By fits less frequent from the crowd                        90

      Was heard the burst of laughter loud;

      For still, as squire and archer stared

      On that dark face and matted beard,

        Their glee and game declined.

      All gazed at length in silence drear,                      95

      Unbroke, save when in comrade’s ear

      Some yeoman, wondering in his fear,

        Thus whispered forth his mind: -

      ‘Saint Mary! saw’st thou e’er such sight?

      How pale his cheek, his eye how bright,                    100

      Whene’er the firebrand’s fickle light

        Glances beneath his cowl!

      Full on our Lord he sets his eye;

      For his best palfrey, would not I

        Endure that sullen scowl.’                              105

      But Marmion, as to chase the awe

      Which thus had quell’d their hearts, who saw

      The ever-varying fire-light show

      That figure stern and face of woe,

        Now call’d upon a squire: –                               110

      ‘Fitz-Eustace, know’st thou not some lay,

      To speed the lingering night away?

        We slumber by the fire.’-

      ‘So please you,’ thus the youth rejoin’d,

      ‘Our choicest minstrel’s left behind.                      115

      Ill may we hope to please your ear,

      Accustom’d Constant’s strains to hear.

      The harp full deftly can he strike,

      And wake the lover’s lute alike;

      To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush                        120

      Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush,

      No nightingale her love-lorn tune

      More sweetly warbles to the moon.

      Woe to the cause, whate’er it be,

      Detains from us his melody,                                125

      Lavish’d on rocks, and billows stern,

      Or duller monks of Lindisfarne.

      Now must I venture as I may,

      To sing his favourite roundelay.’

      A mellow voice Fitz-Eustace had,                          130

      The air he chose was wild and sad;

      Such have I heard, in Scottish land,

      Rise from the busy harvest band,

      When falls before the mountaineer,

      On Lowland plains, the ripen’d ear.                        135

      Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,

      Now a wild chorus swells the song:

      Oft have I listen’d, and stood still,

      As it came soften’d up the hill,

      And deem’d it the lament of men                            140

      Who languish’d for their native glen;

      And thought how sad would be such sound,

      On Susquehanna’s swampy ground,

      Kentucky’s wood-encumber’d brake,

      Or wild Ontario’s boundless lake,                          145

      Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,

      Recall’d fair Scotland’s hills again!

      Song

      Where shall the lover rest,

        Whom the fates sever

      From his true maiden’s breast,                            150

        Parted for ever?

      Where, through groves deep and high,

        Sounds the far billow,

      Where early violets die,

        Under the willow.                                        155

      CHORUS.

      Eleu loro, &c. Soft shall be his pillow.

      There, through the summer day,

        Cool streams are laving;

      There, while the tempests sway,

        Scarce are boughs waving;                                160

      There, thy rest shalt thou take,

        Parted for ever,

      Never again to wake,

        Never, O never!

      CHORUS.

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

      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!

      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