Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

A light on Marmion’s visage spread,

And fired his glazing eye:

With dying hand, above his head,

He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted “Victory!

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!”

Were the last words of Marmion.

XXXIII

By this, though deep the evening fell,

Still rose the battle’s deadly swell,

For still the Scots, around their king,

Unbroken, fought in desperate ring.

Where’s now their victor vaward wing,

Where Huntly, and where Home?

Oh, for a blast of that dread horn,

On Fontarabian echoes borne,

That to King Charles did come,

When Rowland brave, and Olivier,

And every paladin and peer,

On Roncesvalles died!

Such blast might warn them, not in vain,

To quit the plunder of the slain,

And turn the doubtful day again,

While yet on Flodden side,

Afar, the royal standard flies,

And round it toils, and bleeds, and dies,

Our Caledonian pride!

In vain the wish—for far away,

While spoil and havoc mark their way,

Near Sybil’s Cross the plunderers stray.

“Oh, lady,” cried the monk, “away!”

And placed her on her steed,

And led her to the chapel fair,

Of Tillmouth upon Tweed.

There all the night they spent in prayer,

And at the dawn of morning, there

She met her kinsman, Lord Fitz-Clare.

XXXIV

But as they left the dark’ning heath,

More desperate grew the strife of death.

The English shafts in volleys hailed,

In headlong charge their horse assailed;

Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep

To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their king.

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,

Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,

Though billmen ply the ghastly blow,

Unbroken was the ring;

The stubborn spearmen still made good

Their dark impenetrable wood,

Each stepping where his comrade stood,

The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight;

Linked in the serried phalanx tight,

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,

As fearlessly and well;

Till utter darkness closed her wing

O’er their thin host and wounded king.

Then skilful Surrey’s sage commands

Led back from strife his shattered bands;

And from the charge they drew,

As mountain-waves, from wasted lands,

Sweep back to ocean blue.

Then did their loss his foemen know;

Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,

They melted from the field as snow,

When streams are swoll’n and south winds blow,

Dissolves in silent dew.

Tweed’s echoes heard the ceaseless plash,

While many a broken band,

Disordered, through her currents dash,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,

To tell red Flodden’s dismal tale,

And raise the universal wail.

Tradition, legend, tune, and song,

Shall many an age that wail prolong:

Still from the sire the son shall hear

Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,

Of Flodden’s fatal field,

Where shivered was fair Scotland’s spear,

And broken was her shield!

XXXV

Day dawns upon the mountain’s side:-

There, Scotland! lay thy bravest pride,

Chiefs, knights, and nobles, many a one:

The sad survivors all are gone.

View not that corpse mistrustfully,

Defaced and mangled though it be;

Nor to yon Border castle high,

Look northward with upbraiding eye;

Nor cherish hope in vain,

That, journeying far on foreign strand,

The royal pilgrim to his land

May yet return again.

He saw the wreck his rashness wrought;

Reckless of life, he desperate fought,

And fell on Flodden plain:

And well in death his trusty brand,

Firm clenched within his manly hand,

Beseemed the monarch slain.

But, oh! how changed since yon blithe night!

Gladly I turn me from the sight,

Unto my tale again.

XXXVI

Short is my tale:- Fitz-Eustace’ care

A pierced and mangled body bare

To moated Lichfield’s lofty pile;

And there, beneath the southern aisle,

A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair,

Did long Lord Marmion’s image bear,

(Now vainly for its site you look;

‘Twas levelled, when fanatic Brook

The fair cathedral stormed and took;

But, thanks to Heaven, and good Saint Chad,

A guerdon meet the spoiler had!)

There erst was martial Marmion found,

His feet upon a couchant hound,

His hands to heaven upraised;

And all around, on scutcheon rich,

And tablet carved, and fretted niche,

His arms and feats were blazed.

And yet, though all was carved so fair,

And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer,

The last Lord Marmion lay not there.

From Ettrick woods, a peasant swain

Followed his lord to Flodden plain -

One of those flowers, whom plaintive lay

In Scotland mourns as “wede away;”

Sore wounded, Sybil’s Cross he spied,

And dragged him to its foot, and died,

Close by the noble Marmion’s side.

The spoilers stripped and gashed the slain,

And thus their corpses were mista’en;

And thus, in the proud baron’s tomb,

The lowly woodsman took the room.

XXXVII

Less easy task it were, to show

Lord Marmion’s nameless grave, and low.

They dug his grave e’en where he lay,

But every mark is gone:

Time’s wasting hand has done away

The simple cross of Sybil Gray,

And broke her font of stone;

But yet out from the little hill

Oozes the slender springlet still.

Oft halts the stranger there,

For thence may best his curious eye

The memorable field descry;

And shepherd boys repair

To seek the water-flag and rush,

And rest them by the hazel bush,

And plait their garlands fair;

Nor dream they sit upon the grave

That holds the bones of Marmion brave.

When thou shalt find the little hill,

With thy heart commune, and be still.

If ever, in temptation strong,

Thou left’st the right path for the wrong;

If every devious step, thus trod,

Still led thee further from the road;

Dread thou to speak presumptuous doom

On noble Marmion’s lowly tomb;

But say, “He died a gallant knight,

With sword in hand, for England’s right.”

XXXVIII

I do not rhyme to that dull elf,

Who cannot image to himself,

That, all through Flodden’s dismal night,

Wilton was foremost in the fight;

That when brave Surrey’s steed was slain,

‘Twas Wilton mounted him again;

‘Twas Wilton’s brand that deepest hewed,

Amid the spearmen’s stubborn wood:

Unnamed by Holinshed or Hall,

He was the living soul of all;

That, after fight, his faith made plain,

He won his rank and lands again;

And charged his old paternal shield

With bearings won on Flodden Field.

Nor sing I to that simple maid,

To whom it must in terms be said,

That king and kinsmen did agree,

To bless fair Clara’s constancy;

Who cannot, unless I relate,

Paint to her mind the bridal’s state;

That Wolsey’s voice the blessing spoke,

More, Sands, and Denny, passed the joke:

That bluff King Hal the curtain drew,

And Katherine’s hand the stocking threw;

And afterwards, for many a day,

That it was held enough to say,

In blessing to a wedded pair,

“Love they like Wilton and like Clare!”