‘Saint Mary! saw’st thou e’er such sight?
How pale his cheek, his eye how bright,
Whene’er the firebrand’s fickle light
Glances beneath his cowl!
Full on our Lord he sets his eye;
For his best palfrey, would not I
Endure that sullen scowl.’
VII.
But Marmion, as to chase the awe
Which thus had quell’d their hearts, who saw
The ever-varying fire-light show
That figure stern and face of woe,
Now call’d upon a squire:-
‘Fitz-Eustace, know’st thou not some lay,
To speed the lingering night away?
We slumber by the fire.’-
VIII.
‘So please you,’ thus the youth rejoin’d,
‘Our choicest minstrel’s left behind.
Ill may we hope to please your ear,
Accustom’d Constant’s strains to hear.
The harp full deftly can he strike,
And wake the lover’s lute alike;
To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush
Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush,
No nightingale her love-lorn tune
More sweetly warbles to the moon.
Woe to the cause, whate’er it be,
Detains from us his melody,
Lavish’d on rocks, and billows stern,
Or duller monks of Lindisfarne.
Now must I venture as I may,
To sing his favourite roundelay.’
IX.
A mellow voice Fitz-Eustace had,
The air he chose was wild and sad;
Such have I heard, in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On Lowland plains, the ripen’d ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song:
Oft have I listen’d, and stood still,
As it came soften’d up the hill,
And deem’d it the lament of men
Who languish’d for their native glen;
And thought how sad would be such sound,
On Susquehanna’s swampy ground,
Kentucky’s wood-encumber’d brake,
Or wild Ontario’s boundless lake,
Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,
Recall’d fair Scotland’s hills again!
X.
Song
Where shall the lover rest,
Whom the fates sever
From his true maiden’s breast,
Parted for ever?
Where, through groves deep and high,
Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die,
Under the willow.
CHORUS.
Eleu loro, &c. Soft shall be his pillow.
There, through the summer day,
Cool streams are laving;
There, while the tempests sway,
Scarce are boughs waving;
There, thy rest shalt thou take,
Parted for ever,
Never again to wake,
Never, O never!
CHORUS.
Eleu loro, &c. Never, O never!
XI.
Where shall the traitor rest,
He, the deceiver,
Who could win maiden’s breast,
Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war’s rattle
With groans of the dying.
CHORUS.
Eleu loro, &c. There shall he be lying.
Her wing shall the eagle flap
O’er the false-hearted;
His warm blood the wolf shall lap,
Ere life be parted.
Shame and dishonour sit
By his grave ever;
Blessing shall hallow it,-
Never, O never.
CHORUS.
Eleu loro, &c. Never, O never!
XII.
It ceased, the melancholy sound;
And silence sunk on all around.
The air was sad; but sadder still
It fell on Marmion’s ear,
And plain’d as if disgrace and ill,
And shameful death, were near.
He drew his mantle past his face,
Between it and the band,
And rested with his head a space,
Reclining on his hand.
His thoughts I scan not; but I ween,
That, could their import have been seen,
The meanest groom in all the hall,
That e’er tied courser to a stall,
Would scarce have wished to be their prey,
For Lutterward and Fontenaye.
XIII.
High minds, of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse!
Fear, for their scourge, mean villains have,
Thou art the torturer of the brave!
Yet fatal strength they boast to steel
Their minds to bear the wounds they feel,
Even while they writhe beneath the smart
Of civil conflict in the heart.
For soon Lord Marmion raised his head,
And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said,
‘Is it not strange, that, as ye sung,
Seem’d in mine ear a death-peal rung,
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister’s soul?
Say, what may this portend?’-
Then first the Palmer silence broke,
(The livelong day he had not spoke)
‘The death of a dear friend.’