Honour, with his spotless shield;Attention, with fix’d eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she shrinks to hear; 305
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning upon his own good sword.
Well has thy fair achievement shown, 310
A worthy meed may thus be won;
Ytene’s oaks-beneath whose shade
Their theme the merry minstrels made,
Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold,
And that Red King, who, while of old, 315
Through Boldrewood the chase he led,
By his loved huntsman’s arrow bled-
Ytene’s oaks have heard again
Renew’d such legendary strain;
For thou hast sung, how He of Gaul, 320
That Amadis so famed in hall,
For Oriana, foil’d in fight
The Necromancer’s felon might;
And well in modern verse hast wove
Partenopex’s mystic love; 325
Hear, then, attentive to my lay,
A knightly tale of Albion’s elder day.
CANTO FIRST.
THE CASTLE
Day set on Norham’s castled steep,
And Tweed’s fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot’s mountains lone:
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates, where captives weep, 5
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.
The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seem’d forms of giant height: 10
Their armour, as it caught the rays,
Flash’d back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.
Saint George’s banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray 15
Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the Donjon Tower,
So heavily it hung.
The scouts had parted on their search, 20
The Castle gates were barr’d;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The Warder kept his guard;
Low humming, as he paced along, 25
Some ancient Border gathering-song.
A distant trampling sound he hears;
He looks abroad, and soon appears,
O’er Horncliff-hill a plump of spears,
Beneath a pennon gay; 30
A horseman, darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade, 35
That closed the Castle barricade,
His buglehorn he blew;
The warder hasted from the wall,
And warn’d the Captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew; 40
And joyfully that knight did call,
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.
‘Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe,
And quickly make the entrance free 45
And bid my heralds ready be,
And every minstrel sound his glee,
And all our trumpets blow;
And, from the platform, spare ye not
To fire a noble salvo-shot; 50
Lord MARMION waits below!’
Then to the Castle’s lower ward
Sped forty yeomen tall,
The iron-studded gates unbarr’d,
Raised the portcullis’ ponderous guard, 55
The lofty palisade unsparr’d,
And let the drawbridge fall.
Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddlebow; 60
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalworth knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been;
The scar on his brown cheek reveal’d
A token true of Bosworth field; 65
His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire,
Show’d spirit proud, and prompt to ire;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
His forehead by his casque worn bare, 70
His thick mustache, and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,
But more through toil than age;
His square-turn’d joints, and strength of limb,
Show’d him no carpet knight so trim, 75
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage.
Well was he arm’d from head to heel,
In mail and plate of Milan steel;
But his strong helm, of mighty cost, 80
Was all with burnish’d gold emboss’d;
Amid the plumage of the crest,
A
