Marmion

Beside the dank and dull canal?

He’ll say, from youth he loved to see 
The white sail gliding by the tree.

Or see yon weatherbeaten hind, 
Whose sluggish herds before him wind, 
Whose tatter’d plaid and rugged cheek 
His northern clime and kindred speak;  

Through England’s laughing meads he goes, 
And England’s wealth around him flows;

Ask, if it would content him well, 
At ease in those gay plains to dwell, 
Where hedge-rows spread a verdant screen,  
And spires and forests intervene, 
And the neat cottage peeps between?

No! not for these will he exchange 
His dark Lochaber’s boundless range; 
Not for fair Devon’s meads forsake    
Bennevis grey, and Carry’s lake. 

  Thus while I ape the measure wild 
Of tales that charm’d me yet a child, 
Rude though they be, still with the chime 
Return the thoughts of early time;           

And feelings, roused in life’s first day, 
Glow in the line, and prompt the lay. 
Then rise those crags, that mountain tower 
Which charm’d my fancy’s wakening hour.

Though no broad river swept along,            
To claim, perchance, heroic song; 
Though sigh’d no groves in summer gale, 
To prompt of love a softer tale;

Though scarce a puny streamlet’s speed 
Claim’d homage from a shepherd’s reed; 
Yet was poetic impulse given, 
By the green hill and clear blue heaven.

It was a barren scene, and wild, 
Where naked cliff’s were rudely piled; 
But ever and anon between                 
Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green;

And well the lonely infant knew 
Recesses where the wall-flower grew, 
And honey-suckle loved to crawl 
Up the low crag and ruin’d wall.

I deem’d such nooks the sweetest shade 
The sun in all its round survey’d; 
And still I thought that shatter’d tower 
The mightiest work of human power;

And marvell’d as the aged hind            
With some strange tale bewitch’d my mind, 
Of forayers, who, with headlong force, 
Down from that strength had spurr’d their horse, 
Their southern rapine to renew, 
Far in the distant Cheviots blue, 
And, home returning, fill’d the hall 
With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl.

Methought that still with trump and clang, 
The gateway’s broken arches rang;

Methought grim features, seam’d with scars, 
Glared through the window’s rusty bars, 
And ever, by the winter hearth, 
Old tales I heard of woe or mirth, 
Of lovers’ slights, of ladies’ charms, 
Of witches’ spells, of warriors’ arms;

Of patriot battles, won of old 
By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold;

Of later fields of feud and fight,