By fits less frequent from the crowd
Was heard the burst of laughter loud
For still, as squire and archer stared
On that dark face and matted beard
Their glee and game declined.
All gazed at length in silence drear,
Unbroke, save when in comrade’s ear
Some yeoman, wondering in his fear,
Thus whispered forth his mind:—
“Saint Mary! saw’st thou e’er such sight?
How pale his cheek, his eye how bright,
Whene’er the firebrand’s fickle light
Glances beneath his cowl!
Full on our lord he sets his eye;
For his best palfrey, would not I
Endure that sullen scowl.”
VII.
But Marmion, as to chase the awe
Which thus had quelled their hearts, who saw
The ever-varying firelight show
That figure stern and face of woe,
Now called upon a squire:
“Fitz-Eustace, know’st thou not some lay,
To speed the lingering night away?
We slumber by the fire.”
VIII.
“So please you,” thus the youth rejoined,
“Our choicest minstrel’s left behind.
Ill may we hope to please your ear,
Accustomed Constant’s strains to hear.
The harp full deftly can he strike,
And wake the lover’s lute alike;
To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush
Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush,
No nightingale her lovelorn tune
More sweetly warbles to the moon.
Woe to the cause, whate’er it be,
Detains from us his melody,
Lavished on rocks, and billows stern,
Or duller monks of Lindisfarne.
Now must I venture, as I may
To sing his favourite roundelay.”
IX.
A mellow voice Fitz-Eustace had,
The air he chose was wild and sad;
Such have I heard, in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On Lowland plains, the ripened ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song:
Oft have I listened, and stood still,
As it came softened up the hill,
And deemed it the lament of men
Who languished for their native glen;
And thought how sad would be such sound
On Susquehana’s swampy ground,
Kentucky’s wood-encumbered brake,
Or wild Ontario’s boundless lake,
Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,
Recalled fair Scotland’s hills again!
X.
SONG.
Where shall the lover rest,
Whom the fates sever
From his true maiden’s breast,
Parted for ever?
Where, through groves deep and high,
Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die,
Under the willow.
CHORUS.