By rock, by oak, by hawthorn-tree,
Troop after troop are 'disappearing;

Troop after troop their banners rearing,
Upon the eastern bank you see.
Still pouring down the rocky den,

Where flows the 'sullen Till,
And rising from the dim-wood glen,
Standards on standards, men on men,

In slow succession still,

And, sweeping o'er the Gothic arch,2
And pressing on, in ceaseless march,

To gain the opposing hill.
That morn, to many a trumpet-clang,
Twisel! thy rock's deep echo rang;
And many a chief of birth and rank,
St. Helen! at thy fountain3 drank.
Thy hawthorn glade, which now we see
In spring-tide bloom so lavishly,
Had then from many an axe its doom,
To give the marching columns room.

And why stands Scotland idly now,
Dark Flodden! on thy airy brow,
Since England gains the pass the while,
And struggles through the deep defile?
What checks the fiery soul of James ?4
Why sits that champion of the dames
Inactive on his steed,

10

20

30

And sees, between him and his land,
Between him and Tweed's southern strand,

His host Lord Surrey lead?

What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand?—

40

O Douglas, for thy leading wand!

Fierce Randolph, for thy speed!

O for one hour of Wallace 'wight,

Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight,
And cry-"St. Andrew 5 and our right!"
Another sight had seen that morn,
From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn,
And Flodden had been Bannockburn !-
The precious hour has passed in vain,
And England's host has gained the plain;

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James IV.]

127

FLODDEN FIELD.

Wheeling their march, and circling still,
Around the base of Flodden-hill......

-on Flodden bent

"But see! look up!—

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 wreathed in sable smoke.
Volumed and fast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland's war,8
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.—

60

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!

eye

Oh, life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair!
Long looked the anxious squires; their
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 marked 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 flashed 'amain;
Fell England's arrow-flights like rain;

Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,

Wild and disorderly.

The Border 'slogan rent the sky

A Home! a Gordon! was the cry.

Loud were the clanging blows:

The pennon sunk and rose;

Advanced, forced back-now low, now high,

FLODDEN FIELD.

That, journeying far on foreign strand,
The Royal Pilgrim 12 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.

7 He. The speaker is Lord Marmion, right by the Earls of Lennox and the hero of the poem.

12 The Royal Pilgrim.-There was a tradition long prevalent in Scotland that King James was not killed at Flodden; but that, ashamed to present himself after his defeat, he went in disguise on pilgrimage to merit absolution for the death of his father, and for

the breach of his oath of amity to Henry of England. There is no doubt, however, that James was slain on that disastrous field (9th September 1513); and though his iron belt was never found, his sword and dagger are preserved in the Heralds' College in London.

19.-MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

OLD SCOTTISH LIFE.

1. A Scottish town, if we look into one about the time of James IV., was a mean, dirty little place. The houses were better than those of the farmers in the country; for the farmers, having no lease, and being at the mercy of the land-owners, who might turn them out at will, ran up for themselves dwellings of the rudest kind. But even the town dwellings were still almost entirely of wood, and were thatched. Commonly each house had, somewhere in the front, a round hole, just large enough to let out a person's head. Out of these holes the women used to put their heads, and 'engage in a shrill 'gossip up and down the street. The streets, narrow and 'irregular, were filthy to excess, every sort of refuse being cast out on them.

2. The little town was, perhaps, the property of some monastery, and crouched under the shadow of a stately abbey. The people of the town were vassals to the Lord Abbot, who was 'supreme judge over all persons dwelling on his lands, and whose sentence could carry death.

3. The folk of the old town are fond of music. There are 'minstrels who hold office for life in the service of the burgh. Their instruments are bagpipes. Evening and morning, “and at other times needful," the pipers march through the town, to refresh the natives with, "Broken bones at Luncarty;" "Port Lennox;" "St. Johnstone's hunt's up," and the like stirring strains. The law of the burgh 'requires that the pipers "sall have their daily wages and meat of the neighbours of this guid toon 'circularly, conform to the auld loveable use."

4. The Robin Hood1 games, so long the favourite revel of Old Scotland, were little else than a 'continuation, under another