When Franch'mont locked the treasure cell. An hundred years are passed and gone,

And scarce three letters has he won.

Such general superstition may
Excuse for old Pitscottie say,

Whose gossip history has given
My song the messenger from heaven
That warned, in Lithgow, Scotland's king,
Nor less the infernal summoning;

May pass the Monk of Durham's tale,
Whose demon fought in Gothic mail;
May pardon plead for Fordun grave,
Who told of Gifford's Goblin-Cave.
But why such instances to you,
Who in an instant can renew

Your treasured hoards of various lore,

And furnish twenty thousand more?

Hoards, not like theirs whose volumes rest
Like treasures in the Franch'mont chest,
While gripple owners still refuse

To others what they cannot use;
Give them the priest's whole century,
They shall not spell you letters three,
Their pleasure in the books the same
The magpie takes in pilfered gem.
Thy volumes, open as thy heart,

Delight, amusement, science, art,
To every ear and eye impart;

Yet who, of all who thus employ them,
Can like the owner's self enjoy them?
But, hark! I hear the distant drum!
The day of Flodden Field is come,
Adieu, dear Heber! life and health,
And store of literary wealth.

CANTO SIXTH

THE BATTLE

I

WHILE great events were on the gale,
And each hour brought a varying tale,
And the demeanour, changed and cold,
Of Douglas fretted Marmion bold,
And, like the impatient steed of war,
He snuffed the battle from afar,
And hopes were none that back again
Herald should come from Terouenne,
Where England's king in leaguer lay,
Before decisive battle-day,
While these things were, the mournful
Clare

Did in the dame's devotions share;
For the good countess ceaseless prayed

To Heaven and saints her sons to aid,

And with short interval did pass

From prayer to book, from book to mass,

And all in high baronial pride,

A life both dull and dignified:

Yet, as Lord Marmion nothing pressed
Upon her intervals of rest,

Dejected Clara well could bear
The formal state, the lengthened prayer,
Though dearest to her wounded heart
The hours that she might spend apart.

II

I said Tantallon's dizzy steep

Hung o'er the margin of the deep.

Many a rude tower and rampart there
Repelled the insult of the air,

Which, when the tempest vexed the sky,
Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by.

Above the rest a turret square

Did o'er its Gothic entrance bear,

Of sculpture rude, a stony shield;
The Bloody Heart was in the field,
And in the chief three mullets stood,

The cognizance of Douglas blood.

The turret held a narrow stair,

Which, mounted, gave you access where A parapet's embattled row

Did seaward round the castle go.

Sometimes in dizzy steps descending,

Sometimes in narrow circuit bending,
Sometimes in platform broad extending,
Its varying circle did combine

Bulwark, and bartizan, and line,

And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign.

Above the booming ocean leant

The far-projecting battlement;

The billows burst in ceaseless flow

Upon the precipice below.

Where'er Tantallon faced the land,

Gate-works and walls were strongly manned;

No need upon the sea-girt side:

The steepy rock and frantic tide

Approach of human step denied,

And thus these lines and ramparts rude

Were left in deepest solitude.

III

And, for they were so lonely, Clare
Would to these battlements repair,

And muse upon her sorrows there,
And list the sea-bird's cry,

Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide
Along the dark-grey bulwarks' side,

And ever on the heaving tide

Look down with weary eye.

Oft did the cliff and swelling main
Recall the thoughts of Whitby's fane,
A home she ne'er might see again;
For she had laid adown,

So Douglas bade, the hood and veil,