Nought but imperfect murmurs slip From her convulsed and quivering lip; 'Twixt each attempt all was so still, You seem'd to hear a distant rill,

'Twas ocean's swells and falls; For though this vault of sin and fear Was to the sounding surge so near, A tempest there you scarce could hear So massive were the walls.

XXVI.

At length, an effort sent apart
The blood that curdled to her heart,
And light came to her eye,
And colour dawn'd upon her cheek,
A hectic and a flutter'd streak,
Like that left on the Cheviot peak,

By Autumn's stormy sky;
And when her silence broke at length,
Still as she spoke she gathered strength,
And arm'd herself to bear.

It was a fearful sight to see
Such high resolve and constancy,
In form so soft and fair.

XXVII.

"I speak not to implore your grace,
Well know I, for one minute's space
Successless might I sue:

Nor do I speak your prayers to gain
For if a death of lingering pain,
To cleanse my sins, be penance vain,
Vain are your masses too. —

I listen'd to a traitor's tale,
I left the convent and the veil ;
For three long years I bow'd my pride,
A horse-boy in his train to ride;
And well my folly's meed he gave,
Who forfeited, to be his slave,
All here, and all beyond the grave.—
He saw young Clara's face more fair,
He knew her of broad lands the heir,
Forgot his vows, his faith forswore,
And Constance was beloved no more.-
'Tis an old tale, and often told;

But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like

me.

XXVIII.

"The King approved his favourite's aim; In vain a rival barr'd his claim,

Whose fate with Clare's was plight, For he attaints that rival's fame With treason's charge-and on they

came,

In mortal lists to fight.
Their oaths are said,
Their prayers are pray'd,

Their lances in the rest are laid,
They meet in mortal shock;
And, hark! the throng, with thundering
cry,

Shout 'Marmion! Marmion! to the sky, De Wilton to the block !'

Say ye, who preach Heaven shall decide When in the lists two champions ride,

Say, was Heaven's justice here? When, loyal in his love and faith, Wilton found overthrow or death,

Beneath a traitor's spear?

How false the charge, how true he fell,
This guilty packet best can tell.”-
Then drew a packet from her breast,
Paused, gather'd voice, and spoke the

rest.

XXIX.

"Still was false Marmion's bridal staid ;
To Whitby's convent fled the maid,
The hated match to shun.
'Ho! shifts she thus?' king Henry
cried;

'Sir Marmion, she shall be thy bride,
If she were sworn a nun.'
One way remain'd-the King's command
Sent Marmion to the Scottish land:
I linger'd here, and rescue plann'd
For Clara and for me:

This caitiff Monk, for gold, did swear,
He would to Whitby's shrine repair,
And, by his drugs, my rival fair

A saint in heaven should be. But ill the dastard kept his oath, Whose cowardice has undone us both.

Had fortune my last hope betray'd,
This packet, to the King convey'd,
Had given him to the headsman's stroke,
Although my heart that instant broke.
Now, men of death, work forth your will,
For I can suffer, and be still;

And come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last.

XXXI.

"Yet dread me, from my living tomb,
Ye vassal slaves of bloody Rome!
If Marmion's late remorse should wake,
Full soon such vengeance will he take,
That you shall wish the fiery Dane
Had rather been your guest again.
Behind, a darker hour ascends!
The altars quake, the crosier bends,
The ire of a despotic King

Rides forth upon destruction's wing; Then shall these vaults, so strong and deep,

Burst open to the sea-winds' sweep;
Some traveller then shall find my bones
Whitening amid disjointed stones,
And, ignorant of priests' cruelty,
Marvel such relics here should be."
XXXII.

Fix'd was her look, and stern her air: Back from her shoulders stream'd her hair;

The locks, that wont her brow to shade,
Stared up erectly from her head;
Her figure seem'd to rise more high;
Her voice, despair's wild energy
Had given a tone of prophecy.
Appall'd the astonish'd conclave sate;
With stupid eyes, the men of fate
Gazed on the light inspired form,
And listen'd for the avenging storm;
The judges felt the victim's dread;
No hand was moved, no word was said,

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.

* See Note 74, p. 511.

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 mis-spent,
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.

Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

"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 quenched 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 snatched 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 lands, thy children's wrongs to feel,
And witness woes thou couldst 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.

* Killed at Auerstadt, 1806.

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 snatched, 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,
* Sir Sidney Smith.

↑ Sir Ralph Abercromby.

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 whitened 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 weather-beaten 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 h

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 would he exchange
His dark Lochaber's boundless range:
Not for fair Devon's meads forsake
Bennevis grey, and Garry'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 cliffs 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 honeysuckle 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 scatter'd 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.

For 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!

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.