MARMION. CANTO SIXTH. The Battle. I. WHILE great events were on the gale, Where England's King in leaguer lay, Before decisive battle-day ;— While these things were, the mournful Clare Did in the Dame's devotions share : From prayer to book, from book to mass, The formal state, the lengthened prayer, II. I ́said, Tantallon's dizzy steep Hung o'er the margin of the deep. Many a rude tower and rampart there Which, when the tempest vexed the sky, Did o'er its Gothic entrance bear, Did seaward round the castle go; Bulwark, and bartisan, and line, And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign; Above the booming ocean leant The far-projecting battlement; The billows burst, in ceaseless flow, Where'er Tantallon faced the land, Gate-works, and walls, were strongly manned; No need upon the sea-girt side; The steepy rock, and frantic tide, Approach of human step denied ; And thus these lines, and ramparts rude, Were left in deepest solitude. III. And, for they were so lonely, Clare And muse upon her sorrows there, Or slow, like noon-tide ghost, would glide And ever on the heaving tide Look down with weary eye. |