THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ The first was thine, unhappy James!

       Then all thy nobles came:-

       Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle,

       Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle -

       Why should I tell their separate style?

       Each chief of birth and fame,

       Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle,

       Foredoomed to Flodden’s carnage pile,

       Was cited there by name;

       And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye,

       Of Lutterward and Scrivelbaye;

       De Wilton, erst of Aberley,

       The selfsame thundering voice did say.

       But then another spoke:

       “Thy fatal summons I deny,

       And thine infernal lord defy,

       Appealing me to Him on high,

       Who burst the sinner’s yoke.”

       At that dread accent, with a scream.

       Parted the pageant like a dream,

       The summoner was gone.

       Prone on her face the Abbess fell,

       And fast and fast her beads did tell;

       Her nuns came, startled by the yell,

       And found her there alone.

       She marked not, at the scene aghast,

       What time, or how, the Palmer passed.

       XXVII

      Shift we the scene. The camp doth move;

       Dunedin’s streets are empty now,

       Save when, for weal of those they love,

       To pray the prayer, and vow the vow,

       The tottering child, the anxious fair,

       The grey-haired sire, with pious care,

       To chapels and to shrines repair -

       Where is the Palmer now? and where

       The Abbess, Marmion, and Clare?

       Bold Douglas! to Tantallon fair

       They journey in thy charge.

       Lord Marmion rode on his right hand,

       The Palmer still was with the band;

       Angus, like Lindesay, did command

       That none should roam at large.

       But in that Palmer’s altered mien

       A wondrous change might now be seen;

       Freely he spoke of war,

       Of marvels wrought by single hand

       When lifted for a native land;

       And still looked high, as if he planned

       Some desperate deed afar.

       His courser would he feed and stroke,

       And, tucking up his sable frock,

       Would first his mettle bold provoke,

       Then soothe or quell his pride.

       Old Hubert said, that never one

       He saw, except Lord Marmion,

       A steed so fairly ride.

       XXVIII

      Some half-hour’s march behind, there came,

       By Eustace governed fair,

       A troop escorting Hilda’s dame,

       With all her nuns and Clare.

       No audience had Lord Marmion sought;

       Ever he feared to aggravate

       Clara de Clare’s suspicious hate;

       And safer ‘twas, he thought,

       To wait till, from the nuns removed,

       The influence of kinsmen loved,

       And suit by Henry’s self approved,

       Her slow consent had wrought.

       His was no flickering flame, that dies

       Unless when fanned by looks and sighs,

       And lighted oft at lady’s eyes;

       He longed to stretch his wide command

       O’er luckless Clara’s ample land;

       Besides, when Wilton with him vied,

       Although the pang of humbled pride

       The place of jealousy supplied,

       Yet conquest, by that meanness won

       He almost loathed to think upon,

       Led him, at times, to hate the cause

       Which made him burst through honour’s laws

       If e’er he loved, ‘twas her alone

       Who died within that vault of stone.

       XXIX

      And now when close at hand they saw

       North Berwick’s town and lofty Law,

       Fitz-Eustace bade them pause awhile

       Before a venerable pile,

       Whose turrets viewed, afar,

       The lofty Bass, the Lambie Isle,

       The ocean’s peace or war.

       At tolling of a bell, forth came

       The convent’s venerable dame,

       And prayed Saint Hilda’s Abbess rest

       With her, a loved and honoured guest,

       Till Douglas should a barque prepare

       To waft her back to Whitby fair.

       Glad СКАЧАТЬ