Marmion

O! be his tomb as lead to lead, 
Upon its dull destroyer’s head!- 
A minstrel’s malison is said.)-

Then on its battlements they saw 
A vision, passing Nature’s law, 
  Strange, wild, and dimly seen; 
Figures that seem’d to rise and die, 
Gibber and sign, advance and fly, 
While nought confirm’d could ear or eye 
  Discern of sound or mien.

Yet darkly did it seem, as there              
Heralds and Pursuivants prepare, 
With trumpet sound, and blazon fair, 
  A summons to proclaim; 
But indistinct the pageant proud, 
As fancy forms of midnight cloud, 
When flings the moon upon her shroud 
  A wavering tinge of flame; 
It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud, 
From midmost of the spectre crowd, 
  This awful summons came:-             

XXVI.

‘Prince, prelate, potentate, and peer, 
  Whose names I now shall call, 
Scottish, or foreigner, give ear! 
Subjects of him who sent me here, 
At his tribunal to appear,                
  I summon one and all:

I cite you by each deadly sin, 
That e’er hath soil’d your hearts within; 
I cite you by each brutal lust, 
That e’er defiled your earthly dust,- 
  By wrath, by pride, by fear, 
By each o’er-mastering passion’s tone, 
By the dark grave, and dying groan! 
When forty days are pass’d and gone, 
I cite you at your Monarch’s throne,    
  To answer and appear.’-

Then thundered forth a roll of names:- 
The first was thine, unhappy James! 
  Then all thy nobles came; 
Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle, 
Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle, 
Why should I tell their separate style? 
  Each chief of birth and fame, 
Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle, 
Fore-doom’d to Flodden’s carnage pile, 
  Was cited there by name;

And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye, 
Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye; 
De Wilton, erst of Aberley, 
The self-same thundering voice did say.-  
  But then another spoke: 
‘Thy fatal summons I deny, 
And thine infernal Lord defy, 
Appealing me to Him on high, 
  Who burst the sinner’s yoke.’               

At that dread accent, with a scream, 
Parted the pageant like a dream, 
  The summoner was gone. 
Prone on her face the Abbess fell, 
And fast, and fast, her beads did tell; 
Her nuns came, startled by the yell, 
  And found her there alone.

She mark’d not, at the scene aghast, 
What time, or how, the Palmer pass’d. 

XXVII.