Marmion

I heard unearthly voices speak,       

And thought the Wizard Priest was come, 

To claim again his ancient home! 

And bade my busy fancy range, 

To frame him fitting shape and strange, 

Till from the task my brow I clear’d,      

And smiled to think that I had fear’d. 

  But chief, ‘twere sweet to think such life, 

(Though but escape from fortune’s strife,) 

Something most matchless good and wise, 

A great and grateful sacrifice;                   

And deem each hour, to musing given, 

A step upon the road to heaven. 

  Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease, 

Such peaceful solitudes displease; 

He loves to drown his bosom’s jar 

Amid the elemental war: 

And my black Palmer’s choice had been 

Some ruder and more savage scene, 

Like that which frowns round dark Loch-skene. 

There eagles scream from isle to shore;            

Down all the rocks the torrents roar; 

O’er the black waves incessant driven, 

Dark mists infect the summer heaven; 

Through the rude barriers of the lake, 

Away its hurrying waters break,          

Faster and whiter dash and curl, 

Till down yon dark abyss they hurl. 

Rises the fog-smoke white as snow, 

Thunders the viewless stream below, 

Diving, as if condemn’d to lave         

Some demon’s subterranean cave, 

Who, prison’d by enchanter’s spell, 

Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell. 

And well that Palmer’s form and mien 

Had suited with the stormy scene,      

Just on the edge, straining his ken 

To view the bottom of the den, 

Where, deep deep down, and far within, 

Toils with the rocks the roaring linn; 

Then, issuing forth one foamy wave, 

And wheeling round the Giant’s Grave, 

White as the snowy charger’s tail, 

Drives down the pass of Moffatdale. 

  Marriott, thy harp, on Isis strung, 

To many a Border theme has rung: 

Then list to me, and thou shalt know 

Of this mysterious Man of Woe.

CANTO SECOND. THE CONVENT.

I.

THE breeze, which swept away the smoke 
  Round Norham Castle roll’d, 

When all the loud artillery spoke, 
With lightning-flash, and thunder-stroke, 
As Marmion left the Hold,-                     

It curl’d not Tweed alone, that breeze, 
For, far upon Northumbrian seas, 
  It freshly blew, and strong,

Where, from high Whitby’s cloister’d pile, 
Bound to Saint Cuthbert’s Holy Isle,            
  It bore a bark along.

Upon the gale she stoop’d her side, 
And bounded o’er the swelling tide, 
  As she were dancing home;

The merry seamen laugh’d, to see    
Their gallant ship so lustily 
Furrow the green sea-foam.

Much joy’d they in their honour’d freight; 
For, on the deck, in chair of state, 
The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed,   
With five fair nuns, the galley graced.