Marmion

Eleu loro, &c. Never, O never!                            165

XI

Where shall the traitor rest,
He, the deceiver,
Who could win maiden’s breast,
Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle,                                        170
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                              175
O’er the false-hearted;
His warm blood the wolf shall lap,
Ere life be parted.
Shame and dishonour sit
By his grave ever;                                      180
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.                            185
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,                          190
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,                  195
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,                    200
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,                  205
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,                      210
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,                      215
(The livelong day he had not spoke)
‘The death of a dear friend.’

XIV

Marmion, whose steady heart and eye
Ne’er changed in worst extremity;
Marmion, whose soul could scantly brook,                  220
Even from his King, a haughty look;
Whose accents of command controll’d,
In camps, the boldest of the bold-
Thought, look, and utterance fail’d him now,
Fall’n was his glance, and flush’d his brow:              225
For either in the tone,
Or something in the Palmer’s look,
So full upon his conscience strook,
That answer he found none.
Thus oft it haps, that when within                        230
They shrink at sense of secret sin,
A feather daunts the brave;
A fool’s wild speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes vail their eyes
Before their meanest slave.                              235

XV

Well might he falter! – By his aid
Was Constance Beverley betray’d.
Not that he augur’d of the doom,
Which on the living closed the tomb:
But, tired to hear the desperate maid                      240
Threaten by turns, beseech, upbraid;
And wroth, because, in wild despair,
She practised on the life of Clare;
Its fugitive the Church he gave,