Marmion (ed. Henry Morley) | Page 6

stay a while,
My wildered fancy still beguile!

From this high theme how can I part,
Ere half unloaded is my heart!

For all the tears e'er sorrow drew,
And all the raptures fancy knew,

And all the keener rush of blood,
That throbs through bard in
bardlike mood,
Were here a tribute mean and low,
Though all their

mingled streams could flow -
Woe, wonder, and sensation high,
In
one spring-tide of ecstasy!
It will not be--it may not last -
The
vision of enchantment's past:
Like frostwork in the morning ray
The
fancied fabric melts away;
Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone,
And
long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone;
And lingering last, deception dear,

The choir's high sounds die on my ear.
Now slow return the lonely
down,
The silent pastures bleak and brown,
The farm begirt with
copsewood wild,
The gambols of each frolic child,
Mixing their
shrill cries with the tone
Of Tweed's dark waters rushing on.
Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Thus Nature disciplines her son:

Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day,
In
plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the
Tweed;
Or idly list the shrilling lay
With which the milkmaid
cheers her way,
Marking its cadence rise and fail,
As from the field,
beneath her pail,
She trips it down the uneven dale:
Meeter for me,
by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherd's tale to learn;
Though oft he
stop in rustic fear,
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one who, in
his simple mind,
May boast of book-learned taste refined.
But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell,
(For few have read romance so
well)
How still the legendary lay
O'er poet's bosom holds its sway;

How on the ancient minstrel strain
Time lays his palsied hand in
vain;
And how our hearts at doughty deeds,
By warriors wrought in
steely weeds,
Still throb for fear and pity's sake;

As when the
Champion of the Lake
Enters Morgana's fated house,
Or in the
Chapel Perilous,
Despising spells and demons' force,
Holds
converse with the unburied corse;
Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to
move,
(Alas, that lawless was their love!)
He sought proud Tarquin
in his den,
And freed full sixty knights; or when,
A sinful man, and
unconfessed,
He took the Sangreal's holy quest,
And, slumbering,
saw the vision high,
He might not view with waking eye.

The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorned not such legends to
prolong:
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in
Milton's heavenly theme;
And Dryden, in immortal strain,
Had
raised the Table Round again,
But that a ribald king and court
Bade
him toil on, to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,

Fit for their souls, a looser lay,
Licentious satire, song, and play;

The world defrauded of the high design,
Profaned the God-given
strength, and marred the lofty line.
Warmed by such names, well may we then,
Though dwindled sons of
little men,
Essay to break a feeble lance
In the fair fields of old
romance;
Or seek the moated castle's cell,
Where long through
talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept,
Thy
Genius, Chivalry, hath slept:
There sound the harpings of the North,

Till he awake and sally forth,
On venturous quest to prick again,

In all his arms, with all his train,
Shield, lance, and brand, and plume,
and scarf,
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard with
his want of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the
Genius weave their spells,
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;

Mystery, half veiled and half revealed;
And Honour, with his spotless
shield;
Attention, with fixed eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she
shrinks to hear;
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by
sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning
upon his own good sword.
Well has thy fair achievement shown
A worthy meed may thus be
won;
Ytene's oaks--beneath whose shade
Their theme the merry
minstrels made,

Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold,
And that Red King,
who, while of old,
Through Boldrewood the chase he led,
By his
loved huntsman's arrow bled -
Ytene's oaks have heard again

Renewed such legendary strain;
For thou hast sung how he of Gaul,

That Amadis so famed in hall,
For Oriana foiled in fight
The
necromancer's felon might;
And well in modern verse hast wove


Partenopex's mystic love:
Hear, then, attentive to my lay,
A
knightly tale of Albion's elder day.
CANTO FIRST.
THE CASTLE.
I.
Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and
deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon keep,

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,
Seemed forms of giant height:
Their armour, as it caught the rays,

Flashed 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 barred;
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