It is hardly to be expected that an Author, whom the Public have honoured with some degree of applause, should not be again a trespasser on their kindness. Yet the Author of MARMION must be supposed to feel some anxiety concerning ils success, since he is sensible that he hazards, by this second intrusion, any reputation which his first Poem may have prooured him. The present story turns upon the private adventures of a fictitious character; but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero's fate is connected with that memorable defeat, and the causes which led to it. The design of the Author was, if possible, to apprize his readers, at the outset, of the date of his Story, and to prepare them for the manners of the Age in which it is laid. Any Historical Narrative, far more an attempt at Epic composition, exceeded his plan of a Romantic Tale; yet he may be permitted to hope, from the popularity of THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, that an attempt to paint the manners of the feudal times, upon a broader scale, and in the course of a more interesting story, will not be unacceptable to the Public.

The Poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, 9th September, 1513.

ASHESTIEL, 1808.

The Letters Introductory to the Cantos will appear separately.

CANTO FIRST.

The Castle.

I.

DAY set on Norham's castled steep,1
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone:
The battled towers, the donjon keep,2
The loophole grates, where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seem'd forms of giant height:
Their armour, as it caught the rays,
Flash'd back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.

II.

Saint George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray

Less bright, and less, was flung;

The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the Donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The Castle gates were barr'd;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warder kept his guard;
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border gathering song.

III.

A distant trampling sound he hears;
He looks abroad and soon appears,
O'er Horncliff-hill a plump* of spears.
Beneath a pennon gay;

A horseman, darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade,
That closed the Castle barricade,
His bugle-horn he blew;

The warder hasted from the wall,
And warn'd the Captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call,
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

IV.

"Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe,

And quickly make the entrance free,
And bid my heralds ready be,
And every minstrel sound his glee,
And all our trumpets blow;

And, from the platform, spare ye not
To fire a noble solvo-shot;

Lord MARMION waits below!"
Then to the Castle's lower ward

Sped forty yeomen tall,

The iron-studded gates unbarr'd,

Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard,

The lofty palisade unsparr'd,

And let the drawbridge fall.

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddle-bow;
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalwart knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been.
The scar on his brown cheek reveal'd
A token true of Bosworth field;

*This word properly applies to a flight of water-fowl; but is applied, by

analogy, to a body of horse:

"There is a knight of the North Country,
Which leads a lusty plump of spears.'

-Flodden Field.