Walter Scott - Marmion

Yet as Lord Marmion nothing press’d
Upon her intervals of rest,
Dejected Clara well could bear
The formal state, the lengthen’d prayer,

Though dearest to her wounded heart
The hours that she might spend apart.

I said, Tantallon’s dizzy steep
Hung o’er the margin of the deep.

Many a rude tower and rampart there
Repell’d the insult of the air,
Which, when the tempest vex’d the sky,
Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by.

Above the rest, a turret square
Did o’er its Gothic entrance bear,
Of sculpture rude, a stony shield;
The Bloody Heart was in the Field,
And in the chief three mullets stood,
The cognizance of Douglas blood.

The turret held a narrow stair,
Which, mounted, gave you access where
A parapet’s embattled row
Did seaward round the castle go.

Sometimes in dizzy steps descending,
Sometimes in narrow circuit bending,
Sometimes in platform broad extending,
Its varying circle did combine
Bulwark, and bartisan, and line,
And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign:

Above the booming ocean leant
The far-projecting battlement;
The billows burst, in ceaseless flow,
Upon the precipice below.

Where’er Tantallon faced the land,
Gate-works, and walls, were strongly mann’d;
No need upon the sea-girt side;
The steepy rock, and frantic tide,
Approach of human step denied;
And thus these lines, and ramparts rude,
Were left in deepest solitude.

And, for they were so lonely, Clare
Would to these battlements repair,
And muse upon her sorrows there,
And list the sea-bird’s cry;
Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide
Along the dark-grey bulwarks’ side,
And ever on the heaving tide
Look down with weary eye.

Oft did the cliff, and swelling main,
Recall the thoughts of Whitby’s fane,―
A home she ne’er might see again;
For she had laid adown,
So Douglas bade, the hood and veil,
And frontlet of the cloister pale,
And Benedictine gown:

It were unseemly sight, he said,
A novice out of convent shade.-
Now her bright locks, with sunny glow,
Again adorn’d her brow of snow;

Her mantle rich, whose borders, round,
A deep and fretted broidery bound,
In golden foldings sought the ground;
Of holy ornament, alone
Remain’d a cross with ruby stone;

And often did she look
On that which in her hand she bore,
With velvet bound, and broider’d o’er,
Her breviary book.

In such a place, so lone, so grim,
At dawning pale, or twilight dim,
It fearful would have been
To meet a form so richly dress’d,
With book in hand, and cross on breast,
And such a woeful mien.

Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow,
To practise on the gull and crow,
Saw her, at distance, gliding slow,
And did by Mary swear,-
Some love-lorn Fay she might have been,
Or, in Romance, some spell-bound Queen;
For ne’er, in work-day world, was seen
A form so witching fair.

Once walking thus, at evening tide,
It chanced a gliding sail she spied,
And, sighing, thought-‘The Abbess, there,
Perchance, does to her home repair;

Her peaceful rule, where Duty, free,
Walks hand in hand with Charity;

Where oft Devotion’s tranced glow
Can such a glimpse of heaven bestow,
That the enraptured sisters see
High vision, and deep mystery;

The very form of Hilda fair,
Hovering upon the sunny air,
And smiling on her votaries’ prayer.

O! wherefore, to my duller eye,
Did still the Saint her form deny!

Was it, that, sear’d by sinful scorn,
My heart could neither melt nor burn?
Or lie my warm affections low,
With him, that taught them first to glow?

Yet, gentle Abbess, well I knew,
To pay thy kindness grateful due,
And well could brook the mild command,
That ruled thy simple maiden band.

How different now! condemn’d to bide
My doom from this dark tyrant’s pride.-

But Marmion has to learn, ere long,
That constant mind, and hate of wrong,
Descended to a feeble girl,
From Red De Clare, stout Gloster’s Earl:
Of such a stem, a sapling weak,
He ne’er shall bend, although he break.

‘But see!-what makes this armour here?’-
For in her path there lay
Targe, corslet, helm;-she view’d them near.-
‘The breast-plate pierced!-Ay, much I fear,
Weak fence wert thou ‘gainst foeman’s spear,
That hath made fatal entrance here,
As these dark blood-gouts say.-
Thus Wilton!-Oh! not corslet’s ward,
Not truth, as diamond pure and hard,
Could be thy manly bosom’s guard,
On yon disastrous day!’-

She raised her eyes in mournful mood,-
WILTON himself before her stood!
It might have seem’d his passing ghost,
For every youthful grace was lost;

And joy unwonted, and surprise,
Gave their strange wildness to his eyes.-
Expect not, noble dames and lords,
That I can tell such scene in words:

What skilful limner e’er would choose
To paint the rainbow’s varying hues,
Unless to mortal it were given
To dip his brush in dyes of heaven?

Far less can my weak line declare
Each changing passion’s shade;
Brightening to rapture from despair,
Sorrow, surprise, and pity there,
And joy, with her angelic air,
And hope, that paints the future fair,
Their varying hues display’d:

Each o’er its rival’s ground extending,
Alternate conquering, shifting, blending,
Till all, fatigued, the conflict yield,
And mighty Love retains the field,
Shortly I tell what then he said,
By many a tender word delay’d,
And modest blush, and bursting sigh,
And question kind, and fond reply:-

‘Forget we that disastrous day,
When senseless in the lists I lay.
Thence dragg’d,-but how I cannot know,
For sense and recollection fled,
I found me on a pallet low,
Within my ancient beadsman’s shed.

Austin,-remember’st thou, my Clare,
How thou didst blush, when the old man,
When first our infant love began,
Said we would make a matchless pair?-

Menials, and friends, and kinsmen fled
From the degraded traitor’s bed,-
He only held my burning head,
And tended me for many a day,
While wounds and fever held their sway.

But far more needful was his care,
When sense return’d to wake despair;
For I did tear the closing wound,
And dash me frantic on the ground,
If e’er I heard the name of Clare.

At length, to calmer reason brought,
Much by his kind attendance wrought,
With him I left my native strand,
And, in a Palmer’s weeds array’d
My hated name and form to shade,
I journey’d many a land;
No more a lord of rank and birth,
But mingled with the dregs of earth.