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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

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