The silver light so pale and faint,
Show'd many a prophet, and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst his cross of red
Triumphant Michael brandished,
And trampled the Apostate's pride.
The moonbeam kiss'd the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.
From The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
And said I that my limbs were old;
And said I that my blood was cold;
And that my kindly fire was fled,
And my poor wither'd heart was dead,
And that I might not sing of love?—
How could I to the dearest theme
That ever warm'd a minstrel's dream,
So foul, so false, a recreant prove!
How could I name Love's very name,
Nor wake my heart to notes of flame!
peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
From The Lay of the Last Minstrel
Blount and Fitz-Eustace rested still
With Lady Clare upon the hill;
On which (for far the day was spent)
The western sunbeams now were bent;
The cry they heard, its meaning knew,
Could plain their distant comrades view;
Sadly to Blount did Eustace say,
"Unworthy office here to stay!
No hope of gilded spurs to-day.-
But, see! look up-on Flodden bent,
The Scottish foe has fired his tent."
And sudden, as he spoke,
From the sharp ridges of the hill,
All downward to the banks of Till,
Was wreath'd in sable smoke;
Volumed and vast, and rolling far,
The cloud envelop'd Scotland's war,
As down the hill they broke;
Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,
Told England, from his mountain-throne
King James did rushing come.—
Scarce could they hear, or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close.—
They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway, and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air;
O! life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair.
Long look'd the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness nought descry.
At length the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew.
Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war,
And plumed crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave,
But nought distinct they see:
Wide raged the battle on the plain ;
Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain,
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;
Crests rose, and stoop'd, and rose again,
Wild and disorderly.
Amid the scene of tumult, high
They saw lord Marmion's falcon fly:
And stainless Tunstall's banner white,
And Edmund Howard's lion bright,
Still bear them bravely in the fight;
Although against them come,
Of gallant Gordons many a one,
And many a stubborn Highlandman,
And many a rugged Border clan,
With Huntley, and with Home.
Far on the left, unseen the while,
Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle ;
Though there the western mountaineer
Rush'd with bare bosom on the spear,
And flung the feeble targe aside,
And with both hands the broadsword plied.
'Twas vain:-but Fortune, on the right,
With fickle smile, cheer'd Scotland's fight.
Then fell that spotless banner white,
The Howard's lion fell;
Yet still lord Marmion's falcon flew
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
Around the battle yell.
The Border slogan rent the sky!
A Home! a Gordon! was the cry;
Loud were the clanging blows;
Advanced,-forced back,-now low, now high,
The pennon sunk and rose;
As bends the bark's mast in the gale,
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,
It waver'd mid the foes.
No longer Blount the sight could bear:-
"By heaven, and all its saints, I swear,
I will not see it lost!
Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare
May bid your beads, and patter prayer,—
I gallop to the host."
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 va'ward wing,
Where Huntley, and where Home?
O 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.-
"O lady," cried the monk, "away!"-
And placed her on her steed,
And led her to the chapel fair
Of Tilmouth upon Tweed.
There all the night they spent in prayer,
And, at the dawn of morning, there
She met her kinsman, lord Fitz-Clare.
But as they left the darkening heath,
More desperate grew the strife of death.
The English shafts in volleys hail'd,
In headlong charge their horse assail'd;
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 bill-men 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;
Link'd 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 shatter'd bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves, from wasted lands,
Sweep back to ocean blue.
Then did their loss his foeman know;
Their king, their lords, their mightiest, low,
They melted from the field as snow,
When streams are swoln and south winds blow, Dissolves in silent dew.
Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,
While many a broken band,
Disorder'd, 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 shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield!
BONAPARTE'S FLIGHT FROM WATERLOO.
Shall future ages tell this tale
Of inconsistence faint and frail?
And art thou He of Lodi's bridge,
Marengo's field, and Wagram's ridge?
Or is thy soul like mountain tide,
That, swell'd by winter storm and shower,
Rolls down in turbulence of power
A torrent fierce and wide;
'Reft of these aids, a rill obscure,
Shrinking unnoticed, mean and poor,
Whose channel shows display'd
The wrecks of its impetuous course,
But not one symptom of the force
By which these wrecks were made!
Spur on thy way!—since now thine ear
Has brook'd thy veterans' wish to hear,
Who, as thy flight they eyed,
Exclaim'd-while tears of anguish came,
Wrung forth by pride and rage and shame,-
"Oh that he had but died!"
But yet, to sum this hour of ill,
Look ere thou leav'st the fatal hill,
Back on yon broken ranks-
Upon whose wild confusion gleams
The moon, as on the troubled streams
When rivers break their banks,
And, to the ruin'd peasant's eye,
Objects half seen roll swiftly by,
Down the dread current hurl'd
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