Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
III. WarFlodden Field
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)From “Marmion,” Canto
A
And breathed his steed, his men arrayed,
Then forward moved his band,
Until, Lord Surrey’s rear-guard won,
He halted by a cross of stone,
That, on a hillock standing lone,
Did all the field command.
Of either host for deadly fray;
Their marshalled lines stretched east and west,
And fronted north and south,
And distant salutation past
From the loud cannon-mouth;
Not in the close successive rattle
That breathes the voice of modern battle,
But slow and far between.—
The hillock gained, Lord Marmion stayed:
“Here, by this cross,” he gently said,
“You well may view the scene;
Here shalt thou tarry, lovely Clare:
O, think of Marmion in thy prayer!—
Thou wilt not?—well,—no less my care
Shall, watchful, for thy weal prepare.—
You, Blount and Eustace, are her guard,
With ten picked archers of my train;
With England if the day go hard,
To Berwick speed amain,—
But, if we conquer, cruel maid,
My spoils shall at your feet be laid,
When here we meet again.”
He waited not for answer there,
And would not mark the maid’s despair,
Nor heed the discontented look
From either squire: but spurred amain,
And, dashing through the battle-plain,
His way to Surrey took.
Blount and Fitz-Eustace rested still
With Lady Clare upon the hill;
On which (for far the day was spent)
The western sunbeams now were bent.
The cry they heard, its meaning knew,
Could plain their distant comrades view:
Sadly to Blount did Eustace say,
“Unworthy office here to stay!
No hope of gilded spurs to-day.—
But, see! look up,—on Flodden bent
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 vast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland’s war,
As down the hill they broke;
Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times their 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.—
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:
O, life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair.
Long looked the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness naught descry.
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightened 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 plumèd crests of chieftains brave
Floating like foam upon the wave;
But naught distinct they see:
Wide raged the battle on the plain;
Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain;
Fell England’s arrow-flight like rain;
Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,
Wild and disorderly.
Amid the scene of tumult, high
They saw Lord Marmion’s falcon fly:
And stainless Tunstall’s banner white,
And Edmund Howard’s lion bright,
Still bear them bravely in the fight;
Although against them come
Of gallant Gordons many a one,
And many a stubborn Highlandman,
And many a rugged Border clan,
With Huntley and with Home.
Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle;
Though there the western mountaineer
Rushed with bare bosom on the spear,
And flung the feeble targe aside,
And with both hands the broadsword plied,
’T was vain:—But Fortune, on the right,
With fickle smile, cheered Scotland’s fight.
Then fell that spotless banner white,
The Howard’s lion fell;
Yet still Lord Marmion’s falcon flew
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
Around the battle-yell.
The Border slogan rent the sky!
A Home! a Gordon! was the cry:
Loud were the clanging blows;
Advanced,—forced back,—now low, now high,
The pennon sunk and rose;
As bends the bark’s mast in the gale,
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,
It wavered mid the foes.
No longer Blount the view could bear:—
“By heaven and all its saints, I swear,
I will not see it lost!
Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare
May bid your beads, and patter prayer,—
I gallop to the host.”
And to the fray he rode amain,
Followed by all the archer train.
The fiery youth, with desperate charge,
Made, for a space, an opening large,—
The rescued banner rose,
But darkly closed the war around,
Like pine-tree rooted from the ground,
It sunk among the foes.
Then Eustace mounted too;—yet stayed,
As loath to leave the helpless maid,
When, fast as shaft can fly,
Bloodshot his eyes, his nostrils spread,
The loose rein dangling from his head,
Housing and saddle bloody red,
Lord Marmion’s steed rushed by;
And Eustace, maddening at the sight,
A look and sign to Clara cast,
To mark he would return in haste,
Then plunged into the fight.
Left in that dreadful hour alone:
Perchance her reason stoops or reels;
Perchance a courage, not her own,
Braces her mind to desperate tone.—
The scattered van of England wheels;—
She only said, as loud in air
The tumult roared, “Is Wilton there?”
They fly, or, maddened by despair,
Fight but to die,—“Is Wilton there?”
With that, straight up the hill there rode
Two horsemen drenched with gore,
And in their arms, a helpless load,
A wounded knight they bore.
His hand still strained the broken brand;
His arms were smeared with blood and sand.
Dragged from among the horses’ feet,
With dinted shield, and helmet beat,
The falcon-crest and plumage gone,
Can that be haughty Marmion!…
Young Blount his armor did unlace,
And, gazing on his ghastly face,
Said,—“By Saint George, he ’s gone!
That spear-wound has our master sped,—
And see the deep cut on his head!
Good night to Marmion.”—
“Unnurtured Blount! thy brawling cease:
He opes his eyes,” said Eustace; “peace!”
Around ’gan Marmion wildly stare:—
“Where ’s Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where?
Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare!
Redeem my pennon,—charge again!
Cry—‘Marmion to the rescue!’—vain!
Last of my race, on battle-plain
That shout shall ne’er be heard again!—
Yet my last thought is England’s:—fly,
To Dacre bear my signet-ring:
Tell him his squadrons up to bring:—
Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie;
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down;—my life is reft;—
The Admiral alone is left.
Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,—
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland’s central host,
Or victory and England ’s lost.—
Must I bid twice?—hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone—to die.”
They parted, and alone he lay:
Clare drew her from the sight away,
Till pain rung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmured,—“Is there none,
Of all my halls have nurst,
Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring,
Of blessèd water from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst?”
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!—
Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the Baron’s casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran;
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.
She stooped her by the runnel’s side,
But in abhorrence backward drew;
For, oozing from the mountain’s side,
Where raged the war, a dark-red tide
Was curdling in the streamlet blue,
Where shall she turn!—behold her mark
A little fountain cell,
Where water, clear as diamond-spark,
In a stone basin fell.
Above, some half-worn letters say,
Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray
For the kind soul of Sybil Gray,
Who built this cross and well.
She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied
A monk supporting Marmion’s head;
A pious man whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrive the dying, bless the dead.
And, as she stooped his brow to lave,—
“Is it the hand of Clare,” he said,
“Or injured Constance, bathes my head?”
Then, as remembrance rose,—
“Speak not to me of shrift or prayer!
I must redress her woes.
Short space, few words, are mine to spare;
Forgive and listen, gentle Clare!”—
“Alas!” she said, “the while,—
O, think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Constance is your zeal;
She—died at Holy Isle.”—
Lord Marmion started from the ground,
As light as if he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide
In torrents from his wounded side.
“Then it was truth!” he said,—“I knew
That the dark presage must be true.—
I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would spare me but a day!
For wasting fire, and dying groan,
And priests slain on the altar stone,
Might bribe him for delay.
It may not be!—this dizzy trance,—
Curse on yon base marauder’s lance,
And doubly cursed my failing brand!
A sinful heart makes feeble hand.”
Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk,
Supported by the trembling monk.
And strove to stanch the gushing wound:
The monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church’s prayers.
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady’s voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear,
For that she ever sung,
“In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war’s rattle with groans of the dying!”
So the notes rung:—
“Avoid thee, Fiend!—with cruel hand,
Shake not the dying sinner’s sand!—
O, look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer’s grace divine:
O, think on faith and bliss!—
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner’s parting seen,
But never aught like this.”
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,
And S
A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:
With dying hand above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted “Victory!—
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!”
Were the last words of Marmion.