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 buglehorn 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 salvo-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.
