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Then fell that spotless banner white,
The Howard's lion fell;

Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
Around the battle yell.

The Border slogan rent the sky!

A Home! a Gordon! was the cry;
Loud were the clanging blows;
Advanced,-forced back,- —now low, now high,
The pennon sunk and rose;

As bends the bark's mast in the gale,
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,
It wavered 'mid the foes.

Then Eustace mounted too;-yet staid,
As loth to leave the helpless maid,
When, fast as shaft can fly,

Blood-shot his eyes, his nostrils spread,
The loose rein dangling from his head,
Housing and saddle bloody red,

Lord Marmion's steed rushed by;
And Eustace, maddening at the sight,
A look and sign to Clara cast,
To mark he would return in haste,
Then plunged into the fight.

With that, straight up the hill there rode
Two horsemen drenched with gore,
And in their arms, a helpless load,

A wounded knight they bore.

*

His hand still strained the broken brand;
His arms were smeared with blood, and sand.
Dragged from among the horses' feet,
With dinted shield, and helmet beat,
The falcon-crest and plumage gone,
Can that be haughty Marmion! *
When doffed his casque, he felt free air,
Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare:-
"Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where
Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare!
Redeem my pennon,-charge again,-

Cry- Marmion to the rescue!'-Vain!

Last of my race, on battle-plain

That shout shall ne'er be heard again !—

Yet my last thought is England's-fly,
To Dacre bear my signet-ring;
Tell him his squadrons up to bring
Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie;
Tunstall lies dead upon the field;
His life-blood stains the spotless shield;
Edmund is down:-my life is reft ;—
The Admiral alone is left.

Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,-
With Chester charge, and Lancashire
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.

Must I bid twice ? hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone-to die."
The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,
And-STANLEY! was the cry;-

A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:-
With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted "Victory!-

"Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

XVI.-The Ocean-an Image of Eternity.
ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him shivering in thy playful spray
Howling in agony, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth-there let him lay.
The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war:
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires changed in all save thee:
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they i
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts-not so thou-
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

XVII.-Ships Sinking.

LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE IN HARBOUR.

BYRON,

TOLL for the brave! the brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave, fast by their native shore.
Toll for the brave! brave Kempenfeldt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought; his work of glory done.

It was not in the battle; no tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak; she ran upon no rock.

His sword was in its sheath, his fingers held the pen, When Kempenfeldt went down, with twice four hundred

men.

Brave Kempenfeldt is gone, his victories are o'er ;
And he, and his eight hundred, shall plough the waves

no more.

COWPER.

SHIP SINKING AT SEA.

THEN rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,—
Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,—
Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawned around her like a hell,

And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

XVIII.-Lochiel's Warning.

BYRON.

Wizard.-LOCHIEL! Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight: They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown. Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down! Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?

'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there,
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead:
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

Lochiel.-Go, preach to the coward, thou death-
telling seer!

Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight!
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

Wizard.-Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!
Say, rush'd the bold eagle exultingly forth,
From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast!
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of heaven.
Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely, return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.
Lochiel.-False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled
my clan :

Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;

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