The hands, the spear that lately grasped,
Still in the mailed gauntlet clasped,

Were interchanged in greeting dear;

Visors were raised, and faces shewn,

And many a friend, to friend made known,

Partook of social cheer.

Some drove the jolly bowl about;

With dice and draughts some chased the day;

And some, with many a merry shout,

In riot, revelry, and rout

Pursued the foot-ball play.

VII.

Yet, be it known, had bugles blown,

Or sign of war been seen,

Those bands, so fair together ranged,

Those hands, so frankly interchanged,

Had dyed with gore the

green:

The merry shout by Teviot-side

Had sunk in war-cries wild and wide,

And in the groan of death;

And whingers, now in friendship bare,

The social meal to part and share,

Had found a bloody sheath.

'Twixt truce and war, such sudden change

Was not unfrequent, nor held strange,

In the old Border-day ;

But yet on Branksome's towers and town, In peaceful merriment, sunk down

The sun's declining ray.

VIII.

The blithesome signs of wassel gay
Decayed not with the dying day;

Soon through the latticed windows tall,
Of lofty Branksome's lordly hall,
Divided square by shafts of stone,

Huge flakes of ruddy lustre shone ;
Nor less the gilded rafters rang

With merry harp and beakers' clang;