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.

VIII.

Through this mix'd crowd of glee and game,

The King to greet Lord Marmion came,

While, reverent, all made room.

An easy task it was, I trow,

King James's manly form to know,
Although, his courtesy to show,

He doff'd, to Marmion bending low,
His broider'd cap and plume.

For royal were his garb and mien,

His cloak, of crimson velvet piled,

Trimm'd with the fur of marten wild;

His vest of changeful satin sheen,

The dazzled eye beguiled;

His gorgeous collar hung adown,

Wrought with 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 button'd with a ruby rare :

And Marmion deem'd he ne'er had seen

A prince of such a noble mien.

IX.

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 dye,

His short curl'd 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 joy'd 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 rush'd, 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 tighten'd rein,

Scours doubly swift o'er hill and plain.

X.

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 Turkois 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 Southron 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 plann'd

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 eye that fell,

His own Queen Margaret, who, in Lithgow's bower, All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour.

XI.

The Queen sits lone in Lithgow pile,

And weeps the weary day,

The war against her native soil,