Nay, Erskine, nay-On the wild hill

  Let the wild heath-bell flourish still;

  Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,

  But freely let the woodbine twine,

  And leave untrimm’d the eglantine:

  Nay, my friend, nay-Since oft thy praise

  Hath given fresh vigour to my lays;

  Since oft thy judgment could refine

  My flatten’d thought, or cumbrous line;

  Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,

  And in the minstrel spare the friend.

  Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,

  Flow forth, flow unrestrain’d, my Tale!

  CANTO THIRD.

  THE HOSTEL, OR INN.

  I.

  The livelong day Lord Marmion rode:

  The mountain path the Palmer show’d

  By glen and streamlet winded still,

  Where stunted birches hid the rill.

  They might not choose the lowland road,

  For the Merse forayers were abroad,

  Who, fired with hate and thirst of prey,

  Had scarcely fail’d to bar their way.

  Oft on the trampling band, from crown

  Of some tall cliff, the deer look’d down;

  On wing of jet, from his repose

  In the deep heath, the black-cock rose;

  Sprung from the gorse the timid roe,

  Nor waited for the bending bow;

  And when the stony path began,

  By which the naked peak they wan,

  Up flew the snowy ptarmigan.

  The noon had long been pass’d before

  They gain’d the height of Lammermoor;

  Thence winding down the northern way,

  Before them, at the close of day,

  Old Gifford’s towers and hamlet lay.

  II.

  No summons calls them to the tower,

  To spend the hospitable hour.

  To Scotland’s camp the Lord was gone;

  His cautious dame, in bower alone,

  Dreaded her castle to unclose,

  So late, to unknown friends or foes.

  On through the hamlet as they paced,

  Before a porch, whose front was graced

  With bush and flagon trimly placed,

  Lord Marmion drew his rein:

  The village inn seem’d large, though rude;

  Its cheerful fire and hearty food

  Might well relieve his
train.

  Down from their seats the horsemen sprung,

  With jingling spurs the court-yard rung;

  They bind their horses to the stall,

  For forage, food, and firing call,

  And various clamour fills the hall:

  Weighing the labour with the cost,

  Toils everywhere the bustling host.

  III

  Soon, by the chimney’s merry blaze,

  Through the rude hostel might you gaze;

  Might see, where, in dark nook aloof,

  The rafters of the sooty roof

  Bore wealth of winter cheer;

  Of sea-fowl dried, and solands store,

  And gammons of the tusky boar,

  And savoury haunch of deer.

  The chimney arch projected wide;

  Above, around it, and beside,

  Were tools for housewives’ hand;

  Nor wanted, in that martial day,

  The implements of Scottish fray,

  The buckler, lance, and brand.

  Beneath its shade, the place of state,

  On oaken settle Marmion sate,

  And view’d around the blazing hearth.

  His followers mix in noisy mirth;

  Whom with brown ale, in jolly tide,

  From ancient vessels ranged aside,

  Full actively their host supplied.

  IV.

  Theirs was the glee of martial breast,

  And laughter theirs at little jest;

  And oft Lord Marmion deign’d to aid,