By day the tourney, and by night
The merry dance, traced fast and light,
The masquers quaint, the pageant bright,
The revel loud and long.
This feast outshone his banquets past:
It was his blithest,-and his last.
The dazzling lamps, from gallery gay,
Cast on the court a dancing ray;
Here to the harp did minstrels sing;
There ladies touched a softer string;
With long-eared cap, and motley vest,
The licensed fool retailed his jest ;
His magic tricks the juggler plied;
At dice and draughts the gallants vied;
While some, in close recess apart,
Courted the ladies of their heart,
Nor courted them in vain;
For often, in the parting hour,
Victorious love asserts his power
O'er coldness and disdain ;
And flinty is her heart, can view
To battle march a lover true,-
Can hear, perchance, his last adieu,
Nor own her share of pain.
Through this mixed crowd of glee and game, The King to greet Lord Marmion came, While, reverend, all made room.
An easy task it was, I trow,
King James's manly form to know,
Although his courtesy to show,
He doffed, to Marmion bending low,
His broidered cap and plume.
For royal were his garb and mien,
His cloak, of crimson velvet piled,
Trimmed with the fur of martin wild;
His vest, of changeful satin sheen,
The dazzled eye beguiled;
His gorgeous collar hung adown,
Bearing the badge of Scotland's crown,
The thistle brave, of old renown;
His trusty blade, Toledo right,
Descended from a baldric bright;
White were his buskins, on the heel
His spurs inlaid of gold and steel;
His bonnet, all of crimson fair,
Was buttoned with a ruby rare :
And Marmion deemed he ne'er had seen
A prince of such a noble mien.
The Monarch's form was middle size;
For feat of strength or exercise,
Shaped in proportion fair; And hazel was his eagle eye, And auburn of the darkest die,
His short curled beard and hair.
Light was his footstep in the dance,
And firm his stirrup in the lists;
And, oh! he had that merry glance,
That seldom lady's heart resists.
Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
And loved to plead, lament, and sue ;~
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain!
For Monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
I said he joyed in banquet-bower;
But, mid his mirth, 'twas often strange,
How suddenly his cheer would change,
His look o'ercast and lower,
If, in a sudden turn, he felt
The pressure of his iron belt,
That bound his breast in penance-pain,
In memory of his father slain.
Even so 'twas strange how, evermore,
Soon as the passing pang was o'er,
Forward he rushed, with double glee,
Into the stream of revelry:
Thus, dim-seen object of affright
Startles the courser in his flight,
And half he halts, half springs aside,
But feels the quickening spur applied,
And, straining on the tightened rein,
Scours doubly swift o'er hill and plain.
O'er James's heart, the courtiers say,
Sir Hugh the Heron's wife held sway:
To Scotland's court she came,
To be a hostage for her lord,
Who Cessford's gallant heart had gored,
And with the King to make accord,
Had sent his lovely dame.
Nor to that lady free alone
Did the gay King allegiance own;
For the fair Queen of France
Sent him a Turquois ring, and glove,
And charged him, as her knight and love,
For her to break a lance;
And strike three strokes with Scottish brand,
And march three miles on English land,
And bid the banners of his band
In English breezes dance.
And thus, for France's Queen, he drest
His manly limbs in mailed vest;
And thus admitted English fair,
His inmost counsels still to share;
And thus, for both, he madly planned
The ruin of himself and land!
And yet, the sooth to tell,
Nor England's fair, nor France's Queen,
Were worth one pearl-drop, bright and sheen,
From Margaret's eyes that fell,-
His own queen Margaret, who, in Lithgow's bower,
All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour.
The queen sits lone in Lithgow pile,
And weeps the weary day,
The war against her native soil,
Her monarch's risk in battle broil ;-
And in gay Holy-Rood the while
Dame Heron rises with a smile
Upon the harp to play.
Fair was her rounded arm, as o'er
The strings her fingers flew ;
And as she touched, and tuned them all, Even her bosom's rise and fall
Was plainer given to view;
For, all for heat, was laid aside
Her wimple, and her hood untied.
And first she pitched her voice to sing,
Then glanced her dark eye on the King,
And then around the silent ring;
And laughed, and blushed, and oft did say
Her pretty oath, by Yea, and Nay,
She could not, would not, durst not play!
At length, upon the harp, with glee,
Mingled with arch simplicity,
A soft, yet lively, air she rung,
While thus the wily lady sung.
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