Marmion. Walter Scott
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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.’
IX.
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!
X.
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
XI.
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!
XII.
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 on his hand.
His thoughts I scan not; but I ween,
That, could their import have been seen, 195
The meanest groom in all the hall,
That e’er tied courser to a stall,
Would scarce have wished to be their prey,
For Lutterward and Fontenaye.
XIII.
High minds, of native pride and force, 200
Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse!
Fear, for their scourge, mean villains have,
Thou art the torturer of the brave!
Yet fatal strength they boast to steel
Their minds to bear the wounds they feel, 205
Even while they writhe beneath the smart
Of civil conflict in the heart.
For soon Lord Marmion raised his head,
And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said,
‘Is it not strange, that, as ye sung, 210
Seem’d in mine ear a death-peal rung,
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister’s soul?
Say, what may this portend?’-
Then first the Palmer silence broke, 215
(The livelong day he had not spoke)
‘The death of a dear friend.’
XIV.
Marmion, whose steady heart and eye
Ne’er changed in worst extremity;
Marmion, whose soul could scantly brook, 220
Even from his King, a haughty look;
Whose accents of command controll’d,
In camps, the boldest of the bold-
Thought, look, and utterance fail’d him now,
Fall’n was his glance, and flush’d his brow: 225
For either in the tone,
Or something in the Palmer’s look,
So full upon his conscience strook,
That answer he found none.
Thus oft it haps, that when within 230
They shrink at sense of secret sin,
A feather daunts the brave;
A fool’s wild speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes vail their eyes
Before their meanest slave. 235
XV.
Well might he falter!-By his aid
Was Constance