Marmion

Shift we the scene.-The camp doth move, 
  Dun-Edin’s streets are empty now, 
Save when, for weal of those they love, 
  To pray the prayer, and vow the vow,

The tottering child, the anxious fair, 
The grey-hair’d sire, with pious care, 
To chapels and to shrines repair- 
Where is the Palmer now? and where 
The Abbess, Marmion, and Clare?- 
Bold Douglas! to Tantallon fair 
  They journey in thy charge:  
Lord Marmion rode on his right hand, 
The Palmer still was with the band; 
Angus, like Lindesay, did command, 
  That none should roam at large.

But in that Palmer’s altered mien 
A wondrous change might now be seen; 
  Freely he spoke of war, 
Of marvels wrought by single hand, 
When lifted for a native land; 
And still look’d high, as if he plann’d 
  Some desperate deed afar.

His courser would he feed and stroke, 
And, tucking up his sable frocke, 
Would first his mettle bold provoke, 
  Then soothe or quell his pride.       
Old Hubert said, that never one 
He saw, except Lord Marmion, 
  A steed so fairly ride.

XXVIII.

Some half-hour’s march behind, there came, 
  By Eustace govern’d fair,                           
A troop escorting Hilda’s Dame, 
  With all her nuns, and Clare. 
No audience had Lord Marmion sought; 
  Ever he fear’d to aggravate 
  Clara de Clare’s suspicious hate; 
And safer ‘twas, he thought, 
  To wait till, from the nuns removed, 
  The influence of kinsmen loved, 
And suit by Henry’s self approved, 
Her slow consent had wrought.     

  His was no flickering flame, that dies 
  Unless when fann’d by looks and sighs, 
  And lighted oft at lady’s eyes; 
  He long’d to stretch his wide command 
  O’er luckless Clara’s ample land:          

  Besides, when Wilton with him vied, 
  Although the pang of humbled pride 
  The place of jealousy supplied, 
Yet conquest, by that meanness won 
He almost loath’d to think upon,       
Led him, at times, to hate the cause, 
Which made him burst through honour’s laws.

If e’er he loved, ‘twas her alone, 
Who died within that vault of stone.

XXIX.

And now, when close at hand they saw 
North Berwick’s town, and lofty Law, 
Fitz-Eustace bade them pause a while, 
Before a venerable pile, 
  Whose turrets view’d, afar, 
The lofty Bass, the Lambie Isle, 
  The ocean’s peace or war.

At tolling of a bell, forth came 
The convent’s venerable Dame, 
And pray’d Saint Hilda’s Abbess rest 
With her, a loved and honour’d guest, 
Till Douglas should a bark prepare