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The warriors on the turrets high,

Moving athwart the evening sky,

Seemed forms of giant height : Their armour, as it caught the rays, Flashed back again the western blaze, In lines of dazzling light,

II.

St 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

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 warned the Captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew ;

And joyfully that Knight did call,
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

a

This word properly applies to a flight of water-fowl; but is applied, by analogy, to a body of horse.

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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 salvo-shot:

Lord Marmion waits below."

Then to the Castle's lower ward
Sped forty yeomen tall,

The iron-studded gates unbarred,

Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard,

The lofty palisade unsparred,

And let the draw-bridge fall.

V.

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode, Proudly his red-roan charger trod,

His helm hung at the saddle bow;

Well, by his visage, you might know
He was a stalworth knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been ;
The scar on his brown cheek revealed

A token true of Bosworth field;

His eye-brow dark, and eye of fire,
Shewed spirit proud, and prompt to ire ;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek,
Did deep design and counsel speak.

His forehead, by his casque worn bare,
His thick moustache, and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,
But more through toil than age;

His square-turned joints, and strength of limb,
Shewed him no carpet knight so trim,
But, in close fight, a champion grim,
In camps, a leader sage.

VI.

Well was he armed from head to heel,
In mail, and plate, of Milan steel;
But his strong helm, of mighty cost,
Was all with burnish'd gold emboss'd;
Amid the plumage of the crest,

A falcon hovered on her nest,

With wings outspread, and forward breast;

E'en such a falcon, on his shield,

Soared sable in an azure field:

The golden legend bore aright,

"WHO CHECKS AT ME, TO DEATH IS DIGHT."

Blue was the charger's broidered rein;

Blue ribbons decked his arching mane;

The knightly housing's ample fold

Was velvet blue, and trapp'd with gold.

VII.

Behind him rode two gallant squires,
Of noble name, and knightly sires;

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