Marmion

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.

III

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.

IV

‘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.

V

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.

VI

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 falcon hover’d on her nest,
With wings outspread, and forward breast;
E’en such a falcon, on his shield,                          85
Soar’d sable in an azure field:
The golden legend bore aright,
Who checks at me, to death is dight.
Blue was the charger’s broider’d rein;
Blue ribbons deck’d his arching mane;                      90
The knightly housing’s ample fold
Was velvet blue, and trapp’d with gold.

VII

Behind him rode two gallant squires,
Of noble name, and knightly sires;
They burn’d the gilded spurs to claim:                      95
For well could each a warhorse tame,
Could draw the bow, the sword could sway,
And lightly bear the ring away;
Nor less with courteous precepts stored,
Could dance in hall, and carve at board,                  100
And frame love-ditties passing rare,
And sing them to a lady fair.