HANDBOUND
AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS
THE
THANE OF FIFE;
A POEM,
SIX CANTOS.
BY
WILLIAM TENNANT,
AUTHOR OF ANBTER FAIR, &C.
6*5 iT. :
EDINBURGH :
PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. EDINBURGH;
WILLIAM COCKBURN, ANSTRUTHER ; AND
HURST, ROBINSON, & CO. LONDON.
1822.
?R
PREFACE.
THE following Poem is founded upon an incident of
Scottish History, which is thus related by Buchanan,
Lib. vi. c. 8.
" About these times the Danes, of all the Germans
then the most flourishing and powerful people, yield-
ed to the importunity of the Picts, who solicited their aid
against the Scots; and as their youthful population was
then exuberant in numbers, and adventurous in spirit,
they willingly consented to cross over to Britain with a
great fleet. They landed on the coast of Fife ; and there,
instigated by their hatred of the Christian name, slew all
without discrimination that fell within the sphere of their
ravage. They then, dividing their army into two parts,
spread a wide havoc and devastation throughout the dis-
trict. King Constantine, in his march to encounter them,
lighted first upon that division of the army which was
headed by Hubba, brother of the Danish monarch. These,
VI PREFACE.
being prevented from re-joining their countrymen by a
sudden overflow of the river Leven, were easily vanquished,
and all fell on the field, saving a few who were enabled, by
their skill in swimming, to rejoin Humber (or Hungar)
their other leader. When the abated river again became
passable, Constantine leading his army confidently for-
ward, as if to the spoil, and not to the battle, met the
enemy in the neighbourhood of Crail (or Carrail), where
he had strongly fortified himself. For the Dane, taught
by the unfortunate issue of last battle, to be more wary
and provident against all contingencies, had piled up,
above a low ridge of rocks that stretched winding up
near the shore, imnlense piles of the stones there lying,
so as to present the appearance of a rampart. There
Constantine injudiciously attacking them, met a deter-
mined resistance, and the almost despairing Danes, being
now aided by their situation, inflicted upon him for his
temerity a grievous punishment, in the loss of a great part
of his army. He himself was taken, dragged into a small
cave, and slain. In that place are yet pointed out, as mo-
numents of the battle, the cave and the winding enclosure
of the camp, which is not measured out into exact and re-
gular spaces, but follows the flexure of the ridge of rocks.
PREFACE. - VII
Some writers impute the misfortune of that affair to the
treachery of the Picts, who, after being re-admitted to
trust by Constantine, and inlisted to fight under his ban-
ner, were the first to desert him in battle, and drew aside
with them a great part of the army. The Danes, after
having collected the spoils, retired to their ships. The
King's body was found next day, and committed to the
burial-ground of his ancestors, in the island of lona.
Constantine reigned 16 years. He was slain in the year
874."
The affair is also described by Boethkis in his usual in-
elegant and diffuse manner. It is surprising that in the
Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, no mention what-
ever is made of an occurrence so glorious to his country-
men as the discomfiture and slaughter of the Scottish Mo-
narch ; an omission which can only be accounted for by
the supposition of a gap in the narrative of his history for
the space of several hundred years. In his work I have
not been able to find even the names of Hungar and
Hubba.
In selecting for the foundation of my Poem such an in-
cident, and of such a period, accompanied necessarily with
a machinery of suitable and coeval Gods and Spiritual!-
Vlll PREFACE.
ties, I do not know whether I shall be acquitted by the
Critics of temerity and indiscretion. There is a peril in
the experiment, of which I am well aware. I shall, how-
ever, willingly and humbly submit myself to the judgment
of my Readers. Should they disapprove of the following
effort, little is lost ; for I have never allowed the writ-
ing of verses to interfere either with my professional du-
ties or my more solid and nutritive studies, and, more-
over, I shall gain, by their disapproval, a lesson to ab-
stain in future from all such perilous enterprises. Should
any encouragement be given me by their applause, I shall
be happy to employ what leisure hours may be hence-
forth allowed me in the prosecution and completion of the
Poem whose first Cantos are now, with the utmost dif-
fidence, presented to the Public.
DOLLAR ACADEMY,
3d December 1821.
THE
THANE OF FIFE
CANTO I.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO I.
I.
THE Thane Macduff, and that contentious Dane
Who from the Cimbric Chersonese afar
Came with young Garnard forth, and on the plain
Of Fife debark'd his proud invasive war ;
And how the chieftains slew, and how were slain,
How armies jostled in the bloody jar,
And miracles of gods and fairy sprites,
And ladies and their loves, and feats of fiery knights,-
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO
II.
All these I sing, if haply to my theme
She, the most joyous of th' harmonious throng,
That wont to glorify my midnight dream,
Euterpe, aidant come, t' adorn my song
With visions radiant as the immortal beam
That spangles young Apollo's tresses long ;
So shall I build an edifice of rhyme,
Bold in its style and rare, fantastic and sublime.
III.
Forth from the harbours of the Danish land
Had sail'd the choicest of her monarch's power,
Men fierce in spirit and of vigorous hand,
The kingdom's youthful glory > and its power:
And now at sea, by fav'ring breezes fann'd,
t Their cunning navigation every hour
Westward they ply with canvass and with oar,
Chasing each star that sets, to gain Bod otria's "shore.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE.
IV.
And nearer as to Scottish land they drew,
And swifter as their black stems clip the wave,
The fieryer every warrior's spirit grew,
The fiercer and the madder burn'd the brave ;
For, briskly as o'er head the breezes blew,
And fleetly as their prows the billows clave,
Their souls' desire for battle and for blood
Fore-flew both wing of wind and rush of rolling flood.
V.
A thousand ships come dancing o'er the brine,
With snowy sails and flaunting streamers trim,
And every vessel holds in her confine
A hundred warriors terrible of limb :
And every warrior tow'rds the sun's decline
Turns his sharp gaze and ruthless features grim,
Eager to hail with scowling threat of war,
Far in th' horizon's rim first peep of land afar.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
VI.
Three days they danc'd before the merry gales,
With tilting keel, and canvass strutting proud,
But on the third night flagg'd the flapping sails,
Nor pip'd the shrill wind in the tarry shroud ;
From the low depths of Neptune's humid vales
Steam'd round the ring of heaven a misty cloud,
That, stealing up th' acclivities of sky,
Seal'd up th' ethereal blue from pilot's weary eye.
VII.
And still the vapours, close and closer prest,
Condensing, frown'd into a fouler gloom,
Till wide o'er sea's illimitable breast,
Enthron'd, Night spread her wings of direst plume,
Out-blotting, from the heaven's rich-spangled vest,
The golden studs that wont the world illume;
The helmsman cast his eye-glance up the dark,
And kenn'd the gath'ring storm, and trembled for his bark,
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE.
VIII.
First from the deep there came a hollow sound,
Swinging a sullen bodement on his ear,
As if the monsters of the salt profound,
Even at the sea's foundations, touch'd with fear,
Howl'd in their secret chambers, round and round,
Alarming prelude to the tempest near ;
At length to rack the cloud was rent and riven,
And down upon the world the crush of storm was driven.
IX.
Then with a sound, as if th' overhanging sky
Its marble roof had shatter'd and had rent,
A thousand winds from the cloud's clefts on high,
Rush reeling round the vexed firmament;
And swooping on the deeps outrageously,
Ridge into surges all the element,
Whipping with saucy gusts, in wrath out-blown,
Their foam-becrested heads that rowl and ruffian on,
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
X.
Nor slept the Thunder in his black abode,
Amid his treasury of hail and rain ;
But now on heaven's great ridge his chariot rode,
Now sounded down th' empyreal slopes amain ;
Whilst from his noisy wheels were flash'd abroad
Fires fulgent now, now swallow'd up again,
That arrow'd through th' opaque their forky fire,
Emblazing Night's huge cave with gleamy terrors dire.
XL
Then were the Danish barks tempested sore,
And scourg'd with whirlwind o'er the waste expanse;
As piles of chaff on farmer's thrashing-floor
Vagary to the freakish wind, and dance,
So bounded they the roaring waters o'er,
Disdainful of the helm's vain governance,
Yielding their masts and oak-enribbed sides,
Obnoxious to th' assault of winds and madding tides.
CANTO i. THE THANE OF FIFE. ,9
XII.
Then terror took the men, that ne'er before
Knew fear on battle's plain or ocean's floods,
As now they, mounting up the billows hoar,
Hang in the stormy bosom of the clouds ;
Now, sweeping down with billow-shearing prore,
Dive into Hell and Pluto's grim abodes :
Forgotten now is war, and sword, and spear,
And Hungar's mighty heart shrinks in, and stoops to fear.
XIII.
He on the deck, subdu'd and shivering, stands,
With ruddy locks, unhelmeted and bare,
And spreads abroad to heaven his suppliant hands,
Addressing to the Gods his soul in prayer :
" O Thou," he says, " who over seas and lands
Exertest thy dominion and thy care,
Chief of the Gods ! whom Cimbrian nations fear ;
The warrior's stay and king, to whom the Dane is dear
10 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
XIV.
Hear from thy halls, great Odin ! where on high
Thou sit'st in thy Valhalla rooPd with gold ;
Where, round thy joyous table in the sky,
Feast blithe and boon the spirits of the bold :
Hear, nor to us thy children now deny
Th' assistant arm our fathers knew of old ;
Save us from coward's death and whelming sea,
Save us to battle's field, and death for fame and thee.
XV.
And thou the second God, mace-bearing Thor !
That standest at the right hand of thy sire,
The thunder's King, and ocean's Governor,
Whose game is tempest, and whose plaything fire ;
Hear us amid thy own loud tempest's roar ;
Chide thou the winds thus blust'ring in their ire;
And, with the virtue of thy club, confound
And smite these saucy waves that burn with foam around.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 11
XVI.
So may our batter'd ships soon reach the soil
Where grows the harvest of our future fame.;
And where, as first-fruits of the battle's spoil,
To thee, and to thy sire, and to his dame,
Twelve Scottish youths, caught in the bloody broil,
Shall fall ; and twelve fair ladies, void of blame :
These to thy mother ; those, thy sire and thee ;
Here on my sword I swear that sacrifice shall be."
XVII.
He scarce had said, when in the orient heaven,
So sabled o'er with gloom and turbulent,
The canopy of stormy clouds was riven
Into a luminous disclosing rent,
Whence on the watery wilderness was given
A gush of radiant light magnificent,
That gilt the frothy surges all with gold,
Casting their shadows west as onward proud they roll'd.
12 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
XVIII.
'Twas not, array'd in rays, the morning star,
Gemming the cheek of heaven before her time ;
'Twas not the morning, in her rubied car,
Up-whirling from the chambers maritime ; >
'Twas Odin's self, 'twas he, the god of war,
High riding on his haughty steed sublime,
That in a show'r of glory from his hall
Bright on the blacken'd world bursts forth at Hungar'scall.
XIX.
He comes upon his steed of snowy white,
That with his silvery hoofs' indignant blow
Smites down the ruffian waves of fiercest might,
Trampling in scorn their saucy swellings low ;
He comes in all his majesty of light,
Dazzling the night-sky with celestial glow,
Girt with his panoply of flashy flame,
That round and round enclasp with fiery tongues his frame.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 13
XX.
And in his strong unfleshly hand is borne,
Sword-like, a terror, vibrating its blaze,
Huge as the meteor which the northern morn
In winter, when her glories most she plays,
Shoots upwards, reaching from th' horizon's bourn
To where Medusa's head her snakes displays ;
Such and so broad a scymitar he waves,
Chastising with its edge the storm that round him raves.
XXL
So on he marches, o'er th' enridged back
Of sea, that foams her indignation out,
Leaving behind him, in his shiny track,
Smooth deeps, and calm, and silence round about;
Till to the Cimbrian fleet, nigh toss'd to wrack,
And scatter'd like an army in its rout ;
His radiant progress now arrives, to cheer
His people sore distrest, and save from danger near.
14 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
XXII.
Amid their fleet he rode ; and, as he pass'd
Each stooping over-labour'd vessel by,
He reach'd his burning right-hand, red and vast,
Down from the middle regions of the sky,
And, clenching in his gripe the oblique mast,
Rear'd right the vessel from her jeopardy,
And chid away to death the blasts, that blow
Ruffling amid the clouds, and weigh her topmasts low.
XXIII.
Then with his hand he push'd the poop ; and from
That touch th' elanced vessel flying went,
Stemming her gladsome voyage, and to foam
Mincing before her prow the element :
As to its mark the arrow rushes home,
When from the nerve by arm of vigour sent,
So bound the vessels westward to their shore,
Instinct from that strong touch, unholp by sail or oar.
CANTO T. THE THANE OF FIFE. 15
XXIV.
Thus o'er the salt they ride self-steer'd, self-blown,
Bearing glad hearts, now firm from fear, and brave,
Whilst o'er them, as they voyag'd westering on,
Their warrior-god his benediction gave :
That done, below he staid not, but anon
On steed that kick'd the now-becalmed wave,
He mounted up the golden bridge, whose bend
Reaches from heaven to earth, that Odin may ascend.
XXV.
One spurn his courser gave the flashing deep,
And with a bound, that measured in its height
Half that long bow's amazing highway steep,
Mid space 'tween sky and earth his hoofs alight :
One bound was visible ; the second leap
Plung'd him in heaven beside the Pleiads bright ;
There lights the god before his palace-gate,
And in Valhalla's hall he seeks his lofty seat.
16
THE THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO I.
XXVI.
Amid his hall he came, whose gorgeous floor
Is pav'd with tiles of pearl and chrysolite ;
Whose roof is gold ; whose sides are garnish'd o'er
With swords all flashing forth a joyous light :
There he his children found the mighty Thor,
Niord the stern, and Balder the polite,
With all the brotherhood of gods, in throng
Consociate at their cups, carousing deep and long.
XXVII.
And farther off, at tables ranged round
The circuit of that broad and spacious hall,
Lean'd the huge ghosts of mighty heroes, crown'd
With bloody laurels, grimly-featured all,
Earth's direst ones, most murderous, most renown'd,
Butchers of life and slayers capital,
Quaffing their hydromel in measure full,
And lipping lusciously their yellow cups of skull.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 17
XXVIII.
There, in long shadowy unsubstantial rows,
According to their age, and to their fame,
Sat, bench'd and bousing, all the shades of those
That in the Cimbric wars toil'd out a name;
From Bojorix of old, whom Latian foes
Before Massilia slew, but not with shame,
Down to the private captain of renown
Slain by King Egbert's hand on field of Hengesdown,
XXIX.
All these, a ghostly crowd, sans flesh, sans skin,
Sat chirping shrill, and batt'ning on their mead,
Till, when their deity and king came in,
Up sprung the gloomy spirits of the dead,
And, bowing low their boneless statures thin,
Each in obeisance grim nods down the head :
He, with a haughty disregard, mov'd on
All stately to the seat where wont he feast alone.
18 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
XXX.
For there, in very centre of his hall,
Apart from that vain populace of guests,
High plac'd, and with his eye o'er-lording all,
He at his table solitary feasts ;
His food is of the tusked animal
Whose flesh, though eaten still, yet never wastes
His drink is of th' imperishable wine,
That from his golden cup exudes its gush divine.
XXXI.
He sat not down to diet on his boar ;
He sat not down to revel on his wine ;
He stood, and with his feet three times and four
Smote sOundingly the pavement's sapphirine :
Trembled through all its round the solid floor
Beneath the trample of that foot divine,
And in an instant died from every tongue
The hubbub shrill of shrieks wherewith the benches rung.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 19
XXXII.
He wav'd his hand for audience, and begun t
" Children and spirits of the dead renown'd,
That here on high above earth's rolling sun,
With splendour and with feast my throne surround,
To-day rejoice ye louder every one,
Add to your cups, and let your joys abound,
For a great feast is toward on the earth,
And bloody deeds push forth and struggle for a birth.
XXXIII.
Look downwards from the windows of the skies,
And see how from the northern hive again
A swarm new-fledg'd of desp'rate warriors flies
On winged ships across the hollow main :
Each western wind that from the Ocean sighs,
Has blown amid that bold and boisterous train
Nought but the smell of ravage, blood, and prey,
And westward sweep they now to plunder and to slay.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
XXXIV.
Near to the rocky-belted Scotian shore
They ride upon their horses of the deep;
I found them in distress and lab'ring sore
O'er Ocean's much-enchafed ridges steep ;
I left them skimming glad the salt-sea floor.
Each blast and stormy billow lull'd asleep.
So that with earliest beam of day's gay star
Their ships shall keel the strand and disembark their war.
XXXV.
To-morrow's Sun shall see the coast of Fife,
Like his own wheels, glitt'ring with glow of arms ;
To-morrow's Sun shall see the rising strife
Give its first fruits of horror and alarms,
And Havoc, with his sharp destroying knife,
Hew down the people as the tumult warms :
Death's bloody banquet there shall feast us all,
And many a new-made ghost mount up to crowd our halJ.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 21
XXXVI.
Yet must we not permit these men of ours,
Hungar and Hubba, and that valiant race,
To fight unaided by those heavenly powers
Wherein their hope and confidence they place;
Thine be it Thor to-morrow, when the Hours
Yoke Titan's horses in their silvery trace,
From Heaven's eternal revels to descend
On embassage of love our people to defend.
XXXVII.
For on the coast, to which now sail they close,
No easy prey their debarkation waits,
But sword and spear shall greet them from their foes,
With sharp salute of death and bloody fates ;
Nor human hosts alone prepare t' oppose ;
Sprites of the soil, Queen Mab's subordinates,
Shall issue from earth's spiracles like mist,
And, hovering o'er the war, the native bands assist.
.
22 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
XXXVIII.
That aid of elvish imps to countervail,
Assume, O Thor, the terror of thy mace,
And with the brightness of thy fiery mail
Dazzle the foe to flight and foul disgrace :
It must not be, that Odin's sons must quail
Before a quaint hobgoblin populace :
Then, go, thy chariot yoke, and with the light
Shout, from the Scottish hills, the land into affright."
XXXIX.
He scarce had ceas'd when th' unessential throng
Of ghosts heroic that stand listening round,
Set up a shout of shrieks, sharp, shrill, and long,
Screaming acclaim with miserable sound ;
As when the screech-owl sings her dreary song
Foretokening griefs to those upon the ground,
So rose from those tall ghosts the thin small yell,
Funereal, boding death to those on earth that dwell.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 23
XL.
Meantime, while thus in Odin's court prevails
The joy of ghosts anticipating death,
Night's dragon-harness'd pitchy car, that sails
In silence through the sea of stars beneath,
Westward was hurl'd ; and now her dragon's tails
Feel blow upon them morning's spicy breath,
And heaven's far eastern marge, of late so dim,
Is whit'ning more and more with beams that upward climb.
XLI.
And soon Pyroeis, whose long fiery mane
Ensaffrons with its splendour half the east,
O'erpeers the ocean with his sunny wain,
Pawing the glancing waves in silver drest,
And soon he bounds into th' ethereal plain,
Making the world with light all manifest,
And o'er the Grampian hills, enrich'd with dew,
Shaking the glories down of day-spring fresh and new.
24 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
XLII.
Then broke in prospect on the Danish fleet,
As by the Ness of Fife they onward steer.
The Scottish land, illum'd as with a sheet
Of radiance, in its pride of greenness near ;
Her hills, high heaving their glad tops to greet
The morn, up-dancing on her blithe career,
Her fields and plains expanding down to sea
Their garnish'd green extent all rich with tower and tree.
XLIIL
Whereat, with doubled zeal of quick desire,
The Cimbrian pirates, ardent for the shore,
Array their ships in all their full attire
Of sails, and wing them with full many an oar,
The sooner to attain the happy shire,
And foot the beauteous soil their eyes before :
Fresh from the chambers of the dawn a breeze
Luxuriates in their sails, and fleets them o'er the seas.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 25
XLIV.
So on they speed, till as they near the land
Develop of trim ships the long array.
Uprises from the crowded decks, where stand
The warriors helm'd and glittering in the ray,
A shout of joy, that to the neighbouring strand
Spoke loud the coming people and the fray :
Balcomie rocks rung fearful with the sound,
And all the sea-beach caves in sighs respond around,
XLV.
That tumult soon surceas'd ; and for a space
Silent the life-o'ercrowded decks remain ;
As tow'rd the sandy beach they veer apace
Their stems vermilion'd o'er with ruddy stain ;
Then as in equal line they skim the face
Of ocean, nearing to the Fifan plain,
Begins the solemn war-song, full and slow,
Tim'd to the dashing oars that push the waves below.
26 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
XLVI.
And aye at intervals the song is broke,
When heaves the gather'd voice a pitch sublime,
By clash of sounding swords with many a stroke
Pealing upon their shields an iron chime;
From mouth of Tay to May's sea-batter'd rock
The hollow sky kept ringing for a time,
As in triumphal glee, with pomp and song,
March to the ocean marge their streamer'd ships along.
XLVI1.
But when amid the beach's yellow sand
Their keels were bedded and were dock'd secure,
High on his prow great Hungar took his stand,
In all his armour's gaudy garniture,
And poising in his strong and sinewy hand
The ponderous spear, whose stroke is ever sure,
He hurl'd amid the startled land afar,
At once, with forceful swing, his weapon and his war.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE.
XLVIIL
His weapon soon he followed, and with leap
Down sprung the hero on the pebbly shore.
And, kneeling where the playful billows creep,
A fearful oath upon his sword he swore,
That, ere the bright-hair'd sun again should sleep
Chamber'd amid the loud Atlantic's roar,
In Scotsman's blood that weapon he should flesh,
And with the smell of war Heaven's nostrils all refresh.
XLIX.
For Hungar's soul was of infuriate mood,
Haughty and fierce, and gloomy and severe,
And to its slaughter-lust the bath of blood,
Like dew, was its regalement and its cheer ;
His field of glory was the salt-sea flood,
The pirate's trackless highway, where appear
Rich travelers floating in their grandeur by,
Beck'ning the plunderer on to spoil their bravery.
28
THE THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO I.
L.
Nor less on land than on the rolling main
For him th' ensanguined crop of laurels grew ;
Each British shore, which eastern winds in vain
Batter with waves up-heaving ever new,
From where the Foreland's horns the deep restrain,
To where the Pentland waters struggle through,
His bloody visitations felt, when he
Rush'd like a rav'nous wolf, up-prowling from the sea.
LI.
Him follows from the deck with leap of joy,
As next in blood so nearest in command,
His brother Hubba, Frotho's younger boy,
The fairest blossom of the Danish land :
Not he, the beauty and the bane of Troy,
To whom queen Helen gave th' illicit hand,
Shone in a richer tinge of youth, what day
He stole from Sparta's streets their peerless gem away.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 29
LII.
His, not the fury and the reckless rage
For war, that in his bloody brother boil'd ;
Of softer mood, and fitter to engage
In chamber with fair-ogling lady mild,
Than with contentious Mars to tug and wage
Hot conflict in the storm of battle wild ;
Yet, at his brother's and his sire's reproof,
He for rough warrior's life exchang'd the peaceful roof.
LIII.
And war with all its excellence and show,
Its pomp of plumes and blazonry of brass,
Its sun-bright glory when in order'd row,
Dazzling all heaven, th' accoutred legions pass,
Its trumpet-clang prelusive to the blow,
Pealing fierce courage through th' embodied mass,-
All these to young prince Hubba's soul had charms,
Wedding his gentler mood to Mars's rough alarms.
30 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
LIV.
So down he bounds upon the smooth sea-shore,
Joying to see, ere yet he touched the sand,
The shadow of his high plume flung afore
By the bright sun upon a hostile strand ;
His spear, whose point stood guiltless yet of gore,
Swung long and graceful in his better band,
While in his left exultingly he held,
Unhack'd as yet and pure, fair Expectation's shield,
LV.
Next after them, with leap the shore attain'd
He for whose sake that war is wafted o'er,
Garnard the son of Brude, who lately reign'd
In Pictland o'er her every shire and shore ;
Excluded from th' expected throne, constrain'd
To leave the realm his father rul'd before,
O'er many a land an exile he had gone,
Exciting kings to arm and vindicate his throne.
CANTO I.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
31
LVL
And now, supported by the Scandian name,
And with ambitious hopes to flower out-blown,
He comes t' enforce the unadmitted claim
With borrow'd strength and legions not his own ;
Glorying in hope to fling retorted shame
Back on the king that holds by right the throne ;
Rejoicing with restored steps again
To tread his father's land and reassert his reign.
LVII.
To him in gift the Cimbric monarch gave
Ten gallant ships, with all their equipage,
And every ship transported o'er the wave
A hundred heroes in their prime of age,
CulPd from his isles, the blossom of the brave
That o'er the deep piratic warfare wage,
From Hittern and the rocky Cyclades
That with their islet-chain bespeck the Norrick seas.
32 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
LVIII.
Next lighted from his vessel's painted side
Harald, the bastard of the Swedish king,
To whom his father gave possession wide,
Halmstad and Gottenburg and lonkoping,
A land of ships, and shipmen taught to ride
The mad sea safe when waves their foam out-fling ;
A land of pirates, an amphibious train,
Alike defying death on ship-board and on plain.
LIX.
He, when the news were to his land blown o'er
By Fame, whose trumpet ever clangs aloud,
That to the port and road of Elsinore
The Danish ships were hasting o'er the flood,
Thence soon to seek the Caledonian shore
On expedition perilous and proud,
A herald sent, beseeching he might share
The dangers, toils, and fame of that invasive war.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 33
LX.
And soon he left his palace and domain,
And his fair spouse that pines her hours away,
Regardless of her tears that plead in vain
'Gainst his departure for a foreign fray ;
And up the Sound he comes to join the Dane,
With all his hundred vessels floating gay,
Exulting in the grandeur of his power,
And burning for exploits whereby his name may tower.
LXL
For love of honour was the restless sting
That liv'd and fretted in young Harald's breast,
Disquieting his soul with thoughts that bring
Self-accusation, shame, and much unrest,
How little he had done to grace a king,
And with a glorious light his name invest;
Whilst his fair sunny days of youth and might
Roll on without their fame in bow'rs of vain delight.
c
34 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
LXII.
So now, despising home, and love, and ease,
Enamour'd of the glory of a name,
He with his navy has o'er-skimm'd the seas,
To chase in western lands a warrior's fame ;
And down he leaps, all-gladsome as he sees
Fair field before him where the prize to claim;
Already braving, in his valour's height,
Ev'n on his own dear soil, king Constantine to fight.
LXIIL
With him alights, companion of the war,
Helgo, the lord of Bleking's pleasant land,
That whilom, near the walls of old Kalmar,
Throttled, with gripe of witch-defying hand,
The snakes, let loose by Lapmark's hags, to mar
With efflux poisonous that happy strand ;
Before the Swedish king he slew them twain,
King Eric paid th' exploit with Bleking's fair domain.
CANTO I.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
35
LXIV.
Next from his lofty ship, Sea-dragon call'd,
Whose length lies sleeping in the tide aground,
Descended Norway's hero, Rogenvald,
From Malmo to the Northern Cape renown'd ;
Well was his mansion known to many a Scald,
And well his praises blown in song around,
For in his hall was feasting for the bard,
And in his heart was love and ever-dear regard.
LXV.
With him, attendant at his side, there came
His bard and lov'd companion Alarude,
One, who in Mars's or in Bacchus' game,
In field or hall aye near him sate or stood ;
What though, like Sparta's king, one foot was lame?
His heart was manly and his courage good ;
He needed hands alone to beat and slay ;
He needed not fleet feet to scour from fight away.
36 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
LXVI.
His was the head felicitous to dream
Rich visions swimming in romantic light,
And his the tongue, all eloquent to stream
Rivers of tuneful language exquisite ;
Each flower, that 'neath Apollo's blissful beam
Grows in the Muses' gardens sunny bright,
He well had culPd, and feasted on its bloom,
And o'er his fervent mind diffus'd the rich perfume.
LXVII.
Next these alighted on the yellow sand
Th* enchantress-pirate with the golden hair,
Alvilda, daughter of King Edebrand,
That in fair Gothland's isle the sceptre bare ;
Her father's only child, through many a land
Fame her enchantments blew and beauty rare,
That from the Baltic every wind blew in
Some wooer, proud and fain her hand and isle to win,
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 37
LXVIII.
Her heart was nor impregnable, nor proof
To the shrewd arts and enginery of love;
Yet, when assembled near her father's roof,
Her lovers in assiduous courtship strove,
Oft from the palace she would steal aloof,
A buskin'd huntress, to the pine-tree grove,
And leaving them amid th' inglorious feast,
Vex'd with her silver shafts to death the mountain-beast.
LXIX.
Yet not alone the mountain and the wood
Were conscious of the bold exploits she wrought;
Her bark she launch 'd, and, roaming o'er the flood,
Shot through the Baltic's stream-disgorging throat,
And, like a giantess of valiant mood,
On every shore, both near and more remote,
Reel'd in piratic ravage round and round ;
And Shetland knew her name, and trembled at its sound,
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
LXX.
So here, amid the Cimbric heroes fam'd,
She comes, the fam'd Marpesia of the North,
All sheen with showy arms, that flash'd and flam'd
Back on the sun his beamy arrows forth,
Affronting him, that on her form unblam'd,
And bosom heaving high its precious worth,
He should intrude his pert beams ere she wist,
And kiss those precious parts by man so gladly kiss'd.
LXXI.
So down she leaps, and as her buskin'd feet
Give quick their salutation to the ground,
The silver quiver at her back, replete
With glittering arrows, sends a clattering sound ;
And in her hand the beauteous bow, whence fleet
Those glitt'ring arrows homeward to their wound ;
Its idle cord now lax and all unstrung,
Curves in a graceful swell its silver flexure long.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 39
LXXII.
Her followed near, as up the shore she past,
Osbreth, the lord of Rugen's fertile isle,
Her nice overweening paramour, who cast
Sharp am'rous glances on her all the while ;
Well was his person prank'd, and quaintly grac'd
With curls and ruffs, and ornaments of guile,
Whilst aye the sweet breeze sifting through his hair,
Told by its scented breath th' attaint contracted there.
LXXIII.
His vessel too was, like his person, dress'd
In foppery of grandeur sheen to see,
For sails of silk each gold-gilt mast invest
With gorgeous and redundant drapery ;
In whose rich folds the breeze was proud to rest,
Kissing the beauteous threads in merry glee :
His boltsprit nodded o'er the deeps in gold,
In gold his poop's fair flag its curling length unrolPd,
40 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
LXXIV.
And Chilperic, the wise, past up the beach,
Whose mansion on the Norway foreland stood
High on a tow'ry hill, whose prospects reach
Far round, commanding sky and shore and flood ;
The stars of heaven he knew, and well to each
Its name could give, and tell its longitude,
From where the Dolphin swings his tail on high,
Round to the torrid Crab whose claws enclasp the sky.
LXXV.
And every wind he knew, and what the signs
In cloud or flood that gale or rain foreshow;
When, rushing forth to vex the Norway pines,
And tug them from their crags, the west should blow ;
Or when the North should burst his bleak confines,
And in his icy boulter sift the snow ;
When the sweet breath of South should thaw the world,
AndwhentheThunder'swheelsdownthedarksky be hurl'd.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE.
LXXVI.
His was the skilful pilotage, that led
The Danish navy o'er the seas afar,
For to the wisdom of his thoughtful head
His king had trusted that peculiar care ;
He was a warrior too of might and dread,
And sharp and pond'rous was the sword he bare,
And, with memorials of his prowess high,
Carv'd was his boastful shield, and blazon'd gloriously.
LXXVII.
Next him a crowd of lesser heroes came,
(Though less, yet each of note and puissant hand),
Ismar, and Sorl, and Sangelor, whose name
Was known in Holstein's pasture-blessed land ;
And boist'rous Godefrid of giant frame,
Haquo, and Stenbiorn, and Hildebrand,
And Sambar, poising on his shoulder great
The murd'rous battle-axe, whose sweep is rich with fate.
42 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I.
LXXVIII.
And Scorro, the Norwegian chief, whose sword
Is charactered with words of mystic power ;
And Slyngebond, that by Hardanger-fiord
Dwelt on his mountain, in star-kissing tower ;
And Roller, Femern's fresh new-married lord,
That left fair Imma weeping in her bower ;
And Fulbert, Odin's gloomy priest, who goes
Girt with his bloody knife for victims or for foes.
LXXIX.
And larmeric, who challeng'd heretofore
Twelve champions in the vale of Golerdal,
And with strong oak, which up from earth he tore,
Batter'd their clatter'd bones to pieces small ;
And Haldan, Bocar's son, that on the shore
By Fladstrand had his hospitable hall ;
And Rolf and Regner, on whose helmets gape
Fierce serpents, each in brass rolling his sinuous shape.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 43
LXXX.
All these, and each of all, with all his train
Of surly soldiery expert in arms,
From hatches and from decks disgorg'd amain,
Push up the noisy shore their sounding swarms,
And with invasive tread vex all the plain
Tumultuating round with loud alarms,
And from the beach, still farther and more far,
Up-rolling in fresh tides th' irruption dread of war.
Lxxxr.
And such the hurly.and the din that rose
From men and arms out-pour' d upon the shore,
As when the sharp December loudly blows
His eastern tempests from Sarmatia o'er,
Embroiling all the deep that chafes and throws
His waters out with never-ceasing roar,
Shaking green Albion with their billowy shocks,
And with high-climbing foam confounding all her rocks.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
LXXXII.
So loudly nois'd that host as up they clomb
The sea-marge with their gush of confus'd crowd,
Cov'ring and bright'riing all the shores of Rome *
With arms and warlike preparation proud ;
As when a flock of sea-fowl o'er the foam
Of ocean borne by winds that blow aloud,
Light down from heaven on Barra's barren breast,
And white with rustling wings her craggy shores invest.
LXXXIII.
So thick that army, over ocean blown,
With men and bristling arms oppress the shore,
All from Balcomie to old Carrail town
Pushing its horns and swelling more and more :
Mean time, while thus the Danish fleet pours down
Its living fraughtage with their iron store,
The son of Odin, Thor of matchless might,
Prepares him in the skies to take his earthward flight.
* A small haven near Crail.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 45
LXXXIV.
His dazzling head he garlanded around
With gems up-gather'd from the solar road,
Whereon the sun's hot wheels, as fierce they bound,
Grind down the stars to pearls at random strow'd ;
The glist'ring baldric that his vesture bound
Was in its brightness worthy of a god,
And girt his garment, like heaven's belt of white,
Whose milky vein of stars enrings the blue of night.
LXXXV.
His chariot, then, whose wheels of heavenly mould
Boasted their spokes each like a silver lance,
Whereby, as furious round they flash'd and roll'd,
They flicker'd sunshine in their radiant dance,
Strait out he drew ; and to the team of gold
Yok'd the twin goats that proudly perk and prance,
Churning their silvery bits to snowy foam,
And pawing heav'n with rage abroad at will to roam.
4-6 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
LXXXVI.
Then did the sceptred god ascend his car,
Clad in his garments of magnificence,
And seiz'd the silken reins, and down afar
Rush'd into ether's huge circumference :
As bursts from peak of heaven the shooting star
Spouting tow'rd earth its jet of light immense,
And measuring in a moment to the eye,
With its long splendid trail, each latitude of sky
LXXXV1I.
So quick the goat-drawn chariot of that god
On th' opal-arched bridge, the rainy bow,
That knits to earth Valhalla's high abode,
Meteorously flash'd and flew below,
And where Ben Nevis heaves to heav'n abroad
His proud peak, propp'd on porphyre pillars so,
There the twin silver-beards arriving, stay'd
Their fiery whirling wheels upon the mountain's head.
CANTO I. THE THANE OF FIFE. 47
LXXXVIII.
Then to the eastern sky, with morn that glow'd,
His face the son of Odin turn'd about,
And lifted up his voice, and sent abroad
Tremendously his world-alarming shout ;
Thrice open'd he his lips, and thrice the god
Call'd from his sounding throat the thunder out,
And thrice the concave heaven with all her frame
Of globes and sheeny stars shook at the loud exclaim,
LXXXIX.
Trembled the Scottish land through all her round,
With all her hundred isles and all their rocks,
And dire alarm and terror at the sound
Shot through the bosoms of her fearful folks ;
That moment every heart in all her ground,
Foreboding war and wounds and bloody strokes,
Shudder'd with secret apprehensions dire,
Fearful for babe or wife, for husband, son or sire.
48 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO I,
xc.
Then through the seigniories of Fife were seen
Horrible things of sad and strange portent ;
For on her hills and in her valleys green
Her tender herbs a bloody sweat out-sent ;
And all her crystal springs, whence clear and sheen
Her brooks receive the wat'ry element,
As agoniz'd with secret pains, up- threw
From earth's dark shuddering womb sad streams of san-
guine hue.
XCI.
And in the burial-ground of Crail, 'tis said,
That morn her people saw, with fearful eye,
Fingers of fire, unutterably red,
Grow from the field wherein her dead men lie ;
Each turfy grave, wherein a corpse was laid,
Sprouted a hand, that brandish'd horribly
Its fingers flaming long, waving t' invite
Down to dark graves below the living from the light.
END OF THE FIRST CANTO.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO II.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO II.
MEANTIME King Constantine, where then he lay,
Within the city which the Achaian saint,
Advis'd by dream, had founded near the bay
On Kilry's hill with fane and turret quaint,
From sleep arous'd, uncurtain'd to the day
His eyes, that witness'd soul oppressed and faint,
Not fresh and strong from sleep's rejoicing dew,
But grievously oppressed and pierc'd with anguish through,
52 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
II.
For round his troubled pillow there had flown
A frightful vision, ominous and bad,
That o'er his lab'ring soul had flutter'd .down
From its black pinions horror sick and sad ;
Perplexed, and in alarm for life and throne,
Himself in sordid garb that morn he clad,
And to his chamber oalPd his men of might,
And men of council wise that guide his thoughts aright.
III.
They came, the men that prop and deck his reign,
Girding the throne with guardianship full sure,
Fife's blameless lord, the lion-hearted Thane,
Macduff, whose puissant name shall aye endure,
Athol and Douglas, mighty warriors twain,
Cullen, in wisdom and in days mature,
Good Adrian in his white and priestly vest,
And Kellach with his cross fair gleaming on his breast.
CANTO II.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
IV.
All these, and many more, his men of skill
And might, the Saints and Chieftains of the land,
Came joyous to receive their master's will,
And aid him or with counsel or with hand :
He, sad and cheerless from foreboded ill,
Amid his counsellors that round him stand,
Open'd his lips, and thus in full exprest
The heaviness of woe that hung upon his breast :
V.
O friends, that to my word compliant all
Have gathered round me to await my hest,
Deem not that trivial cause or matter small
Now stirs with sharp anxiety my breast;
Heaven oft in visions gives a secret call
Preservative of those she loves the best,
And in the vision that last night I saw
Heaven surely gives a sign impressed with holy awe.
54. THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
VI.
Methought I, with my daughter Claribel,
At eve was walking on the sea-beach sand,
Rejoicing in the summer-shine, that fell
From heaven all-glorious over sea and land ;
Earth, with the happy hour delighted well,
Seem'd gladsomely to gambol, and expand
Her boundless lap luxuriant to receive
The mist of sunny rays that lac'd the golden eve.
VII.
And Ocean, by whose margin clear as glass,
My child and I appear'd in dream to stray,
Was deeply slumbering through his mighty mass
Of waters that forgot their surging play,
Save where to kiss our feet, as by we pass,
The curling pretty billows, from the bay,
As if in courtesy came dancing in,
And twin'd around our steps their lucent silver thin.
CANTO II.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
55
VIII.
It stood not long, that hour so blest and bright ;
For in a moment from his place in heaven
Down dropt the sun into the gulf of night,
And from the east, v by whip of monster driven,
The horse, whereon sat darkness 7 angel pight,
Gallop'd through clouds asunder split and riven,
And, with the blastmerit of his baneful breath,
Empoison'd all the world to blackness and to death.
IX.
Then Ocean broke at once the chain that held
Him in his hollow basin all at peace,
And, suddenly commov'd, upheav'd and swelFd
To stormy agitation all his seas ;
Wave after wave, without a wind impell'd,
RolPd gathering on with terrible increase,
And, on their yesty tops high-couched, bore
A thousand monsters black, all moving tow'rd the shore.
56 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
X.
Sea-monsters black, and huge, and multiform,
Morses, sea-hogs, sea-calves, sea-serpents long,
Each submarine and weed-envelop'd worm
That warps his maze voluminous along ;
All the foul train, that in the day of storm
Enround old Nereus with their cumbrous throng,
Floated in sounding tumult to the strand,
Where I and Claribel were pacing slow the sand.
XL
To us-ward they advance, to us-ward near
They roll their huge unnumbered phalanx on,
Each slimy mouth agape t' englut us sheer,
Or craunch our feeble bodies bone by bone ;
Whilst rooted to the beach and ic'd with fear,
All impotent we stand and fix'd as stone,
Although, with many an idle tug, we toil
T* unroot our moveless feet, that grow unto the soil.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 57
XII.
At last they climb the burden'd beach, at last
Round us afar their huddling host extend ;
And now a hundred throats, all gaping vast,
Each with its death environ and impend,
When with the piercing pangs that through me past,
Foreseeing mine and my dear daughter's end,
My soul, intolerably anguish' d, broke
Th' illusion's slender chain, and shuddering I awoke.
xm.
I woke, but not to joy, for that bad dream
Dash'd all my spirit with a feverous dread,
And, maugre day-light, still its shadows seem
To play their vexing terrors round my head,
Portending death, or jeopardy extreme
Of life, my peace disturbed or glory fled,
Or happy Scotland from some foreign foe
With inroad rude assail'd, and doom'd to war and woe.
58 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
XIV.
Rest it with you, my Lords, t' interpret right
My dream, if true from heaven, or false from hell ;
Mine be it, when such dubious thoughts affright,
To you my soul's anxieties to tell,
And what your wisdom counsels, that with might
T' achieve and act the King with honour well :
Then speak, and bless me with advice, and share
To me your comforts out, as I to you my care.
XV.
He spoke, and none gave answer ;. for anon
Is heard, from all the city's streets around,
A noise of uproar, that came swelling on,
Assailing every ear with fearful sound ;
Hubbub of tongues confus'd, whose every tone,
Sharpened with fear, confessed a panic stound ;
Wild shrieks, as if from dread of hostile harm,
And all the city stirr'd and reeling with alarm.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 59
XVI.
And forthwith, with a hot and fiery haste, .
Into the presence of the King there broke
A dusty messenger, whose panting breast,
And sweat-bedrenched brow, and troubled look,
Told he that morn had travelFd far and fast, .
With bitter tidings not to be mistook,
Which instantly requir'd the monarch's ear,
Importing dangers high, and imminent, and near.
XVII.
O King, he cries, this morn mine eyes have seen
The foe upon our shores his thousands land,
Where yesternight the beach shew'd pure and clean
From foreign step its smooth imprinted sand,
There Hungar and his myriads, fierce and keen,
Torment with step successive all the strand,
And, where o'er-night the sea-mew lonely sang,
There peal loud shouts of war and armour's iron clang.
60 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
XVIII.
I saw the Ocean's green and trembling face
Clad with their ships that flam'd with cinnabar ;
I saw them from their decks, with martial pace
March off, discumb'ring Ocean of their war,
And up the shore spreading, to larger space,
Their weapon'd mass of soldiery afar :
Crail and her coasts are bright with hostile arms.
And all her streets resound with terrors and alarms.
XIX.
Blood, blood, the first-fruits of the strife is shed,
The sword is out and hath its work begun ;
I saw its fiery gleam ; the grass is red
With murder's dew that steams up to the sun ;
The timid mother with her babe is fled;
Townsmen and peasants to the uplands run ;
And half the shire, from Leven to the Ness,
Is uproar, flight, and fear, and rapine and distress.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 61
XX.
And let them land, these Danish foes of ours.
Exclaims Macduff, Fife's lion-hearted Thane,
These vagabond and ship-inhovelPd powers,
That Ocean, like her weeds, spews out amain,
E'en let them land, and welcome to our shores
A bloody welcome give them to their bane
That Odin and his race of thieves may know
What thistles guard our shores to prick to death the foe.
XXI.
For may the land, that in her precious soil
Hugs and imbosoms me, and makes me blest,
Eject me, as unworthy and as vile,
From loitering longer on her happy breast,
If this right hand henceforth shall sleep from toil,
And this good sword shall in its scabbard rest,
Till, with Saint Andrew's aid, our skies we purge
Of foreign breath impure, our fields of Danish scourge.
62 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
XXII.
Me, Sire, attended with a chosen train,
Permit forthwith to pass and meet the foe,
That I may question this intrusive Dane,
Ere to the strife thou gird thyself to go ;
Wherefore he now has helm'd across the main
His vessels fraught with savage soldiers so,
Assailant of our lov'd and peaceful land,
That little dream'd of wrong from foe's insulting hand.
XXIIL
And if the love of combat and of fray
Have brought him hither of a foe in quest,
Certes he need in search no farther stray
Around the warlike regions of the west,
For to the fight I challenge him to-day,
How proud and plum'd soever be his crest;
And, in defiance of him and his god,
I with my weapon's point dispute his farther road.
CANTO II.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
63
XXIV.
So spoke, inflam'd with honourable glow,
The Thane; and thus the Monarch made reply
O thou, whose faith and valour well I know,
Prov'd heretofore in trials great and high,
To what thy blameless spirit calls thee, go,
Go, and precede me with thine energy ;
Plant thy strong foot athwart th' invader's path,
And bid him halt a space and tarry in his wrath.
XXV.
Meantime, while thus that wolf is held at bay,
Mine be the care from all my wide domain,
My sheriffdoms and shires, without delay
To muster all my Chiefs and all their train ;
That with assembled force and full array
Of battle we may bear upon the Dane,
And crush him back into the waves afar,
And make the sea regorge the vomit of his war.
64 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
XXVI.
So spoke the King ; and with a silent joy
The hero from the presence pass'd along,
And for the battle and its fierce employ
'Gan muster up his manly spirit strong :
He tarried not to trifle and to toy
With pastime or with words of idle tongue,
But seeks, with eager and impatient speed,
His goodly armour bright and fiery-footed steed.
XXVII.
He dons his goodly armour gaudy bright ;
Cuirass and gorget fortify his breast ;
The hauberk clasps him in its steely weight;
His manly thighs are in their cuishes drest ;
Rich on his head the helmet's brazen light
Predominates in glory; and his crest,
Tufted and tow'ring, to the vernal wind
Its long luxuriant plume in playful dance resigned,
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 65
XXVIII.
Unstabled, then, his fiery courser proud
All-gallant comes, and glorious for the fight,
Exulting in his prancings, and full loud
With neighings boastful of his speed and might ;
Up springs his valiant rider like a god
In grace, and regulates the reins aright,
Curbing that haughty horse, whose champing mouth
Feasts on the golden bit, and churns it into froth.
XXIX.
His Squire, and train of horsemen few but strong,
Equipt and muster'd, soon their lord surround ;
So, down th' encumbered street they pass along,
Clatt'ring the causeway with a ringing sound ;
Splits, as they pass, the city's frequent throng,
That heave and shoal in trepidation round,
Perplex'd and full of fears ; yet proud, to view
Thus ready for the foe their bulwark firm and true.
66 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II,
* XXX.
Then did the ancient city, loose from bar
Her iron-ribbed massy gates expand,
To let pass through her Chieftain to the war,
Inflam'd and zealous to defend his land :
He pass'd ; and now is up the moor afar,
Hoofing its heather with his manly band ;
He does not stop to drink in Kenly's wave,
He's down by Airdrie fields with all his band of brave.
XXXI.
And soon he hears and sees with ear and eye
The show and tumult of that foreign host,
Clangour of rattling arms resounding high,
Splendour of helms and shields with gold embost,
Huge-statur'd heroes, moving haughtily
Their steps of usurpation on his coast,
And all the flower of Denmark and her war
Blazon'd in fair display, and camping wide and far.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 67
XXXII.
Exults in secret that high-hearted Thane,
At sight of foes so gallant and so gay,
In conscious worth anticipating fain
The rich reward of battle's conquering day
Thus joyful, prescient thus of glory's gain,
Down rushes he upon his rapid way,
To find the proud King, that presumeth so
To violate his land with foot of foreign foe.
XXXIII.
He finds the proud King that hath so presumed,
Between Balcomie and the fort of Crail,
Conspicuous mid his host, full arm'd and plum'd,
Glancing and sunny in his golden mail,
Rolling his eye-glance fierce, as if he doom'd
The soil whereon he look'd to woe and wail,
And with majestic strides of haughty scorn,
Trampling that noble land where Thane Macduflfwas born,
68 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
XXXIV.
A space beyond the camp's tumultuous marge.
The Chief made halt with all his warrior train,
And sent a herald from his side, with charge
To crave brief parley with the royal Dane :
King Hungar ! thou of might and heart so large,
Listen my words, to you they appertain ;
My lord and master Thane Macduff stands near,
Short parl with thee he craves, should thou but deign
thine ear.
XXXV.
Whereat the Cimbrian monarch at the word
Approach'd the verge of that far-camping host,
There stood upon its limit, while the lord
Of Fife with bold address him 'gan accost :
thou, whom thus it pleases to unhoard
Thy treasury of war upon our coast,
1 come not now, with greetings fair and free,
Unbidden as thou art, to hail and welcome thee.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 69
XXXVI.
I come, appointed by my liege and King,
Who at thy coming stands in some surprise,
T' inquire what cause has tempted thee to bring
Hither thy ships on doubtful enterprise ?
Have eastern winds, that o'er the broad sea swing,
Blown thee transverse from where thy voyage lies ?
Is it for pastime, and for summer sport,
Thou com'st with armed force to revel in such sort ?
XXXVII.
Or like sea-rover and sea-bandit stout,
After thy custom and thy country's mode,
Com'st thou with these thy eastern hordes to spout
Thy devastations on our coasts abroad,
For plunder vagabonding round about
In name of thine abhorr'd wine-lapping god ?
If such thine errand and thine object be.
Here speak that I may know ; it recks my King and me.
70 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
XXXVIII.
To whom, with stem regard and sullen brow,
The Cimbrian King gave instantly reply :
Thou guessest well, my Lord ; I come not now
At random hither blown by stormy sky ;
I do not come, as if in sport, to show
My merry pomp of idle heraldry ;
I come, admonish'd by my country's god,
Here on these western shores to let my war abroad,
XXXIX.
It is not mine, with preface stuff'd with words
And warnings, to proclaim the wars I make;
I come at once with soldiers and with swords
T* announce wkat bold designs I undertake :
Here on thy shore I stand with all my lords,
To fight a battle for Prince Garnard's sake,
To reinstal him on his father's throne,
And drag th j usurper down whom thou and traitors own,
CANTO IT. THE THANE OF FIFE. 71
XL.
Go then, and tell thy King, that now I mean,
Maugre his power, and maugre thee and thine,
To chase him hence from his unjust domain,
And raise, and readvance Brude's royal line:
Should he dislike, his be it to restrain
These bands, and counterwork my high design ;
And bid him haste, as this my falchion good
Hangs in its idle sheath a-hung'ring after blood.
XLL
Whereat incens'd, with ready words replied
The fearless Chief of demi-lion crest :
O King, if thus thy sword upon thy side
Hangs fretting at its cold unbloody rest,
And if thy purpose be in wrathful pride
T' embroil these happy regions of the west,
Here stand, here first approve thy sword on me,
Who in my country's name defy thy god and thee.
72 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II,
XLII.
Think not that though thou come, with purpose proud
Imperiously to dictate on our shore,
Thou like a master thus shalt be allow'd
To force that tyrant whom our states forswore;
My King has nobles many that have vow'd
To save the land their, fathers sav'd of yore ;
And I am one who, in Saint Andrew's might,
Now dare thee to the death ; here stand and to the fight.
XLII1.
This said, he from his noble steed in haste
Dismounting gave his footsteps to the soil,
And went to meet the King, who on as fast
Came obvious to the battle and the broil :
As whirlwinds from the chasms of ether vast
Conflicting rush and ruinous t' embroil
With gusts the cloudy chambers of the sky,
And o'er the troubled world in blustrous battle fly
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 73
XLIV.
So fiercely, and with such loud onset dire,
Rush'd the contending heroes to the fray,
As in their mighty breasts the mounting ire
Inflam'd them to the perilous assay;
Out-flew and flash'd like flames of flirting fire
Their swords with inextinguishable play,
And in their greedy quest of deadly wound
Made ring both shield and mail with clank of iron sound.
XLV.
As when on rainy eve of winter day
The peasants, gathered from the clayey field,
Crowd round the forge to sharpen or overlay
Coulter or share with rigid metal steel'd,
They with enormous double-handed sway
High over-head their ponderous hammers wield,
And, whirling fast the never-ceasing stroke,
Assault the anvil's strength with many a sounding shock
74 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II,
XLVI.
So on their shields and clatter'd frocks of mail,
Shower'd from the swords of these enraged foes,
Frequent and furious fell the strokes like hail,
Eager to give to life its bloody close ;
Each hauberk-chink, though small, that might avail
To admit the cruel death with all its woes,
Was searched by cunning eye, and well explor'd,^
All for the murd'rous stab by point of forceful sword.
XLV1I.
And, following the falchion's point, out-rush'd
The noble blood from many a latent wound,
Ensanguining their gilded mail, that blush'd
With red suffusion streaming to the ground ;
And now the heroes' hearts, that late were flush'd
With haughty strength, and wrath that knew no bound,
Wax'd faint, and in them sunk their ireful might,
And laxer swung their swords, and feebler grew the fight :
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 75
XLVIII.
When in the blue recesses of the East,
Where the sky leans on sea's remotest verge,
Came, whirl'd along the Ocean's glassy breast,
A golden chariot sliding o'er the surge ;
As lightnings from their cloud burst manifest,
So did that glory from mid-sea emerge,
And tow'rd the shore, upon its wheels of pearl,
Rush'd like a globe of flame with smooth and steady whirl.
XLIX.
And up high-bounding o'er the rocks of Can-
It flew, and up the beach's pebbles white,
And o'er the tops of that encamping war,
Skimming the helmed heads with rapid flight ;
Then halts, anon, that silver-axled car
Near where the Thane and King pursue the fight,
When from its bosom a protruded spear
Thrusts forth between the chiefs its glittering barrier clear.
76 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II,
For Niord, green-hair'd god that rules the sea,
Whose dripping beard down dangles from his chin,
Beneath that chariot's coral canopy,
Veil'd with a mist of gold, sat bright within ;
His are the wheels so pearl-embossed that be,
And his that interposed clear javelin,
Held out at length by his befriending arm
To separate the chiefs and save the deadly harm.
LI.
For as in Ocean's chambers, green as glass,
He sat a-toying with his mermaids fair,
His eyes up-glancing through the liquid mass
Of waters that above him welt'ring were,
Discern'd the heroes' battle how it was,
What anger and what strife of strength was there,
And how their limbs wax'd faint with many an wound,
And how the ready death hung hovering o'er the ground,
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 77
LII.
His spear dissevers soon that dangerous fray ;
Back startling from the terror of its glance
The chiefs recede, full glad to scape away
From the red menace of the burning lance ;
Meantime a cloud, out-fuming on the day
Its darkness from the chariot's radiance,
Gathered and gush'd before the team, and spread
Envelopment of mist fast round each warrior's head.
LIII.
'Twas black as night around each warrior's head ;
He saw nor day nor the clear sunny rays
That swim in heaven, nor the blood-dabbled blade
Which yet his weary hand un quenched sways ;
In vain his eyes athwart th' involving shade
Search for the foe with ever-baffled gaze ;
In vain his sword, yet greedy after blood,
With many an idle thrust gropes blindly through the cloud.
78 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II,
LIV.
And still, the more he seeks t' attain the foe
The farther he is wilder'd in his maze,
Contrariously directed, errant so
That eastward he, the other westward strays :
The King, amid his troops that round him go,
'Scapes into day-light and the sunny blaze ;
The Thane beside his equipage and steed,
So governed in his steps, is from the darkness freed.
LV.
Thus, conscious both that that perplexing mist
Divinely came to terminate the broil,
Full glad alike from battle to desist,
So faint and languid from the bloody toil,
Sheathing his sword, each bold antagonist
Retires, his honour yet unstain'd with soil ;
He to his royal and high-reared tent,
Where plung'd, he courts repose, with weariness o'erspent.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 79
LVI.
The Thane, environ'd and enguarded round
By his attending train, a valiant throng,
Remounts his ready steed, and from the ground,
Oft hesitating, slowly rides along ;
For, though his weary limbs be weak with wound,
His heart's desire yet fervent is and strong,
And, in its fiery longings unsubdued,
Still meditates of war and dreadful deeds renewed.
LVIL
And aye his threatening eye-glance, backward cast,
To scowl its short farewell upon the foe,
Instead of foe and camp and tumult vast
Of haughty heroes stalking to and fro,
Sees but that cloud alone dispreading fast
Its pitchy vapours in tremendous show,
Convolved in wreaths of gulfy mists, between
Him and his Danish foes impenetrable screen.
80 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
LVIII.
He from its whirling skirts receding rode
Fast up the land amid his horsemen train ;
He past by Thirdpart's lawn-enclos'd abode,
He past o'er Airdrie's forest-fringed plain ;
The furzy moor that in the morn he trod,
Received the tramplings of his hoofs again ;
And now, not distant on his right he saw,
Crown'd with its cell of prayer, Denino's grassy law,
LIX.
He came into the hollow dell where flows,
Kenly ! thy little and thy lucid stream;
There on thy verdure-fringed banks, where grows
The harebell dallying with the sunny beam,
Upon his eyes a sudden scene arose,
Splendid and gay as summer evening's dream,
That made him in his journey halt to view
A spectacle so fair, fantastical, and new.
CANTO II.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
81
LX.
(Full well the spot I know, for often there,
When danc'd the buxom summer round our sky,
Strewn on the idle turf, and void of care,
In muse at eve I have been wont to lie,
Surrend'ring up my soul to fancy's fair
Illusions, gorgeous as the rainbow's die ;
Or with great Homer in high converse join'd,
Or feasting on the dreams of Plato's mystic mind.
LXI.
There, too, as in my thoughtful walks I err'd,
Rambling in sweet seclusion down the dell,
The crash and tumult of the world I heard
When from his peak of power Napoleon fell ;
And on what day his wasteful legions dar'd,
All-haughty as they were and cuirass'd well,
To stand before our Lion's wrath, whose howl
Back scatter'd them with shame, disaster'd sad and foul.)
82 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II,
LXII.
There on these banks, in a smooth grassy place,
Th' astonished Thane descried a wondrous scene :
The Fairy queen herself, with all her race
Of flimsy phantoms frisking on the green,
Glitt'ring and glad, in vesture, shape, and face,
Chasing and chas'd the grassy spires between,
As gay, as flitting as the solar beams
Imag'd in bright reflex from summer's breezy streams.
LXIII.
In amice clad of flow'r-de-luce she sate,
Thron'd gloriously upon her emerald chair,
And wielded in her slender hand with state
Her sceptre, hewn from out a beryl fair,
Wherewith in queenly dignity elate
She govern'd that slim people of the air,
Directing them to harmonize the dance,
And intertwist it well with subtle skip and glance.
CANTO TI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
83
LXIV.
They twist and trip and interval ve it well,
Flinging their phasms fantastically high,
Circling her chair with maze inscrutable,
Not to be followed by th' empuzzled eye :
As little silvery waves with gentle swell,
In summer when the sea-breeze fans the sky,
Play round the rocks with eddy and with whirl,
And up their shelly sides the foamless waters curl
LXV.
So round her throne in rapid-whirling rings
That volatile small people glide and glance ;
There Dapperling, her chamberlain, up-springs
Like spark from fire, lavolting through the dance :
There Pheeze and Fangle, puny air-built things,
Wince loftier flings than those of skittish France,
And Strout, and Blossom on his limber shanks,
Most merrily bounce it high and strut like mountebanks,
8* THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
LXVI.
And Peasecod, with a little rainbow sash'd,
That girds the thumb-thick glory of his waist;
And Thimble, whose long coat-tails had been wash'd
In sunbeams that went round him wheeling fast ;
And Red-cap, with his saffron cowl, that flash'd
Like thread of fire as down the reel he past ;
And Prim, whose garments of eye-dazzling bloom
Up in the moon were wov'n in Cynthia's silver loom.
LXVII.
All these, and more than I in rhyme can name,
A huddling multitude of phantasms small,
Like bright-scal'd fishes in a limpid stream,
Career with fury through the gorgeous ball,
Inflaming Kenly's green banks with a gleam
Of ever-shifting radiance magical :
The Thane Macduff was ravish'd with delight,
And check'd his steed awhile to feast him on the sight,
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 85
LXVIIL
He gaz'd a space, till at the last the Queen,
High waving o'er the dance her beryl wand,
Laid quiet with that sign the bustling scene,
And moveless round her all her people stand ;
Then, rising from her chair, with brow serene,
And with majestic beckoning of hand,
She fix'd upon the Thane attentive eye,
And lifted up her voice and spoke melodiously.
LXIX.
O thou, whom from thy country's wars with joy
I see returning in thy glory great,
And bid thee hail, and in thy bold employ
Go prospering onward joyous and elate;
Well have I spied to-day with what annoy
Thy sword descended on thy foeman's pate,
Giving him bitter foretaste, as was due,
Of vengeance for him stor'd by Scotland and by you.
86 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
LXX.
For I was with thee when this morn thy arm
Strung up its sinews for the battle's shock,
And on thy falchion's edge with double harm
I rode to aggravate its forceful stroke ;
Thus countervailing with my fairy charm
What aid the Cimbrian from King Odin took ;
Thy wounds, inflicted by his steel, I heaPd,
And staunch'd the flowing blood when thou didst leave
the field.
LXXL
For deem not that the hero's toils, to save
His country from invader's wasteful hate,
To me and to my subjects liege and brave
Are foreign, and no anxious care create ;
'Tis ours, consulting in the moon-light cave,
To plan the preservation of the state,
And, when the battle's fury is display'd,
To hover o'er the war with safety and with aid.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 87
LXXII.
And ours it shall be, when that furious Dane
Lets loose upon thy fields his dogs of prey,
With curb unseen his madness to restrain,
And tease him into torture and dismay ;
Maugre the God that led him o'er the main,
Unpunished o'er thy land he shall not stray ;
King Odin may in spirit fret and rave,
But Mab and her small tribe shall vindicate the brave.
LXXIII.
Then as a pledge and proof that Fairy-land
Holds thee belov'd, and will thy efforts aid,
Accept, O Chief, a present from my hand,
This magic helm by fairy artists made,
Of virtue that shall make thee well withstand
Malice or mischief levell'd at thy head ;
Thy temples once surrounded with its charm,
Impassive shalt thou meet the battle's every harm.
88 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
X
LXXIV.
Take too this silver pipe, whose tube, though small,
Blown to a shrilly whistle by thy breath,
Up to thy aid shall conjure and shall call
What sprite thou wishest from earth's cells beneath ;
Elf, genie, puny fay, or goblin tall,
Prompt to confound the foe or give him death,
Evok'd from inmost chambers of the ground,
Shall at thy feet appear emergent at the sound.
LXXV.
With these assist thee in thy land's defence ;
Yet, though with these full puissant be thine arm,
Hope not by single might to sweep from hence
Back to their deeps proud Hungar and his swarm :
Go, seek thy King ; and in the walled fence
Whose girdle guards Saint Andrew's bones from harm,
Lodge thee awhile, till Scotland for the war
Rouse up her thousand Chiefs with all their clans afar.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 89
LXXVI.
This spoken,' from her chair with stately pace
Advancing whither stood at gaze the Tharie,
She laid before him with majestic grace
The potent gifts that shall confound the Dane ;
The silver whistle with its purple lace
Attach'd, of power each demon to constrain,
And the fair helm, whose length of capilon
Rich o'er the upspringing grass in streamy beauty shone.
LXXVII.
These symbols given, the gentle Queen of Fays
With sweet retire majestical withdrew,
Leaving the hero silent in amaze
At these bright gifts so wonderful and new ;
One moment glanc'd he at their sparkling blaze,
The next, as down the banks he cast his view,
Nor good Queen Mab, nor fay was to be seen,
Nought but the sunny grass, all goodly, smooth and green,
90 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO II.
LXXV1II.
Evanish'd quite, suck'd back into the ground,
Was in a moment all that elvish band,
Gone in a huddle down, without a sound,
Through the world's pores to secret Fairy-land ;
There, amid groves of pearl -hung trees renown'd,
And shrubberies whose leaves in gold expand,
And silver pools, and streets of emerald gay,
In day-light of their own to frisk \heir lives away.
LXXIX.
Dismounting then where these fair gifts were laid,
The Chief up-rais'd them, wond'ring, from the ground ;
He doffd his mortal helm, and in its stead
His temples with th' enchanted casque he crown'd ;
The broad paw'd lion seem'd upon his head
To grin in gold and make a furious bound ;
And round his breast the purple cord he flung,
Whereto the puissant pipe, that awes the Devil, hung.
CANTO II. THE THANE OF FIFE. 91
LXXX.
Thus clad in glory and in power, the Thane
There tarried not, but hasted to be gone;
He twitch'd, anon, his courser's bridle-rein,
His heels' sharp provocation urg'd him on ;
And up, Stravithie, thy fair fields again,
And o'er thy heath with flowery furze o'ergrown,
Rapid he rush'd with all his train away,
Towards the fair-fenc'd town wherein the Monarch lay.
END OF THE SECOND CANTO,
THE
THANE OF FIFE
CANTO III.
THE
THANE OF FIFE,
CANTO III.
I.
THE sun, bright bounding on his wheels sublime
In flaming errand up th' ethereal height,
Had not yet ceas'd the hill of heaven to climb,
Crossing earth's longitudes with streams of light.
When Constantine, that all the morning time
Had weigh'd in thought his country's cares aright,
'Gan send his speedy messengers afar
Round through the Scottish land t' alarm it to the war.
96 THE THANE OF FIFE. - CANTO III.
II.
Then flew his heralds, each on rapid steed,
From every gate of Kilry's city old,
And carried round th' astonished land with speed
The news to every Thane and Baron bold ;
They bade them buckle on for day of need,
Their swords of eager steel and helms of gold,
And muster round him each his vassal band,
And guard the King with arms and vindicate his land.
III.
For he, the noise and terror of the North,
King Hungar, with his proud sea-wafted host,
Abettors of the Pict, are issued forth,
And stalk with steps of murder on our coast ;
Rouse ye, and prove your prowess and your worth,
Cheat the bold pirate of th' expected boast,
And push him back with slaughter and with shame,
Home to his native wave whence he presumptuous came.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 97
IV.
King Constantine, amid his household, waits
Thy coming in Sanct Androis' wall'd defence,
Protected by her walls and massy gates
Against the invader's bloody violence :
There sits he till his army congregates
The just completion of its power immense,
When, issuing forth to glory and the fray,
He from the fields of Fife shall chase the wolf away.
V.
Thus they, fast posting round the land, proclaim'd
At once the levy and the news of war,
Arousing every Thane and Leader fam'd
In every shire and lordship near and far :
Meantime the King, with pious zeal inflam'd,
Turns to the blessed Saints his thoughtful care,
And bids convene his priests and ghostly men
To supplicate and kneel in Rule's most holy fane.
98 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
VI.
They came, his priests of venerable mien,
All in their seemly garbs of worship drest,
Adrian the chief, of sinless soul serene,
With mitre and with silver crosier grac'd ;
Kellach, in snowy vesture pure and clean,
His golden cross down dangling on his breast ;
Monan and Fillin, in their cinctures fair,
With all their holy monks, the men of hymn and prayer.
VII.
Outpour'd they to the day their multitude,
From every dark recess, and hall, and cell,
Crowding the street with mitre, cross, and hood,
In long procession to the clink of bell ;
For every heart was now of mournful mood,
And gloom in every face was visible :
Such was the Danskers' dread ; and so did fear
Eclipse their happy looks with shadows dark and drear.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 99
VIII.
The city, too, was shaken ; she, through all
Her lanes and streets convuls'd with deep alarms,
Out-threw her numerous thousands, great and small,
Gorging the ways with ever-swelling swarms ;
Fathers with heavy looks funereal,
Mothers in tears with infants in their arms,
Children and tender virgins in dismay,
Join the religious train to worship and to pray.
IX.
As march'd with solemn step the train along,
Their King and holy Adrian at its head,
Uprose to heaven the anthem and the song,
Far-sounding by ten thousand voices fed,
Now swelling up in heave of music strong,
Wherewith the city's spires all echoed,
Now dying down to solemn notes and low,
With tears and terror mix'd, and throbs of doubt and woe.
100 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
X.
Till, when the chapel of St Rule they gain'd,
At last the reverential anthem ceas'd,
And through the boundless multitude there reign'd
Silence a while of people, King, and priest :
Upon the ground they knelt in faith unfeign'd,
And turning to th' adored shrine, where rest
Encas'd in gold, Saint Andrew's relics dear,
They supplicate aloud with fervency and fear.
XL
O thou (the Monarch's voice thus leads the prayer)
That sit'st in glory mid the choirs of heaven,
But to our land, bequeathment rich and rare,
Thy bones a token of thy love hast given,
Beneath whose patronage and guardian care
In works of war and peace our land has thriven,
Hear from thy place amid heaven's golden thrones,
Look down upon the shrine that holds thy honour'd bones.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 101
XII.
Look down upon thy people as they fall
Thus reverent and lowly at thy feet,
Hear, in thy love, their supplicating call,
And answer downwards from thy golden seat ;
If e'er of old at solemn festival
Our sires have given thy name high honours meet,
If e'er to them thy love hath been display'd,
O visit now their sons with safety and with aid !
XIII.
See how these ravagers, from Odin's hive
His warrior-worshippers out-pour'd abroad,
Fierce o'er thy shores, an host unbaptiz'd, drive
The hurricane of battle and of blood ;
The banners proud, which to the winds they give,
Wave blasphemy against the Christian's God,
And Christian blood, spill'd out by wrongful sword,
Is the libation dire that glads their worshipp'd Lord.
102 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XIV.
O then, in pity to thy favoured land,
Thus marr'd and tainted by a pagan crew,
Display the vigour of thy holy hand,
And smite their souls with mad confusion through,
That, homeward chas'd, a panic-stricken band
In wreck and shame their landing they may rue,
And warn their sons henceforth to shun the shore
That gave th* unbidden sires a chastisement so sore.
XV.
So shall our sons, through many a future year,
To thy glad name increasing honours pay ;
And round the land shall many a temple rear
To thee its dedicated turrets gay :
Then grant a sign, O Saint, and cause appear
Thy power and presence by some clear display,
That we, thy people, at that token given,
Still may rejoice in hope, and trust in thee and heaven
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 103
XVI.
Here ceas'd the prayer, and here was given a sign ;
For in an instant from the sacred ground,
Whereon stood altar, fane, and golden shrine,
Issued a solemn and a fearful sound,
And all the temple by some power divine
Was shaken, and th' adjoining precincts round :
Monarch and people by that signal cheer'd,
Gave courage to their hearts that late so droop'd and fear'd.
XVII.
Meanwhile, as they within the city pent
Solac'd their souls with pious service good,
The Cimbrian ruler in his haughty tent
Sits wrathful, meditating deeds of blood ;
His scornful soul, on ravage still intent,
Calls up the vow he made upon the flood,
What time he in his ship nigh founder'd pray'd,
Bribing with promis'd blood his God to give him aid,
104- THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XVIII.
He summons to his tent the gloomy priest
Of Odin, arm'd with murder- tain ted knife :
Fulbert ! prepare the sacrifice and feast
Due to the God that sav'd from flood my life,
Twelve youths, all beauteous as the dawning east,
CulFd from the bloomy boys of plundered Fife,
Twelve girls as fair, and of unspotted fame ;
To mighty Odin those, and these to Odin's dame.
XIX.
This charge receiv'd, the gloomy priest forth past,
Resolv'd and ruthless, on his bad emprise,
And took with him his warrior-troop that fast
Scour'd diverse, ranging for that sacrifice ;
Towns, hamlets, farms, upland and coast they trac'd,
In cruel quest of victim and of prize,
From Carrail prowling upwards to the sea,
West to the crag that juts, Balcarras, o'er thy lea.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 105
XX.
They searched, and found in upland or in coast
Twelve boys all bloomy as Narcissus' flower,
Twelve girls of snowy beauty, each the boast
Of dance in winter's hall or summer's bower;
They found; they seiz'd ; their tender hands they cross'd
With cords of cruel bondage o'er and o'er ;
They dragg'd them with rude violence unkind
On to the hated spot for that sad rite design'd :
XXI.
E'en to thy walls, Sanct Androis, that thy King,
His lords, and all the citizens may view
Compell'd, affronted, pierc'd by sorrow's sting,
The priest, the murder, and the murd'rous crew,
Though anguish'd, impotent the while to bring
Life and relief to that fair weeping crew,
There was design'd th' abominable spot ;
Thither by forceful foe these tender victims brought.
106 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III,
XXII.
There stood the heath'nish altars thrice-abhorr'd,
Built to receive that pure and guiltless blood,
Whilst round them, Cimbrian soldier, priest, and lord,
Gather'd in fearful preparation, stood ;
Exulting barbarously, with look and word
High-challenging, in proud and scornful mood,
The men of Scotland to descend and save
Their death-devoted youth from slaughter and the grave.
XXIII.
Confusion then, and shame and sore alarm
Th' assembled people on the wall possessed,
Condemned to eye the soul-detested harm
In hopeless horror by loud wail confessed ;
What clust'ring thoughts, in sad and troublous swarm,
O Thane ! roll darkly in thy valiant breast,
When from the city's towers thine eyes behold
Thy land affronted so with act so base and bold ?
CANTO in. THE THANE OF FIFE. 107
XXIV.
Now, laying on his sword his mighty hand,
Half out he drew the metal from its sheath,
Resolv'd to rush amid that murderous band
Alone, and balk the meditated death ;
Now scabbards he again the burning brand,
And chides his soul, and keeps his ire beneath,
As he beholds the formidable foe,
Spread unassailable in ridges grim below.
XXV.
At last he in perplexity of soul
Bethought him of his last and good resource,
Ev'n that fair pipe whose whistle can controul
Or fay or goblin to appear perforce,
Huge goblin, grim and burly, from the pole,
Fay, fleet and frisky, from Nile's mystic source
To try its power, he pip'd so loud a twang,
Turret and wall replied, and all Balmungo rang.
108 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XXVI.
And, as he pip'd, he will'd that there should rise
The strongest spirit of Arabia's ground ;
Up stands anon before his stounded eyes
The mightiest sprite within Arabia's bound,
Calv'd by old mother Earth to man's surprise,
A horrid moon-calf by the sun disown'd,
Dwarfish and iron-limb'd, of features fell,
TaiPd like the devil too, and sooty-grim as hell.
XXVII.
With him at once uprose from wormy earth
His blood-bedabbled beard, prolix and long,
That from his chin, of hideous length and girth,
Like tail from ghastly comet streaming hung;
And with him too was born (stupendous birth !)
His weapon balanc'd on his shoulders strong,
An iron bar, of weight enough to load
Old Jason's three-deck'd ship when o'er to Thrace he
row'd.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 109
XXVIII.
Some say 'twas Schaibar, he whose name is known
From Mecca south to Babelmandel's shores ;
Some call him Arshenk, he who holds the throne
Of Jennistan, and rules the genie powers ;
Whatever his name and land, full soon was shown,
I weet, his puissance near Sanct Androis' towers ;
For as he in an instant sprung to sight,
So iu a trice he mov'd tremendous to the fight.
XXIX.
And as he mov'd, his right hand swung about
His bar that round him circumvolv'd full fast,
Tormenting th' air with strokes of iron stout,
That the sky whistled as with stormy blast ;
Each step he took made th' Abbey-wall throughout,
Heap'd as it was with press of people vast,
To shake, as formidably firm and slow,
Off from the wall he mov'd to meet his boastful foe.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XXX.
Nor boast, nor threat, was now, nor show of war,
Amid these boastful Danskers, as they saw
That earth-whelp'd monster, with his massy bar,
Coming to thrash them down like oaten straw ;
The sacrificer hung his knife through fear,
And speechless stood, and ghastly- white with awe ;
Soldier, and leader, priest, and squire, and knight,
Trembled from head to foot at that soul-scaring sight.
XXXI.
And Fulbert soon had fled with all his crew
Of soldiers, and of sacrificers base,
Had not a second wonder, sprung to view,
Delay'd their flying for a little space;
For from Valhalla, up in ether blue,
The son of Odin spied his men's disgrace,
And down he flies, and here his golden wain
Up to the Kinness-burn comes pealing o'er the plain,
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. HI
XXXII.
He comes, and in his wheels that flash and fly
The thunder rattles, and the lightning flares ;
He comes, and in his hand he swings on high
The club, whose silver sheen the God declares ;
Right on he drives, determined soon to try
That goblin's strength, who thus opposing dares
To interpose such quaint unearthly frame,
And spoil his father's feast and stop the bloody game.
XXXIII.
And, who art thou, the goat-drawn Thor exclaims,
Tadpole, whom Earth has, in a fit of spleen,
Spew'd from her lumber-house of shapeless frames,
To poison day-light with vile form obscene ?
Deem'st thou, that that thy beard with blood that flames,
And that thy tail, and that thy surly mien,
Have power the sons of Odin to appal ?
Home to thy ditch, thou toad ! lest mischief on thee fall.
112 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XXXIV.
So saying, forward goes he to the war,
Commov'd, and burning with insatiate ire ;
Meanwhile the hero of the iron bar
Push'd up his frightful van, his beard of fire,
His rear, the snaky tail, came following far
.Swinging behind its convolution dire ;
He utter'd not a word ; (in sooth his trade
Was pithy deeds not words, to maul and not upbraid).
XXXV.
And with a frightful scowl, that well might scare
Hell from her fathomless foundations deep,
He nears his foe, still vibrating in air
His pond'rous bar with circulating sweep ;
And to the head of Thor directing fair
That weapon with more upward motion steep,
He hit him on the jole so hard a stroke,
As if Heaven's thunder-stone had on him crashing broke.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 113
XXXVI.
Then with a scream and ghastly yelling cry,
As if a thousand devils screech'd arid scream'd,
The writhing God, up-bick'ring to the sky,
Like to a silver arrow heav'nward gleam'd ;
Of chariot, team, and goat, that late to th* eye
Some glorious thing of star-born beauty seem'd,
Nought now appeared save a long trail of light
Like foam behind a ship left where he rush'd from sight.
XXXVII.
Thus he, discomfited and hard bested,
Slunk off and in Valhalla lay concealed,
Leaving that haggard dwarf, Arabia's dread,
Th' acknowledged master of the foughten field ;
Lowering a laugh Satanic, on he sped,
That genie with the bar that whizz'd and wheel'd,
His mission to consummate, and to chase
Down to their sea-ward camp the Danskers from the place.
H
114. THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XXXVIII.
As tow'rd their troop his face he turn'd, anon
His very look so witch'd their souls with fear,
That down the land they scamper'd every one,
Scattered and scudding like a herd of deer ;
None thought of sacrifice or victim ; none
Look'd now behind him in his heavy cheer,
Lest he should feel that hugy bar robust,
Swung in his face at once to pound his skull to dust.
XXXIX.
Thus they, heart-struck with trepidation, scour
Southward to huddle in their camp at ease,
Leaving their victims in that genie's power,
To do according as his mood may please ;
He sweet'ning to a smile his face's lower,
Their interchained hands from bondage frees,
And gives his benediction kind, and sends
The youths away in joy to meet rejoicing friends.
CANTO til. THE THANE OF FIFE. 115
XL.
Whereat the folk that on the crowded wall,
Suspense and trembling, long had stood at gaze,
Set up a merry outcry one and all.
Huzzaing jubilant their champion's praise,
Full loudly, that the blue-roof'd heavenly hall
In corresponding peals the shout repays ;
Meanwhile, amid that noise, their champion-sprite
Down in a moment sinks and vanishes from sight.
XLI.
E'en in a moment dives he under-ground,
With all his equipage of genie-state,
Bar, beard, and tail, that not a trace is found,
To shew the people where he stood so late ;
As on the surface of the salt profound
A mallard floating in his pride elate,
If chance a rapid ship come stemming by,
Down dips into the deeps t' elude the seaman's eye
116 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
XLII.
So disappeared that dwarf beneath the clod,
Relieving sun-light of his haggish form y
And through earth's fissures to his deep abode
Creeps like a smoke, or like a slimy worm,
There in old Jennistan's green land and broad,
To nestle and encave his bulk deform,
Till Fate, or till the whistle of the Thane,
Evoke him from his rest to fight for men again.
XLIII.
Meanwhile the people on the wall, in height
Of merriment triumphal, wide expand
Their gates t' admit to greetings of delight
That slaughter-threatened trembling victim-band,
Much questioning and wondering every wight,
Whence he, the genie of deed-doing hand,
And what his pame, and whither he had gone,
And how he lower'd and laugh'd, yet spoke a word to none.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE.
XLIV.
Thus they in joy and marvel celebrate
Their children's rescue from such threaten'd harms ;
Meantime, fast borne through all the Scottish state,
The royal summons and the war's alarms
Shook the wide realm with preparation great,
Of soldiery and strife, and vengeful arms,
Infuriating the land with fervid zeal,
To prick th' invader home with stabs of bloody steel.
XLV.
Each shire, and every township of each shire,
Each earldom, seigniory, and island far,
Catching th' infection of the martial fire,
Rous'd up in clam'rous tumult for the war ;
Baron and yeoman, with one fierce desire,
Up-stirr'd and burning for the broil, prepare
Th' accoutrements of Mars, his shirts of mail,
And all his gaudy gear, and swords that never fail,
118 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTP III.
XLVl.
There was nor silence in the land rior rest,
But shouts and hurried rushings here and there 3
And cries of arm, and fiery-footed haste,
And whet of sword, and furbishing of spear ;
Hinds left their lands half plough'd, a seedless waste,
And rob their ploughs of coulter and of spear,
A boon to Mars, for now each household fire
Transforms the tools of peace to slaughterous uses dire.
XLVII.
And ev'n at starry midnight men were seen
Hewing the spear-staff from the new-felPd tree;
And twanging bows were heard, and arrows keen
Were feather'd for the deaths about to be,
And steeds of mettle high, in armour sheen
Were deck'd and neigh'd for battle gallantly,
And foot and horsemen, under banners gay,
Muster'd tumultuously their strong and stern array.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 119
XLVIII.
Thus were the shires commov'd, from where the Cape
Of Wrath grinds down to foam th' Atlantic surge,
Down to the fishy stream whose waters shape
The Border-line, and play on England's verge ;
So in their forces pour with rapid sweep,
Fleet o'er each intermediate space to urge,
Day after day, and band by band, their way,
Whither the King proclaims th' assemblage and th' array.
XLIX.
O Muse, that with thy keen all-kenning eye
Explorest gods in sky, and men on earth,
Declare, for thou wert there as rush'd they by,
Who first, who last, came to the muster forth ;
What troops, and what their arms and valour high,
And what the heroes, and their peerless worth ;
For I am erring, blind, and nothing know,
Save what in vision thou, O Goddess, deign'st to show.
120 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
L.
First, from the bounds of men-sustaining Fife,
(The frrst as nearest to the war and foe),
Assembled all her chieftains for the strife,
Girt with their vassalage in warlike show ;
Crowding they come from all her coasts so rife
Of villagery, and fring'd with townships so,
Spearmen and bowmen in their several bands,
And troops of valiant horse that scour the grassy lands.
LI.
Chief thine Macduff ! for, promptly to thy call,
(Though absent thou thyself to tend thy Lord),
Sprung forth thy yeomanry arid footmen all,
A thousand warriors waiting on thy word,
From the green fields that skirt thy palace wall
By Falkland, eastward to Saint Mary's ford,
Where Cupar in her valley sits as queen,
And sees her Eden roll his glassy wave serene.
CANTO III.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
121
LII.
These by Sanct And rois' wall appear .the first
To fence their Sovereign with unconquer'd arms ;
And next them came the warlike people nurs'd
On fair Balcarras' sunward sloping farms,
Beneath their valiant Lord, whose soul athirst
For glory kindles at the war's alarms,
As to the sun, expanded broad and fair,
His gilded banner flaps its many stars in air.
LIII.
And Leven from Balgonie's castle sends
His troops, for King and country guard to keep ;
And Rothes, from his manor that extends
Wide round the lake of midland water deep,
(The lake whose liquid circuit well defends
Saint Servan in his holy isle asleep),
Collects his vassals for the martial field,
And, stately at their head, gripes fast the spear and shield,
122 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
uv.
Them followed speedy from the western bounds
The Lords and Barons there that held the sway,
Where proud Dunfermline o'er the southern grounds
Looks down exulting in her palace gay,
Where Resyth's towers, which Neptune's tide surrounds.
Shoot heav'nward and command St Margaret's bay,
East to the rock where Alexander died,
Thence to the cliff that props great Wemyss's castled pride.
LV.
The nobles muster'd next whose fertile lands
Stretch to the eastern foreland by the coast ;
Kellie, whose double griffin now expands
His wings of gold broad waving o'er his host ;
Young Anstroyther, that in his potent hands
The pole-axe wields, the weapon of his boast ;
Pitmillie, whose green dolphin swims in air ;
Stravithie, and Grangemuir, and Airdrie, strong in war.
CANTO III.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
123
LVI.
All these, and many more, Fife's prime and flower,
Came trooping up with banners wide display'^*
And loud request the battle's instant hour
To purge their soil of Danskers' wasteful tread,
Claiming the field alone, as if their power
Suffic'd to conquer, bare of other aid ;
Yet did their King such furious fire restrain,
Till his full sum of force stood gather'd on the plain,
LVII.
His sum offeree soon gathers; from the west,
Where broad and high Clackmannan's tower ascends,
And where, on rocky ridge tremendous plac'd,
Huge Castle- Campbell o'er his dell impends,
Thence all along the valley o'er whose breast
Wide-sweeping Devon slowly westward wends,
Five hundred archers come with bows well strung,
Their rattling quivers stor'd with arrows sharp and long.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
LVIII.
And Stirling from her citadel, that heaves
Up to mid-heaven her tower'd and craggy mass,
Commanding all the vale where Forth's pure waves
Sea-ward in sinuous stripes of silver pass,
Her soldiers sends, in cuirass, helm, and greaves
Well-cas'd, and gleaming in refulgent brass,
Beneath their leaders rank'd in fair array,
Three thousand spearmen bold, all joyous for the fray.
LIX.
And Lennox fair, the nursing soil of sheep,
Within whose bosom winding many a mile
Clear to the sun her freshet- waters sleep,
A silver pool emboss'd with many an isle,
Sends from her lowly dales and ridges steep
Her people nerv'd and fresh for every toil,
Shepherds and hinds that now disrobe the weeds
Of peace for Mars's garb and bloody harmful deeds.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 125
LX.
Then from the shire of valleys and of hills,
Across whose breadth from Dochart to the main
The Scottish Tiber, by her num'rous rills
Increas'd, sweeps eastward by St Madoe's fane.
Great Atholl, whose dread name that region fills,
Has congregated all his subject train,
Five thousand fearless warriors, horse and foot.
Skill 'd or in fight or chase, in combat or pursuit.
LXI.
Band after band, from mountain or from dale,
Morn, noon, and eve, they march with manly tread.
Their banners' fetter'd savage to the gale
At liberty disporting high overhead ;
As down they rush through Eden's verdant vale
High-crested, in their gaudery array'd,
Fife's mountain-girdled hollow rung afar
With sound of rousing pipe and merry note of war.
126 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO Hit
LXII.
From Angus next, with all his vassalage
Across the Taian firth in barges borne.
Comes Lyon, Thane of Glammis, whose youthful age
Shows promise glorious as a summer morn ;
His joy was in the tangled woods to wage
War with the boar, and hold his tusks in scorn,
Or round th' extent of Grampian hill and heath
To hunt with hound and horn the roebuck to the death.
LXIII.
But now full glad and willing to exchange
For loftier war the sports of hill and wood,
Down speeds he at his Monarch's call, t' avenge
Tne Cumbrians' crimes, and flesh his steel in blood ;
His followers, tartan'd some in habit strange,
Show the rough marks of mountain hardihood,
Arm'd with the broad-sword of destructive sway ;
And some with Lowland arms in Lowlanders' array.
CANTO III.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
127
LXIV.
Behind them come, close following in their rear,
The people of the shire whose northern bound
Is wash'd by Dee's soft-stealing waters clear,
Whose eastern, by the floods that loud resound :
Seven hundred warriors arm'd with bow and spear,
In fight of men or chase of boar renown'd,
Are from Dunottar's castle-gates out-pour'd,
Beneath the threefold star of Arbothnoth their Lord.
LXV.
Come next the merry men whose fields expand
Their greenness up the long extent of Marr ;
With those beyond the Don, where Buchan's land,
Mother of kine, her champaign spreads afar ;
Thence on to Cullen's brook, whose luckless strand
(Long after in bold Helric's furious war)
Receiv'd the blood of Indulf, when the shaft
Sent from the Scandian bow that King of life bereft.
128 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
LXVI.
With them the folk that drink the streamlet pure
That winds by Elgin's venerable fane,
And they who dwell beside the gloomy moor
Where Hecat's hags oft ride in hurricane,
And they whose rocky lands and hamlets poor
Banking the Nairn stretch downwards to the main ;
AH these in bands, each by its Thane controlFd,
Come rank'd beneath the flag of Buchan's Abthane bold.
LXVII.
Nor stay the men who dwell beside the hill
Of Cromarty, in each contiguous vale,
Those by the Dornoch flood, and near the rill
Sent by Ben Duan down on Berrydale,
Thence to the bay where east winds blowing chill
With rainy gust the Sinclairs' towers assail,
Up to the farthest foreland round whose shore,
Incens'd by every wind, th' incessant surges roar :
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE.
LXVIII.
All these obey'd their Chief, an honoured name,
Dungald, their aged Thane, whose gentle sway
Held half the North subjected, and whose fame
Was known in Norway's every creek and bay ;
For in his youth he held it jovial game,
Hoisting his sails upon the liquid way,
The Scandian cruisers to their homes to chase,
And even within their hives t' avenge th' excursive race.
LXIX.
Twice thirty years, his people's shepherd, he
Had rilled in love upon the Caithness shore,
And though his looks now white and silver'd be,
Firm yet his heart to meet the battle's roar ;
So, at his King's command, he to the sea
Intrusts his galleys and his men once more,
And from the bay of Rice has set his sail
To meet his gladden'd King with aids that never fail.
i
130 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
LXX.
Meantime, while these sail round to meet the war,
The South is up and musters all her force ;
First Lothian's land, up-rous'd by young Dunbar,
Assembles all her infantry and horse,
From where the Tyne, through corn-fields green and fair,
Hurries from Fala to the sea his course ;
From where the double veins of Esk rill down
Their silv'ry whirling waves by castle and by town ;
LXXI.
From where Dunedin on her throne of rule
Sits queen, and sways her sceptre o'er the land,
And where Linlithgow, seated by her pool,
Yet glories in the good King Loth's command,
March out the splendid warriors in their full
Equipment, trooping bright in many a band,
A thousand horsemen riding gallantly,
And twice five thousand foot, all boon and full of glee
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 131
LXXII.
All these, assembled on the Lothian shore,
Came wafted o'er in galleys to Kinghorn,
Thence eastward troop'd, (their gallant Thane afore
High mounted, with his banner bright as morn),
Making the land, with arms of polish 'd ore,
And bannerets aloft in ether borne,
To gleam and glitter with reflected fire
As up the legions march rejoicing through the shire.
LXXIII.
Close follow on their steps the men who bide
Around the valley where the Douglas stream
Devolves from mossy hills his dusky tide
Fast by the Castle of that haughty name,
And those who dwell where many-falling Clyde
Sweeps down by Bothwell's towers of massy frame,
And by the green where Glasgow's daughters lave
On summer days their robes within the crystal wave :
132 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
LXXIV.
All these were headed by their gallant lord,
Great Douglas, on whose fearless breast is seen
Achaius' honoured order by its cord
Dependent in its princely pride of green ;
And overhead his banner with its word,
And blazonry of stars and golden sheen,
Gives, writhing to the playful April wind,
Its salamander green with flames of fire entwin'd.
LXXV.
Next after them, but distant many a mile,
Across the Island's breadth come speeding fast
Adust with march's sinew-stretching toil,
The men whose shores confront the western blast ;
Ev'n they of Carrick land and rainy Kyle,
Whose sky by sea-born clouds is oft o'ercast,
And Cunninghame, and of the shire where flow
The Cart's divided brooks through humid lands and low.
CANTO III.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
133
LXXVI.
And with them march, in battailous display,
The skilful handlers of the bow, that won
Upon the southward shores where Galloway
Spreads her bare bosom to the mid-day sun ;
All these acknowledging the lordly sway
Of Roland, Uthred's fiery-minded son,
Came rushing through the land to beard the Dane,
Twelve thousand warriors bold, a troop of mighty men-
LXXVII.
Next them the troopers each on fervent steed,
That dwell within the warm and flowery dales,
Where Annan, and where Esk, and Liddel, lead
Their streams, down tripping through the sunny vales ;
And where the stronger and more swelling Tweed,
Emergent from his midland mountain, trails
Voluminous and broad his waters down,
To meet the briny sea by bulwark'd Berwick town.
134- THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
LXXVIII.
All these convoked by trumpet's shrill alarm.
Blown from the summits of the hills around,
Met numerous from hamlet, hall, and farm,
Beneath the banner of Balcluch renown'd,
On silver-bitted charger, fiery-warm
For war, and pawing gallantly the ground,
All in the horseman's showy armour dight,
Cuirass, and plumy helm, and falchion broad and bright.
LXXIX.
Thus clad, thus mounted, from the courts they pour
Of Scot, beneath his crescents and his star,
Three thousand troopers, ripe for hottest hour
Of onset, and well exercis'd in war :
So northward through the Lothian lands they scour,
Impetuous, scorning hinderance or bar,
And by the bridge of Stirling wheeling round,
Plunge into Fife's fair shire by its most western bound.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 135
LXXX.
Last mov ? d the tartan'd heroes that reside
Within the broad hill-countries of the west ;
For Cullen's sons (himself, his King beside
Remained, to help with counsel as seem'd best),
Pass'd through Argyle, from where the Atlantic tide
Assaults Kintyre with surges ne'er at rest,
North to the mountain -chair of granite proud,
Whereon Ben Nevis sits commanding either flood.
LXXXI.
They pass'd, and passing rous'd each rough domain,
Cowal and Lorn, and Knapdale, and Kantyre ;
Whilst Bancho, Lochaber's black-plumed Thane,
Dress'd his hill- tops in signal-flames of fire,
Calling his bonneted and brawny men
To gather round him now for battle dire ;
And Badenoch was in a bustle all ;
And Ness's land was up, and Ross, at Ferquhard's call.
136 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO III.
LXXXII.
All these, o'er whom their several Thanes preside,
Serv'd Cullen, Thane of mountainous Argyle,
Whose sons, in absence of their father, guide
The gathered clans o'er hill and through defile ;
And down they march in all their plaided pride
Of mountain garb, across the joyous isle,
Giving their tartans to the wind, that aye
Amid their sturdy limbs rejoice to dance and play.
LXXXIII.
All they, with all the various bands from all
Their coasts, with banners spread, and trumpet's blast,
To meet their King beside Sanct Androis' wall
Congratulant, in sounding tumult past,
Exciting from the soil to Heaven's high hall
Fife's dust by many a thousand feet up-cast,
And with the gleam and gairishness of war
Emblazing half her soil that swarms with life afar.
CANTO III,
THE THANE OF FIFE.
137
LXXXIV.
And nearer as they drew their gath'ring place,
The more they melt into one heaving mass,
Till in the city, and the ample space
That girds her walls with sward of lusty grass,
Troop after troop, as they arrive apace,
Bristled and black with steel, and bright with brass,
Conglobing all into one boundless swarm,
From dusty march they rest, and toil of travel warm.
LXXXV.
Nor did the mansions of the town suffice
To harbour that o'erswelling multitude ;
But by the walls, and by the space that lies
Spread circumjacent out in many a rood,
Ten thousands canvass canopies uprise,
A sudden city, huge of amplitude,
That in a moment to the sky upthrows,
Innumerable, its roofs in long and ridgy rows.
138 THE THANE OF FIFE, CANTO III.
LXXXVI.
As when the rheumy and raw-breathing south
Effuses o'er the frosty winter sky
His clouds, that white and round, in endless growth,
Fed from the dense horizon, upward fly,
With scatter'd specks of various shapes uncouth,
Fleck'ring the hollow heaven's immensity ;
So thick around the walls, and Witch's hill,
These white spire-topped tents the grassy circuit fill.
LXXXVJI.
And such the number and loud-noising swarm
Of men within the city and around,
As when on summer days serene and warm,
The hived bees, desiring change of ground,
Migrate from garden or from sunny farm,
To river's edge with flowery riches crown'd,
There settling, with their heaps and humming toil,
The many-huddling bank envelop and embroil.
CANTO III. THE THANE OF FIFE. 139
LXXXVIII.
So num'rous, and with toil so loud and vast,
That mighty host, all scattered and disjoined,
Heav'd round Sanct Androis' turrets far and fast,
Its fluctuations like the sea with wind,
As horsemen, horse, and foot, tumultuous past,
Mingling in loudest confluence, till they find
Fit harbourage in city, or in tent :
There settling they repose, with heat of march o'erspent.
END OF THE THIRD CANTO.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO IV.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO IV.
I.
As thus the army of King Constantino,
Encamped by Sanct Androis, lay at rest,
Great Odin in his starry hall divine
Sat deeply musing in his mighty breast :
Down through his palace floor of sapphirine
He shot his eye's all-piercing glance, in quest
Of Hungar and his proud and Pagan host ;
And saw them spread afar on Fife's tent-cover'd coast.
144 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
II.
And near them, but more far to north, he view'd,
Spread out in opposition's horrid show,
As ambush'd for the onset rough and rude,
The Scottish army and their tents of snow ;
He saw the Chiefs, and knew how stout and good
Their hearts, how stomach'd to repel the foe ;
He heard the wrathful murmurings and threats,
And saw the shock at hand, and murder-doing feats.
III.
And underground his darted eye-glance caught
The spirits of the soil, air-built and small,
How busy-bustling, how alert and fraught
With wrath, as secret coadjutors all ;
Witness what day yon goblin stern and haught,
E'en from Arabia's bowels, at their call
Upsprung vindictive, with his iron mace,
And hit the havock'd Thor, arid plough'd his bloody face.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 145
IV.
All these he sees, and easy thence foresees
What stern defiance, strife, and struggles sore,
From foemen holpen by such aid as these
Await his people on a foreign shore :
Then did his soul forecast how most with ease,
And best with issue happier than before,
To counterwork that sly auxiliar train,
And prove his questioned power, and glorify his men,
V.
Forthwith he to his palace high, that lies
Right 'tween the pole-star and the polar main,
Hung in a golden chain amid the skies,
From the huge axletree of Charles'-wain,
Convokes his family of Deities,
The tutelary Gods that guard the Dane ;
He stamps with sounding foot his palace-floor,
And half the startled world resounds from shore to shore.
14*6 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
VI. ,
And instantly in rapid march upspring
Along the high-road leading to his hall,
(The opal bow whose boundless bridging ring
Conjoins to sea and land his palace-wall),
TV associate Gods alert t' attend their King,
One from the seas that girdle round the ball,
One from the snow's up-treasur'd unthaw'd stores
Heap'd by six thousand years upon the polar floors ;
VII.
One from the tops of Lapland's fab'lous hills,
Where oft the moon is witched from her way,
Another from old Norway's fords and rills,
Where he is wont to wade, and swim, and play ;
This from th' abyss of fire whence Hecla fills
Her furnaces to spout them on the day,
That one from where the Maelstroom's gurge he rides
Hors'd on the giddy surge, and whips the whirling tides
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 147
VIII.
All these, each rushing from his lov'd abode,
Up-climb with bustling speed th' earth-kissing bow,
And in the presence of the greater God
Appear with honour's reverential show ;
There mid his guests, the ghosts, a ghastly crowd,
That chirp eternally in many a row,
Their seats at awful distance round they take,
And wait their Monarch's word, who thus, uprising, spake
IX.
Children and Spirits of the famous dead,
Not to the banquet are you summoned now ;
Not now to revel on rejoicing mead
Far mightier cares these pastimes disallow ;
See ye the seams and scars, yet deep and red,
Grav'd and intrenched on Thor's endamag'd brow ?
These be your thought ; and be it now your care,
To plot a fit revenge to foes that thus shall dare.
14-8 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
.-"X.
Look ye to earth, and see how all the ground
Adjoining where King Hungar's camp is pight,
With tents, and foes, and arms, o'er-cover'd. round,
Shews fearful preparation for the fight ;
Look under earth, how in their cells profound
The tribes of paltry sprites, air-built and light,
From Thule to the Mountains of the Moon,
Are huddling, hurrying all t' assist the battle soon.
XL
Much it behoves us, then, to plan how best
To thwart the malice of our spiteful foes,
And in the proof make clear and manifest
That power they so dispute and so oppose ;
Help ye to counsel, therefore, and suggest
The means whereby our en'mies to enclose
Within the net of stratagem and snare ;
Good is it to advise when times perplexing are.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE.
XII.
He spoke, and from th' assembly there arose
A chirp of gibbering ghosts and hum of Gods
Confus'd, as when the summer south-wind blows
His short small waves half-breaking on the floods,
Or as the toss'd leaves that, when July shows
His luxury of greenness on the woods,
Whisper the secrets of the Dryads there,
To Zephyr, as he skims the billowing foliage fair.
XIII.
At last the green-hair'd God that sat aloof,
Niord, amid these murmurs, loud out-spake :
O sire, since of our power now proudest proof
Ev'n to our foe's confusion we must make,
'Tis meet that, for the general behoof,
To potent means each should himself betake ;
Each, then, within his element retire ;
There operate revenge as wrath and shame require.
150 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XIV.
And that King Hungar and his valiant crew
May be premonish'd of th' impending shock,
(For ere to-morrow's sun hath dried the dew
The Scot shall to the war the Dane provoke;)
Command some meagre ghost of ashy hue,
Gliding to earthward silently as smoke,
To rouse the Cimbrian leader, and prepare
And fortify his heart against th' approaching war.
XV.
This said, King Odin, well-pleas'd at that word,
Bespoke the blustering black tremendous ghost
Of Bojorix, that mid that huddling horde
Of unsubstantial heroes chirp'd the most :
O ghost of him whose never-satiate sword
World-conq'ring Rome oft tasted to her cost,
Now leave a while the mead-carousing throng,
And visit earth a space; not hard the task or long.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 1'51
XVI.
Go seek through starry night the tent where lies
King Hungar near old Carrail town asleep,
And from the drowsy weight that loads his eyes
Up-rouse him, for his army watch to keep,
Lest rushing suddenly, his foes surprise
Him loitering thus with murder-spreading sweep ;
Bid him draw out from camp his force at large,
Well-marshalFd,weapon'd well, for Mars's furious charge.
XVH.
At which injunction that black burly ghost,
Grinning with gladness at the mandate given,
Tuck'd up his shadowy garments like a post,
The sooner to o'erscud the half of heaven ;
Then gliding from amid that grisly host,
Swift as a moon-beam from the moon is driven,
He from the threshold dives amid the sky,
And streaks a yellow track as down he swims from high.
152 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XVIII.
As when to seamen, whose o'er- weather 'd bark,
From Baltic bound, at sea hath long been toss'd,
Appears amid the rainy midnight dark,
Far in the west, o'er Buchan's rocky coast,
A gloomy meteor, to their eyes a mark
Portending storm increas'd or vessel lost,
As in a moment down the vault it flies,
Flashing a lurid light on floods, and seas, and skies ;
XIX.
Ev'n so, down darting from th' ethereal height,
Came that red spectre tall and terrible,
Obscuring with his yellow turbid light
The silver beams that from the Pleiads fell ;
Amid the Danish camp he shot forthright
Where by the sea in canvass roofs they dwell,
And lighting on the King's pavilion fair,
High on its golden top he perch'd erect in air.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 153
XX.
Sleep'st thou, O son of Frotho ? Dost thou sleep,
King Hungar ? thus the frowning shade exclaims ;
111 it beseems a king who ought to keep
That people safe, who all his labour claims,
Thus in the grave of slumber buried deep,
To toy with phantasy's unfruitful dreams,
Ev'n in the hour when dangers gathering near,
Bid him arouse for shame, for the fierce foe is near.
XXI.
Thy fathers slept not, Hungar, heretofore,
When push of war requir'd their vigilance ;
I slept not on the morn when Marius bore
His cohorts on to meet the Cimbric lance,
What day the carcass-heap'd Massilian shore
Reek'd with the blood of battle's worst mischance ;
And wilt thou sleep when equal care demands
Thy nightly hours to watch for these thy faithful bands ?
154 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XXII.
Think not that now thou liest in stately bed,
Safe in thy royal dome of Elsinore ;
Here art thou on a perilous pillow laid,
By foes encompassed on a distant shore ;
Arouse thee, then, lest soon their martial tread
Heard from the north resounding more and more,
Anticipate thy waking, and assault
Thy people, haply doom'd t' atone their leader's fault.
XXIII.
This having said, that scowling spirit dire,
From the pavilion's summit flew on high,
Right upward like a spark from crackling fire,
Amid the starry wilderness of sky,
Leaving the chief asham'd and chaf 'd with ire,
Against himself and his security :
Self-tor tur'd and in maze as thus he lay,
A sweat of anguish chill breaks from his limbs away.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 155
XXIV.
And as within his ears each horrid sound
Of that portentous shape yet seem'd to ring,
Up from his pillow starting, soon he found
His garb, the proud investments of a king,
Wherewith enveloped he his limbs around ;
Then sought his armour, which he soon 'gan fling
Above his robes ; the gorget close that cleaves,
Cuishes, and golden frock, and brass-bestudded greaves.
XXV.
His brows receive the ponderous casque, whereon
Sits terror riding on its dusky plume,
And at his kingly side all glorious shone
The sword, o'ercharacter'd with words of doom,
Suspended by its broad and glist'ning zone,
Now harmlessly asleep as in its tomb,
But when unscabbarded to war and wrath,
Profuse in Hungar's hand of slaughter and of death.
156 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XXVI.
His hand engrasps his spear, the tow'ring tree
Hewn from Hardanger's top all black with pines,
Arm'd with its broad brass beaming dismally,
Like the red comet that at mid-day shines ;
To poise its pond'rous length none fit but he
Alone of all his armed Scandian lines ;
Ten heroes scarce suffice t' uplift its load,
His single arm out-hurls the spear in sky abroad.
XXVII.
Thus clad, thus terrible in arms, and proud,
He from his tall pavilion issues forth,
And as the day-spring on the German flood
Is seen just trembling in its earliest birth,
He through the encampment past to seek where stood
The tents where sleep the chiefs of highest worth ;
Fierce Garnard, for whose sake the war he plies,
Hubba, and Rogenvald, and Chilperic the wise.
CANTO IV.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
157
XXVIII.
He found the tent where haughty Garnard lay ;
Arise, prince Garnard ! sleep'st thou thus secure,
Ev'n on the dawn that haply leads the day
That shall thy kingdom forfeit or assure ?
Rouse thee ; the foe's astir, and on his way ;
Beneath his tread resounds the upland moor,
Whilst we inactive and inglorious wait,
Ev'n till his horse beset our camp's affronted gate.
XXIX.
Thus passing through the broadly-tented space,
Each of his mighty men he rous'd to arms;
The youthful Hubba of the royal race,
The bastard Harold panting for th' alarms,
Wise Chilperic that reads the welkin's face,
Osbreth still sighing for Alvilda's charms,
Brave Rogenvald the flower of warlike Norse,
And all the hardy knights stout bulwarks of his force.
158 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XXX.
All these upspringing at their leader's call,
Forth from their canvass cabins eager rush,
Arm'd, and to arms uprouse their people all,
To meet the battle and its bloody brush ;
Forthwith, as now o'er heaven's high eastern wall
Light's golden horns up-peer with joyous flush,
That wide encampment moves and stirs afar,
With preparation loud of men, and arms, and war.
XXXI.
As when a pop'lous city at the hour
Of midnight, when her tumult's noise is low,
Hears rung aloud from steeple and from tower
The sounds announcing conflagration's woe,
Anon her num'rous dwellings fast out-pour
Their fear-struck inmates in incessant flow,
Glutting her causeys with promiscuous swarms,
And every alley rings with terror and alarms.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 159
XXXII.
So heav'd and rung with tumult round about,
Beneath Aurora's level-beaming eye,
That camp, as clank of arms and voices' shout,
And clang of rousing trumpets sounding high,
And din of rapid heroes rushing out
Confus'd, to muster on the field hard by,
Rear from the hollow trembling earth a sound,
That in heaven's golden vault reverberates around,
XXXIII.
And soon upon the moor and fields of Crail,
Enrank'd they stand in long and fair display ;
As o'er each proud battalion to the gale
Flutters its leader's banner gilded gay;
King Hungar, sheeny in his sunny mail,
Amid them past to marshal and array,
Exulting in his proud heart like a god,
As through their lengthen'd lines with haughty steps he
strode.
160 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XXXIV.
Meanwhile the Morning's golden- tasselPd shoes
Had leapt from sea and now in heaven walk dry,
When looking tow'rd the north, King Hungar views,
Fringing as if with fire the rim of sky,
A glow not as of sunbeams on the dews,
But as of armour glancing gloriously,
Mix'd with thick whirls of dust through which obscure
Flashes a brazen light all o'er the dusky moor.
XXXV.
Nor long, ere more distinctly from the height,
That dusky gleam, as more and more it nears,
Developing itself, evolves to sight
Motion of armed men, and shields, and spears,
With many a banner that i' th' morning light
Afloat, and flaunting overhead appears,
Join'd with the peal of trumpets, and the neigh
Of horses heard from far, loud rushing on their way.
CANTO IV.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
161
XXXVI.
Like as the noise of whirlwinds, when they ride
A- top of some high-branched forest fair,
Making the greenwood groan from side to side
With blasts that scourge her boughs and leafy hair ;
Such sound, down swinging from the uplands wide,
Well understood, announc'd to Hungar's ear
The march of numerous foemen on their way,
Accoutred bright and strong, descending to the fray.
XXXVII.
Anon the standard of King Constantine,
The bloody Lion, ramping red in gold,
Highest and terriblest is seen to shine
In splendour o'er the moving host unrolPd ;
At sight of which, along each Danish line
A secret terror unconfess'd took hold
Of these stout hearts, well knowing now not far,
Gloomy and charg'd with death, the rattling cloud of war.
162 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XXXVIII.
Advance the men of Constantine apace
With battailous aspect to meet the foe,
Till, separated by a scanty space,
Confronting and opposed in horrid show
They halt, displaying the unmasked face
Of surly Mars just threatening bloody blow ;
Squadron'd they stand, a close-embattled mass,
Horrent with helms, and shields, and points of bristly brass.
XXXIX.
There, as thus well appointed and array'd,
Both armies lower in horrid counterview,
A silence for a space, and awe, pervade
The ranks and squadrons of each martial crew,
As o'er their souls the dark abodements spread
Of death and bloody hazards to ensue :
Meanwhile, congenial to such mood of soul,
Up from the glassy deeps a sullen vapour stole ;
CANTO IV.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
163
XL.
Which, steaming and convolving round the sun
Its dusky wreaths of day-destroying smoke,
Hooded his shining face in colours dun,
That not a beam o'er either army broke ;
And from that cloud, that so did sky overrun,
Ooz'd out a bloody mist which seem'd to soak
Heaven with its dire distilment, and on ground
And on the heroes' helms left sanguine globes around.
XLI.
Nor less did sea her direful signs present ;
For in the Frith, all round the Isle of May,
A tremor seiz'd her glassy-green extent,
Whereby her waters in tremendous play,
Swinging from shore to shore alternate went,
In undulations swoln of rolling sway,
As if her rocky basin deep below
Rock'd at an earthquake's touch, up-heaving to and fro.
164 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XLII.
And to her surface upward-wallowing came
Out from their beds of darkness, rous'd with fright,
Her monsters manifold of ugly frame,
Such as had yet ne'er sicken'd at day-light ;
Serpents, and hideous things without a name,
That crawl upon her bottoms day and night,
Now visit air, alarm'd and terrhied,
And on the reeling flood float flouncing far and wide.
XLIII.
Such sights in ocean and in sky prelude
With prodigy the just beginning fray,
Astonishing the souls, though brave and good,
Of these strong warriors rank'd in long array
Meanwhile, excited by his valiant mood,
The King, whose fortune hinges on the day,
Great Constantine, intent on kingly deed,
Forth from his army rode upon his noble steed.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 163
XLIV.
'Tween either host he rode, and to the Dane
Boldly his countenance and words addressed :
O Monarch, thou that o'er the rolling main
Thy power hast wafted hither to contest
My crown, and in thy spirit's high disdain
To foot, unhid, my climate of the west,
Why stand we thus with idly-gazing eye,
We that are come abroad to battle and to die ?
XLV.
Here, in the face of these thy captains all,
And armed powers confronting fierce and far,
I now appear, to challenge and to call
Thee or thy proudest hero to the war :
If Odin guards his champion, let me fall ;
If good Saint Andrew have his men in care,
Let my opposer bite the clod, and yield
To Scotland's king and lord possession of the field.
366 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
XL VI.
For, let my people's gift, the rightful crown,
Be deem'd by sitting on my brows disgraced,
And let my rival wear it as his own,
My rights abolish'd and my claims effac'd,
If to defend it, and my land's renown,
My soul prove coward or my hand unbrac'd :
Who bears the crown, behoves him to be brave ;
Send out thy hero, then, for glory or a grave.
XLVK.
This challenge heard, out-rush'd with instant haste
The Cimbric warriors, that high strife to claim ;
Fair Hubba in his golden armour cas'd,
The bastard Harald burning for a name,
Gay Osbreth with his spangled surcoat grac'd,
Gigantic Godefrid of towery frame,
Scorro, with sword o'er-carved with magic word,
And Haldan, Bocar's son, and Roller, Femern's lord
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 167
XLVI1I.
All these, and more, the combat loud demand ;
But chief and loudest of the gallant crew,
The son of him who rul'd the Pictish land,
Prince Garnard, claims it as his right and due :
Mine be the strife ; to me and my right hand
Belongs it, or to perish or subdue
The crest of him whose brows usurping dare
Mine and my father's crown thus haughtily to wear.
XLIX.
For not for this I have o'er-sail'd the sea
Idly to stand upon my father's soil,
And see the battle which belongs to me
Fought out and finished by another's toil ;
Unmeet to claim the sceptre should I be,
Degenerate from my parentage, and vile,
Nor worthy of my patron's aidant arm,
If I should thus refuse my battle and its harm.
168 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
So spoke he on his proud steed mounted fair,
Whose fury scarce he check'd with bridle tight :
Nor less desire did Denmark's King declare
T' appropriate to himself the proffer'd fight,
Claiming that kingly trial as his share,
His by precedence, if denied by right :
Mid that dispute, from Airdrie forest flew
A screaming raven large, of dire and dismal hue ;
LI.
And thrice above both hosts, with rapid flight
In airy ring, he hover'd and he wheel'd,
Then pitching downwards from his soaring height,
He lighted on Prince Garnard's glittering shield ;
There thrice he flapp'd his pinions dusk as night,
Then flew and sought again his bosky field ;
Leaving convinced the Chieftains by that sign,
Whom to achieve the strife th' overruling heavens design.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE.
LII.
For battle then the combatants prepare,
Both noble, proud of heart, and strong of hand,
This, though an exile, the great son and heir
Of him who governed late the Pictish land ;
That, the acknowledg'd king elect to wear
Fair Scotland's crown, and rule with wide command ;
So hostile, so high-minded, and so haught,
For battle they them busk'd with wrathful fury fraught.
LIII.
Asunder wider stood, to yield them space,
Both armies, for their hot and furious course,
As back retiring to the farthest place,
The heroes rode to gather greater force ;
Awhile, ere rush they on their bloody race,
They halt, each curbing his impetuous horse,
As they collect and rouse their sum of strength,
Poising for forceful shock the spear's unwieldy length.
170 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LIV.
At gaze mean time, and silent on each hand,
Both armies, through their bristly ranks afar,
On the sharp edge of expectation stand,
Trembling and mutely anxious for the war ;
At last with furious steps that shake the land,
Both steeds, that white with fume and struggle are,
At once let loose from bridle's hindrance tight,
Hurry in fiery rush for conflict and the fight.
LV.
At once their spears, levell'd for murd'rous aim,
Hiss'd with their burning points a path through air,
And on their broad and massive bucklers came,
Shatt'ring their strength of brazen bosses fair :
Yet pierc'd they not for death each boss-built frame ;
But, cheated of the winged wounds they bear,
One in the silver'd marge hung quiv'ring high,
One flew rebounding off, and lost itself in sky*
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 171
LVI.
Prince Garnard's weapon in the topmost marge
Hung fix'd, and vibrating its pond'rous tree,
At which the King, feeling that weight o'ercharge
His arm, soon made it of th' encumbrance free,
And to the ground dropping th' o'erbalanc'd targe,
Pluck'd from his thigh, with noble energy,
The sword there bright suspended, and rein'd round
His steed to meet the foe with onset and with wound.
LVIL
WheraJ;, resigning too his weighty shield,
The son of Brude out-drew his burnish'd brand,
And quickly round, his courser having wheePd,
Clos'd in tremendous conflict hand to hand :
Then thick and loud upon their proud crests peaPd
The sounding strokes, which scarce their helms with-
stand,
As, rain'd incessantly from either blade,
A hail of clanging blows descends on either head.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LVIII.
Now, with the edge down-swung with sweepy sway,
Clatters the casque and habergeon amain,
Now mid the hauberk's joints their murd'rous way
Probe the dire points, athirst for bloody stain ;
And blood, soon copious rilling, J gan bewray
That not their eager points had prob'd in vain,
But in the vulnerable parts had found
A secret entrance sore, and unapparent wound.
LIX.
At last with anger thrice incens'd, the King
Heav'd from his highest altitude of arm
A stroke, which lighting, fail'd not down to bring
On Garnard's crest a storm of instant harm ;
Unhors'd at once by that tempestuous swing,
Came rolling from his fiery courser warm,
The prince with all his armour to the ground ;
Earth rattled as he fell with armour's clashing sound.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 173
LX.
Whereat the Danish foes, that stood not far,
Enrag'd to see their champion thus bested^
Drew near in attitude of wrath and war ;
And in a moment, round the monarch's head,
A hundred bows let fly their shafts in air,
A hundred slings dismiss their whizzing lead;
Hardly sufficed the monarch's helm and mail,
To bear and bar that shower of murder-seeking hail.
LXI.
Then rush'd to save their good king from the cloud
Of danger that envelops him so near,
Forth from their army's agitated crowd,
Four heroes, whose stout hearts were strange to fear,
Macduff, high moving on his charger proud,
Balcarras, who his king as life held dear,
Pitmillie, with the dolphin on his crest,
Dunbar, the trusty liege of ever-loyal breast^
174- THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXII.
Two held on high, around the monarch's head,
Their shields to intercept the arrowy sleet,
Two caught his staggering courser's reins, to lead
Their master from the field in safe retreat,
As round them, unregarded, whistling sped
The missile storm in all its furious heat ;
Back to their ranks th' endangered king they guide ;
The ranks disparted, break, and ope an entrance wide.
LXIII.
There plunging safe, there hemm'd andbulwark'd round
With his own ridges of determined war,
All feeble as he was from latent wound,
And needful of the sacred leech's care,
With convoy of pick'd warriors off the ground,
They send him from the further strife afar,
That in Sanct Androis he might safely wait
Supply of wasted strength, and renovated state.
CANTO IV.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
175
LXIV.
The Cimbric captains also from the field,
Where prostrated in doleful wreck he lay,
Up-rais'd the prince, and on his hollow shield
They bore him panting to his ship away,
There to be tended, and restored, and heal'd,
Fit for tough battle on a future day :
Meanwhile a fury and a raging ire,
Through each opposed host spread maddening like fire.
LXV.
And nearer and more near, each armed mass,
Swallowing with warlike step the space between,
Push'd out its dreadful curves with ir'n and brass
Protended, for the slaughter sparkling keen ;
That moment there came blowing from the Bass
A breeze that swept the murky welkin clear,
Tossing before it to the northern bay
The waves of turbid mist that intercept the day.
176 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXVI.
Then stood apparent to the Sun, whose car
A-top o' th' golden roof now bounded bright,
The splendour and the horror of the war,
ReveaPd, expanded, in his own fair light,
Ridges of gloomy foot extended far,
Turms of helm'd horsemen frowning in their might,
Sharp wedge, consolidated phalanx strong,
And Mars's bridges firm, and furrows rough and long.
LXVII.
As when the tide of ocean, from the shore
To her eternal channel ebbing back,
Uncover'd leaves what deep was hid before,
Her shelly rocks and promontories black,
Sharp peaks, and shelving ledges shagged o'er
With tangling weed, and sea's out-spewed wrack ;
Ev'n so, as that black mist was blown from sky,
Shone out th' uncover'd war before Day's golden eye.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 177
LXVIII.
Then rose, pre-flourishing th' impending shock.
Clangour of trumpets blown sonorously,
With sound of tabor and of pipe, that woke
Wrath in the veins, and fearlessness to die,
Aye intermixed with shouts, that nearly broke
With noise the hollow hyaline of sky,
And clash of clatter'd shields that loudly rung,
And hymns to Odin's praise in direful music sung.
LXIX.
Anon, with shock and tumult like the sound
Of twice ten thousand billows rolling proud,
And sweeping up the shore's rock-ribbed mound,
Mix the crushed armies in encounter loud;
Whilst mad Contention, hov'ring o'er the ground,
Walk'd o'er the heads of each infuriate crowd,
And, waving 'tween the heavens and earth her arm,
Whipt them to conflict on, and scathe and bloody harm,
M
178 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXX. r
Then Wrath, and Fury, and Debate, and Strife,
Madness and Murder, ever-coupled pair,
And scythe-arm'd Death, that sweeps the crop of life,
And Exultation proud, and pale Despair,
And Horror shuddering at red Slaughter's knife,
And hellish Hate, whose breath empoisons air,
Stalk'd glorying o'er each host that toils and bleeds,
Confounding all the field with foul and damned deeds.
LXXI.
A thousand spears thrust forth all pure and bright,
Tarnish'd with Death's red dew returned back ;
A thousand swords that wav'd aloft in light,
Falling, were dimm'd with life's unseemly wrack ;
And arrows, shot aloft with hissing flight,
In gore alighted from their gleamy track ;
And cries arose of triumph and of pain,
And shouts and shrilling shrieks of slaying and of slain.
CANTO IV.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
179
LXXII.
Chief o'er the field in whirlwind-wrack and wrath,
The Thane of Fife, with all his yeomen bold,
Were seen careering in the heart of death,
With quenchless souls and vigour uncontrolled ;
Enriching with a copious bloody bath,
From hostile veins, their land's insulted mould,
And, with destruction's sickle wide around,
Mowing to havoc down the fielded ranks renown'd.
LXXIII.
Who first, who last, O Muse, before his sword,
Shrunk howling down within the gates of hell ?
Gigantic Godefrid, fair Sleswick's lord,
Beneath his sword the slaughter's firstling fell ;
Fool, though his bones with marrow rich were stor'd,
And huge of bulk, and lac'd with sinews well,
T' obtrude his vanity of vastness so,
Ev'n in the teeth of death, and grapple with such foe 1
180 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXXIV.
- -
He, as the Thane rode forward to th' assault,
Planted his magnitude of brawn before,
And dar'd his weapon and his voice exalt,
Against the hero on his own lov'd shore ;
Here in King Odin's name I bid thee halt,
Thou whose false crest with lies is written o'er,
For there the lion grins in wrath severe,
While in thy coward heart skulks tremblingly the deer.
LXXV.
So speaking, vainly confident, he toss'd
His spear, which singing up the rifted sky,
Hit the fair golden lion that emboss'd
The hero's shield with glorious imagery ;
The golden lion, that no empty boast
Might seem in his so fair impress to lie,
Receiv'd as if in scorn the clatt'ring spear,
And sent it flying off in shivers shatter'd sheer.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 181
LXXVI.
Thereat, the Thane approaching close his foe,
Up-swung his arm for vengeance, and brought down
As if from heaven his noble sword, with blow
Like thunder from the cloud sulphureous thrown ;
Clov'n in a moment stood in fearful show
His giantship of burd'nous flesh and bone,
Helmet and head shorn through like summer grass,
Down to the gorget strong that binds his throat with brass.
LXXVII.
And, Stand thou thus, Macduff exulting said,
Thus stand, a monument of fearful sort,
(As stood that giant with his cloven head,
Laps' d down to either shoulder for support),
Thus be a warning what reception dread,
And salutation warm, and sharp and short,
On their arrival waits the spoilful brood,
That come to summer here in carnage and in blood
182 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXXVIII.
More words he wasted not, but in his wrath
Past on to seek another foe death-doom'd,
Whom soon he found, for strait to thwart his path
With armed hindrance Odin's priest presumed,
Fulbert, the gloomy priest, whose right hand hath
His ugly knife from black sheath disentomb'd,
And vibrates now its threatening point before,
Secure in Odin's aid to thrust it home in gore.
LXXIX.
King Odin's aid then prov'd a help of straw
Against a foe of such unmeasur'd force,
For when the Thane that low'ring aspect saw,
He dash'd upon him his high-bounding horse,
Which beating him to ground 'gan smite and paw
With sturdy hoof the man into a corse,
Crushing and grinding him with tortures fell,
And trampling down his grim and ghastly soul to hell,
CANTO IV.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
183
LXXX.
That death accomplish'd, in a moment flew
The Chief to where he saw his ranks destroy'd
By Sambar, whose huge battle-axe o'er threw
Where'er it struck, making the place a void ;
He flew, he smote him as he backward drew
His weapon with its crop of murder cloy'd;
His shoulder where it joins the nape receives
The sword whose every stroke a shunless death achieves.
LXXXI.
Shoulder and arm, at once clean lopp'd away,
Drop earthward from that thorough-shearing wound ;
(The quivering fingers sprawling on the clay,
Yet grasp convulsively their weapon round) ;
The despoil'd trunk, in woful disarray,
Totter'd a trice, then sinking goes to ground,
While the stout ghost out-flies to join withal
The rabble-rout of shades that tenant Odin's hall.
184- THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXXXII.
Such were the slaughters of the Thane ; nor less
Around him Fife's each fiery Jord and knight,
Attended by their valiant yeomen, press
The Dane, with deeds of unresisted might;
Brave Kellie, ranging in his manliness,
Sweeps at his right hand through the field of fight;
Leven and Rothes, lion-like, pursue
The death- work at his left, with swords of temper true.
LXXXIII.
Young Anstroyther, with pole-axe huge and long,
Helmets and helmed heads asunder cleaves;
Balcarras, faulchioning the thickest throng,
The glorious devastation fast achieves ;
Great Wemyss, with spear protruded, sharp and strong,
Souls of their hapless bodies fast bereaves ;
Balcaskie, and Balcomie, and Balfour,
Approve them puissant men in battle's dang'rous hour.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 185
LXXXIV.
Meantime, while in the centre these engage,
On either wing as hot the battle glows,
Here Glamyss' Thane, young Lion, in his rage,
Careering through the ranks, conspicuous shows,
And gilds with glorious deeds his youthful age,
Fleshing his hungry steel upon his foes ;
There Athol, with his merry men hedg'd round,
Deforms th' opposed ranks with many a goring wound.
LXXXV.
Here Cullen, Thane of mountainous Argyle,
Girt with his brawny men of western breed,
Inflames and irritates the glorious toil
By fair example of heroic deed ;
Three brothers, mighty men from Meon's isle,
He slew, and sent to Odin's hall with speed,
Biorn, and Stenbiorn, and Thorbiorn,
Making their mother thence sit lonely and forlorn,
186 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO IV.
LXXXVI.
There, with his jolly troopers, young Dunbar
Scatters the showers of iron death about;
While Douglas and Balclugh, tough knots of war,
And Roland, with his western archers stout,
With battle's every torment vex and mar
The foe nigh to discomfiture and rout,
That haughty Hungar, by that storm o'erplied,
Compell'd, shrunk in the horns of his aspiring pride.
LXXXVII.
Thus, throughout all their length, from wing to wing,
Both hosts, in fight confounded and embroil'd,
From mid-day till the hour when mountains fling
Their shadows to the south-east, tugg'd and toil'd,
Enormous in their struggle, tempesting
Both sky and earth with stormy tumult wild,
Doubly o'er-shaded, both with shafts that fly,
And vault of hov'ring dust, that stood up-heav'd in sky.
CANTO IV. THE THANE OF FIFE. 187
LXXXVIII.
Heaven rung above the warriors' heads, with sound
Of conflict, and its multiplied alarms,
Whilst rock'd beneath their feet th j o'er- trampled ground,
With struggle, and with weight of men and arms :
The sick'ning sun, in vapours kerchief 'd round,
Seem'd insecure amid these hideous harms ;
And wish'd, so to escape such dangerous broil,
To sink before his time beyond Colonsay's isle.
END OF THE FOURTH CANTO.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO V.
THE
THANE OF FIFE,
CANTO V.
I.
BUT as the hour arrived when in the wood
The blackbird pipes her latest evening song,
And homeward chides to rest and supper's food
The hewer, worn with labour all day long,
The Danish ranks, that had .so long withstood
In battle keen, and unrelax'd, and strong,
With many an inroad now deform'd and bruis'd,
Began t j incline apace, disordered and confus'd.
192 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
II.
And soon ensued had foul defeat and rout,
Ruinous rout through all their shattered host,
Had not the green-hair'd god, that rules throughout
Old Ocean's rolling mass from coast to coast,
Espied how danger hemm'd his men about,
How sore the battle was, how nearly lost,
From where he sat attentive all the while,
As on his tower of watch, on May's sea-spurning isle.
III.
For there, upon its loftiest crag of rock,
That juts tremendous o'er the wave afar,
He sate, envelop'd in his sea-green cloak,
High on his tortoise shell of gaudy car,
Ev'n from the hour when Titan's burning yoke
First scatter'd light to serve the 'ginning war,
Till when the broken weary Dane gave way,
There had he ling'ring look'd, observant of the fray.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
193
IV.
He saw with pity his afflicted men.
Now shrinking to their ships in base retreat,
And calling on the Gods that guard the Dane
To interpose and stay the foul defeat ;
He saw, and cast about how to regain
The field, the honour lost ; how yet to cheat
The Scot of his expected triumph proud,
How rally and restore his own desponding crowd.
V.
Straight from the pinnacle of rock so steep,
Where his sky-dazzling wheels at stay had been,
His chariot downward fetch'd a rapid sweep,
To his own weltering element of green,
And down into the bowels of the deep
He plung'd, abandoning the solar sheen,
To seek his sunless wilderness of waves,
For monsters infamous, and dead men's bones and graves,
N
194 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO T.
VI.
There, as along its washy bottoms vast
The progress of his sea-green glory moves,
Came round him, sutnmon'd by loud trumpet's blast,
The groundlings of the deep in hideous droves;
Up-floundering from their dungeons thick and fast,
And from their never-shorn tall tangle groves,
Whole herds of sea-cows and of ores appear,
Huddling in hubbub huge, their King's command to hear.
VII.
Command he gives ; and straight afore his team
March that enormous train o'er Ocean's floors,
With immense labour lumb'ring through the stream,
As he directs them toward Fife's fair shores ;
Till, near where on the wat'ry marge extreme
The many-masted Danish navy moors,
They into day-light all emerge and rowl
Up CraiPs astonished beach their frightful phalanx foul.
CANTO V. THE THANE OF FIFE. 195
VIII.
Earth trembling felt their number and their weight,
And sent a sigh of horror from her womb,
As wallowing with tumultuous struggle great,
Auxiliars to the Dansker, up they clomb,
Monsters more huge, more fearful in their gait,
Than those which Neptune from the sea-beach foam
Bad climb the Actean shore, to scare with dread
Hippolytus's steeds, when from his sire he fled.
IX.
Before their car-borne King, who drives them on
With whip of sea-weed, up they toil to meet , &
The Danish host, now broken and overthrown,
And flying downwards to their camp and fleet ;
Amid their yielding ranks they plunge anon,
Staying with dire assistance the retreat,
And, wedging in their shapes 'tween man and man,
With unexpected war t' assail the Scot began.
196 THE THANE OF FIFE- CANTO V.
X.
Then rose a battle strange and dire to tell,
Such as was never yet on dry land fought,
As with their writhen horns these sea-cows fell
Assault ferociously the conq'ring Scot,
Confounding with their onset terrible
His ranks, that all-astonish'd nigh forgot
The weapons in their hands, when they beheld
These shapeless ocean-brutes upon them fierce impell'd.
XL
Nor sword, nor lance, nor shaft, might now avail
Such monsters or to terrify or wound,
But back rebounding from their scaly mail
Dropt frustrate down and harmless on the ground,
While with robust aggression they assail,
Undaunted, whomsoe'er opposed they found,
Mangling and crushing both with fang and horn,
The files, by such impulse o'erpress'd and overborne.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
197
XII.
Then palsied with amazement grew those hands
That all day long had mow'd in Mars' s field,
And down they drop, relax'd, upon the lands
Those weapons, useless now, and vain to wield ;
Nor could the chiefs, by threats or by commands,
Check the bold men, till then not known to yield,
From flying off, alarm'd, and fain to 'scape
The deaths that forward roll'd in each unearthly shape.
XIII.
So, hurried by the tide of men along,
Inevitably push'd into retreat,
The leaders, with the fearless hearts and strong,
Gave also ground, with slow unwilling feet.
Great Douglas, and Dunbar, and Lyon young,
Leven and Rothes, in their noble heat,
Forc'd to depress their haughty hearts of fire,
Though fronting still the foe, make slothful sour retire.
198 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XIV.
Then was the Lion, that in golden field,
Engirt with lilies, ramps with joyous leap,
That evening seen compulsively to yield
Before the bestial vomit of the deep ;
While opposite, the Danish Rav'n, high held
By Hubba's arm, seem'd broader out to sweep
His dusky wings, and feather them with flame,
Expanding more his plumes as onward more he came.
XV.
But exultation and a glad surprise
Seiz'd all the Cimbric powers, when they beheld
Enrank'd amid their files their brute allies, 48T3 i
So fiercely on the victor dash'd and rolPd :
King Hungar, conscious whence these succours rise,
What God had drawn them from their wat'ry hold,
High-cheer'd, and blown with pride, as on he strode,
Murmur'd his secret vows to his befriending God.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
199
XVL
He vow'd that, ere the moon should mount in sky,
That steed whereon Fife's Thane so nobly rode,
Caparison'd with painted broidery
Of shields, and joyous 'neath the warrior's load,
Robb'd of his rider, on the beach should die
A sacrifice to his indulgent God:
He swore it on his sword Heaven heard the oath,
And blew it with its wind amid the ocean's froth.
XVII.
Fierce then with proud resolve and purpose vain,
He rush'd to find the lion-crested lord ;
He knew him by his helm's long floating train,
He knew him by his sweepy swing of sword :
He found him safeguarding his yielding men
Against the Dansker and his aids abhorr'd,
Trampling to ground, and sab'ring in his wrath,
His monsters and his men in undistinguish'd death,
200 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XVIII.
To him advancing, then, with bold career,
King Hungar the provoking word addressed,
O Chief, for whom all day my restless spear
Hath burn'd impatient, of thy blood in quest,
Well hast thou done, so long to come not near
Its terror, and thy caution well confess'd;
So hast thou lengthened by some hours thy life,
And till the setting sun delay 'd the deathful strife.
XIX.
So hast thou too, by that thy wise delay,
Accumulated higher on thy head
The debt of vengeance I am bound to pay,
For these my subjects strewn among the dead;
Whose gloomy ghosts around me clam'rous stray,
Upbraiding for the wrath so long delay'd,
Which, aggravated now, and fierce as fire,
Thus in thy heart is plung'd, to let thee taste mine ire.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
201
XX.
So speaking, from the steed whereon he sate
High-mounted, poising his enormous spear,
He threw it whizzing in its ponderous weight
Against the noble heart estrang'd from fear ;
Right o'er his courser's head the tempest great
Of the hurPd weapon held its fierce career,
And smote the margin of his rounded shield,
Thence bounding flew aslant diverted o'er the field.
XXI.
Not vain, though errant in its death, it fell ;
For in the bosom of a squire renown'd,
Airdrie, who at his side long fought it well,
Entrance unmeant the royal javelin found ;
Down dropp'd the stricken hero from his sell,
Weigh'd by the quiv'ring weapon to the ground ;
There, strewn amid his courser's feet, he lay,
As ooz'd in sanguine stream his manly soul away.
202 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XXII.
Inflam'd with fury at that sight, the Thane
Propell'd his courser on the Scandian King ;
Now be it mine, he said, imperious Dane,
For these deserts fit chastisement to, bring:
And, rearing high his arm, brought down amain
His sword upon his helm with forceful swing,
Whereby the casque, though strong, and tempered well,
Dissilient from his head in golden shatters fell.
XXIII.
A second noble stroke he swung from high,
Of power to smite the spirit down to hell,
Had not the gloomy God of ghosts been nigh,
Enwrapt in mist, that danger to repel.
His viewless hand he thrust, and turn'd awry
The blow, ere on his fenceless head it fell ;
Th' astonished sword, baulk'd of its mortal wrong,
Descended in its force on the mail'd shoulder strong ;
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
203
XXIV.
And where the habergeon's weak parts afford
Admission easier to the boist'rous blade,
Broke in with violence the crashing sword
And havock of the nerves and sinews made :
The half-uplifted hand of Denmark's Lord
Enfeebled sunk, nor longer now obey'd
Th' impetuous soul, but pendent and unstrung
Unclenching drops the sword, half upwards heav'd and
swunff.
XXV.
A third time did the Thane his arm uprear,
And death had follow'd in its dire descent,
And all the war had terminated here,
And Denmark sorrowed in the sad event ;
But he, the gloomy God, that sav'd whilere,
Watchful once more that ruin to prevent,
Seiz'd with a sudden snatch his bridle-rein,
And twitch'd his steed aside, and sav'd the King again.
204- THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XXVI.
Defrauded thus, that mortal-aimed blow,
Shearing the thin and vulnerable air,
Went hissing, fretful that such noble foe
Should be purloined from the woe it bare :
Amaz'd, confounded at that baffling show,
MacdufPs high heart nigh shrunk into despair,
When he beheld his foe borne off with speed,
As if with fiery spur some God had stung his steed.
XXVII.
For with a rage instinct, as if divine,
Back through the host the starting charger drives,
Nor halts, till clear within the camp's confine
He with his wounded rider safe arrives :
There the attendants of the tent conjoin
Their ministrations, whereby soon revives
The Monarch's swooning and strength-wasted heart,
Now cherish'd by repose and leech's sacred art.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
205
XXVIII.
Mean time, while from the dusty war remote
The wounded leader in his tent respires,
The auxiliar Gods that for the Dansker fought,
Seeing what soul the Demi-lion fires,
Consulted high amid the clouds afloat,
On what assistance now their war requires,
And how prevent what of preponderance
The Scot might soon obtain by Hungar's evil chance.
XXIX.
One moment hatch'd and ripen'd their device ;
And down from his sky-roaming buoyant cloud
Flew Balder, Odin's son, and in a trice
Appeared unknown amid the Scandian crowd,
Clad like a bowman bold in habit nice,
Gairish with silver-lace, and quiver'd proud,
His bow in hand, with horns of ivory bright,
And golden-headed shaft fledg'd ready for the flight.
206 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XXX.
He through the Danish army ranging sought
Th' enchantress-pirate with the golden hair,
Alvilda, who in th' eastern wing remote
All day had held her Gothlanders in care ;
He found her, as amid them fierce she fought,
By deeds exanipling to her liegemen there,
And with her arrows scatter'd thick and far, c . wo
Marring the fronting lines of Cullen's haughty war.
XXXI.
He straight the lady- warrior 'gan accost :
Why thus, O daughter of King Edebrand,
Amid a nameless scarce-deserving host,
Deal out these deaths from thy renowned hand ?
And is it thus thy pride and glorious boast
Here to mow down the rubbish of a land.
Whilst foes more high and honourable wait
Th' arrival of thy shaft to yield to thee and Fate ?
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
207
XXXII.
Thou know'st not sure how from the battle far
Our royal Chief lies wounded in his tent,
Leaving to lord it o'er th' abandoned war
His conqu'ror with a monarch's blood besprent;
That boaster to subdue, his pride to mar,
That stalks insulting thus and insolent,
Requires thy dextrous aim to waft a wound,
Ennobling to the arm from whence the shaft shall bound.
XXXIII.
So speaking with seducing words and sly,
The heroine archer from that place he led,
Whither the Thane in glory tow'ring high,
Round him a deathful desolation spread ;
Behind the foremost throng that fight and die,
At scanty distance both their footsteps stay'd,
From whence the well-directed sharp annoy
Of shafts might shake the man and spoil his vauntful joy.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V,
XXXIV.
Then from the armour-strown and bloody field,
The crafty God up-snatch'd a buckler large,
Whose boss-built orb before the maid he held
That safer so her shafts she might discharge ;
She, in the shading harbourage conceaPd
Of that orbicular uplifted targe,
Picks out an arrow of transcendent mould,
And to the trembling string adapts its notch of gold.
XXXV.
The trembling string she twang'd, and to the sky
The shaft transmitted like a streak of flame ;
Which 'tween the crested lion's paws on high,
Erroneous flew and vagrant from its aim :
A second shaft she chose with cunning eye,
A second time her bow-string twang' d the dame ;
Caught on the glist'ring shield, the shaft again
Glanc'd into heaven aloft, all vagabond and vain.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
209
XXXVI.
Then breath'd she to her God a silent, prayer,
As the third arrow fleeted on its course;
That arrow was not idly spent in air
It spar'd the rider, but with furious force
His charger's front impierc'd, and quiv'ring there,
Stung into agony the warlike horse,
That sprung, and heel'd, and stagger'd with the pain,
Quite uncompliant now, and rebel to the rein.
XXXVII.
At which the Chief, dismounting, to his squire
In charge consigned th' ungovernable steed,
Then rush'd, inflam'd with high heart-swelling ire,
Upon the twain from whence the shafts proceed :
The crafty God in bowman's rich attire,
Saw the nice moment his design to speed,
And as the vengeful hero nearer drew,
Dropt his concealing shield, and gave the fair to view.
o
210 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V,
XXXVIII.
Then flash'd at once upon the warrior's eyes
The lightning lustre of that bowyer-maid,
Like, as the moon, when sharp winds sweep the skies
Clear of the showery cloud's foul darksome shade,
Develops, as th j invidious vapour flies
From its black edge her silver-tired head ;
The shepherd-boy, enravish'd with the light,
Salutes with gladsome hail the merry queen of night.
XXXIX.
So shone, disclos'd, that heroine-archer fair ;
For on her form and face's every line
Th' attendant God, with one breath's balmy air,
Enchantment blew, and witchery divine ;
Ringlet on ringlet waving, danc'd her hair
Exuberant, like knots of golden twine,
Down on her rosy cheeks and neck of white,
Whereon the Queen of Love had shed her heav'nliest light.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
211
XL.
Beneath her arched majesty of brow,
Her eyes, the cynosures of mortal hearts,
Glanc'd terrible, yet charming in their glow,
Beams that awaken'd dear but cruel smarts ;
Ev'n Venus' fiery urchin from his bow
Elances not such pleasant-painful darts,
When in May's rosy lap borne up the sky,
Down on th* enliven'd world he lets his arrows-fly.
XLI.
Her bosom, like the hills of Paradise
Planted in Eden gay with flowery pride,
Beneath the mist of gauze that o'er it lies,
Shrewdly bewraying what it feigns to hide,
Heav'd up, in full luxuriance to the eyes,
Eyes feeding still, yet never satisfied,
The living luscious globes that rose and fell,
Whereon young Cupid sits as on his citadel.
212 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XLII.
Bare from the shoulders her smooth rounded arms,
White as the lilies sew'd on Flora's gown,
Display their polish of celestial charms,
Enough to drive staid Reason from his throne ;
The cunning eye, that wantons and that warms,
From these uncovered parts so rich that shone,
Well arguing, told the greedy madd'ning soul,
How shone the latent parts beneath the flowing stole.
XLIII.
Thus glorious was th' attraction, such the blaze,
Shot from the daughter of King Edebrand,
Entrapping and enrapturing the gaze,
With sorcery not Wisdom could withstand ;
Awe-struck, bewitch'd, confounded with amaze,
Stood the brave Thane, and from his up-rear'd hand
Dropt with involuntary act to ground
His grasp'd and deadly sword, impending for its wound.
CANTO V. THE THANE OF FIFE. 213
XLIV.
Far other thoughts than those of murder now
His mighty spirit captiv'd and inspired ;
Love's sudden torch had set him all in glow,
The very marrow of his soul was fir'd :
No thought of blood, of battle, or of blow ;
In his chang'd heart the surly Mars expir'd,
And the sweet Venus, queen of playful wiles,
Usurp'd his stormy stead with laughters and with smiles.
XLV.
But she, the beauteous sorceress, that knew
Full well to play her meditated part,
Her bow down-dropping at the hero's view,
Fled out before him with a fearful start ;
Her golden-buskin'd ancles, as she flew,
Play'd glitteringly upon his captiv'd heart ;
Floated her tresses loose and long i' th' wind ;
Stream'd from her cinctur'd waist her long cymar behind,
214- THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
XLVI.
Drawn by the magic of her steps, the Thane,
Disarmed and self-forgetful, followed fast;
Fast flew the Lady o'er old Can-ail's plain,
Her mad-struck lover flew with equal haste :
She halts not, or for dead or warring men,
He halts not, but his game full hotly chas'd ;
O'er field and down the shore she sea-ward wends,
O'er field and down the shore he at her heels attends.
XLVII.
Nor cease they, till on Osbreth's ship at last,
That slept upon the sea-marge half-aground,
(The gorgeous vessel with the gilded mast),
Up-leap'd Alvilda with a gallant bound ;
And, at her back, as furious and as fast,
Up-leap'd Macduff, the Thane of Fife renown'd
There, there, encag'd and caught as in a snare,
Inevitably caught as in Love's pinfold there.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
215
XLVIII.
For when the crafty son of Odin spies
Both lover and belov'd aboard the barge,
He, standing on the shore in his disguise,
Push'd the brave vessel from the sandy marge ;
And down, instinctive at the touch, she flies
Afloat amid the rolling sea at large :
The crafty God laugh'd loudly at that scene ;
Heav'n rattled, as he laugh'd, from Leith to Aberdeen,
XLIX.
Abroad on sea, that hush'd and lull'd away
Into a crystal smoothness all his waves,
The goodly vessel spins her noiseless way
Between old Carrail and the Maian caves;
Down from the gold-gilt masts and sail-yards gay,
Expanded of itself, each soft sail waves
Its silky sheet, as emulous t* invite
Each straggling breeze of sky to waft that barge aright.
216 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
And round her masts and top-sails there did play
Aerial music from some band on high
Of heavenly harpers, that with am'rous lay
Intoxicated the surrounding sky ;
Ev'n from the heart of sea, that slumb'ring lay,
Arose a strange unwonted melody,
As on the day when every green-hair'd maid
Sung lullaby around fair Thetis' infant bed.
LI.
And from a glorious cloud, that hov'ring stood
High o'er the top-masts in the middle air,
Came show'ring richly down in multitude
Sweet roses blown in heaven, and heavenly fair,
That hung amid the shrouds and tackling good,
And on the decks lay odorous and rare,
Enriching like a gay Sabean bower
That lover-harb'ring barge with fragrance and with flower.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
-217
LII.
Meantime, while thus in floating bower conceal'd,
The Thane, diswitted, toy'd his time away,
Upon the shore the battle rag'd and reel'd
Alternating its tide with doubtful sway;
Now did the surly Dane a little yield,
Though back'd with monsters was his black array ;
And now the Scot rebounded, overborne,
Back from the Cimbric lance and sea-cow's tortuous horn,
LIII.
And deaths in every shape were thick and rife,
Cov'ring with carnage all the clotter'd soil ;
And Rage, rekindled, kindled still the strife,
That seem'd to flag exhausted with its toil ;
And Tumult, rattling o'er the fields of Fife,
Hover'd in heaven above the bloody coil ;
And groans of death and shouts of glory rise,
And monsters growling loud behowl the frighteu'd
218 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
LIV.
For ever and anon the Scottish host,
Though widow'd of their Chief, and batter'd sore,
Reverting on the ground they just had lost,
With stones these monsters' hides beat hard and sore ;
At which reverberant through all the coast
Ascends a terrible unearthly roar,
As to the heavens they ope, in hideous howl,
Their black Tartarean jaws with shells o'er-crusted foul.
LV.
Amid these outcries, wounds, and deeds of blood,
And tumult, that confounded sky and earth,
The Twilight, from his cave in th' eastern flood
Slowly emerging, came in silence forth,
And o'er the seas, o'er mountain, vale, and wood,
Threw from the scorch'd South up to chilling North
His dewy, darksome, all-investing veil,
Making the gaudy world look featureless and pale.
CANTO V. THE THANE OF FIFE. 219
LVI.
And soon, t' embellish and engild his gloom,
Night's empress, joyous to begin her reign,
Out-stepping from her wat'ry dressing-room,
Danc'd in her silver slippers on the main ;
Then did the skies before her glance assume
Glory that does not to the day pertain,
And all the world's convexity lay white,
And coloured gloriously, beneath her sacred light.
LVII.
But never on a field so full of waste,
Uproar and wreck, and slaughter-slaked ire,
Shone she, since first her silver arms embraced
The new-form'd Earth, dress'd green in youth's attire,
As then, when westward o'er fair Fife she cast
Shadows of men and steeds, and monsters dire,
Moving in huge disorder, like the waves
Of an upsurging sea, that in her channels raves.
220 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
LVIII.
Exhausted then, and with their toil overwrought
From day-spring to the night's so tardy fall,
The Scottish Captains of retreat bethought,
CompelPd retreat, within Sanct Androis' wall :
They saw how for their foes the demon fought ;
They saw the hideous death that dogg'd them all ;
They saw aloft the battle's balance hung,
Their scale how drooping low, the Dane's how heavenward
swung :
LIX.
The Thane of Caithness first, the hoary-hair'd
And wise, who with his troops still held the van,
Sought out the valiant Athol, him who shar'd,
Though young, his bosom's every thought and plan ;
He found the Chief, though wasted and impair'd,
Yet heading fierce the heroes of his clan ;
And by his side he standing, thus address'd
The thoughts and counsels wise of his time-ripen'd breast:
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
221
LX.
Athol, whose fearless heart and noble hand
In battle signaliz'd aye first and best,
Still keep, enlink'd as with a brazen band,
Fortune and fame fast fetter' d to thy crest ;
Seest thou how like a torrent up the land,
Ev'n by the night uncheck'd and unrepress'd,
The host of Easterlings audacious sweep
Bold in the auxiliar herd disgorged by the deep ?
LXI.
Full well the Devil's finger I behold
In these hell-goaded horrible allies,
And well their powers of mischief manifold
I know, admonish'd by true-telling eyes ;
For I was there when Denmark's King of old,
Frotho, the brave, the fearless, and the wise,
On Zealand's shore, beside his palace-gate,
From horn of cow marine receiv'd his piteous fate.
222 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
LXII.
'Twas on a festal day, when all his court
And people on the beach of Elsinore
Were met to celebrate in game and sport
Their God, star-diadem'd and thundering Thor ;
(My father's ship, then haply near their port
Lay anchor'd, whence we spied the pop'lous shore,
For there we waited till a homeward breeze
Should sweep our lingering ship across the western seas) ;
LXIU.
When suddenly all round my father's barge
The flood, as if with throes of labour tost,
Bore in a whirlpool, tusked, round, and large,
A monster, thick with shelly bumps imboss'd,
At whose black birth the waves on Ocean's marge
Ran bounding up, astonished o'er the coast ;
And round the mother-monster rose her brood,
A litter of foul cubs, calv'd hideous by the flood.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
223
LXIV.
She clomb the beach ; she wallow'd wild her way
Clean through the frighted and disparted crowd,
To where the King, in royal garments gay,
Sat lofty lolling in his chariot proud ;
She tore him from his lordly seat away,
She fang'd and gor'd him as he howl'd aloud ;
And her detested cubs came huddling round
Their dam, to share his blood out-gushing on the ground.
LXV.
No marvel then, if these our troops, dismay 'd,
Hunted and havock'd by these horned foes,
Encumber'd, too, by night's involving shade,
Ask truce from further battle, and repose ;
If man alone against us were array'd,
Or death or victory the strife should close ;
But when the wicked Devil dogs us so,
'Tis wisdom to give place to that tremendous foe.
224 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
LXVI.
Then let us, to Necessity and Night
Submissive, issue orders of retreat,
That these our men, war-worn and sad of plight,
May forthwith seek Sanct Androis' sacred seat;
Whilst we, their leaders, and each valiant Knight,
Protect, the while, from ruinous defeat,
Against our combin'd foes the cover'd rear ;
So speed us, gracious Saint, whose name we love and fear !
LXVII.
To whom the gallant Captain, on whose shield
The Lion and the fetter'd Savage frown :
O Chief, that never yet forsook the field
Wherein is gather'd flower of fair renown,
When hoary Valour gives advice to yield
To brute Necessity, which bears us down,
Beseems the younger warrior to forego,
Maugre his heady will, the contest and the foe.
CANTO V. THE THANE OF FIFE. 225
LXVIII.
Let then our troops recede apace, while we
Bulwark their flying backs expos'd and bare ;
Though grievedly and grudgingly I see
The Scottish Lion hunted to his lair ;
But may the Devil seize and throttle me,
If in retreating stoutly, I do spare
To castigate those big sea-vermin base,
If following at my heels too hot and hard they chase.
LXIX.
This parle concluded, there was blown aloud
The signal to retreat and leave the ground.
Which every Chief re-echoed, till his crowd
Of weary warriors caught the gladdening sound ;
Whereto responding in his triumph proud,
Up-sent the Dane, from all his files around,
A surly shout of triumph, as he saw
With backs turn'd to the moon, the jaded Scot withdraw.
p
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
LXX.
And instantly, up-plucking courage new,
Fierce on the languid yielding foe he bore,
Join'd by his beastly aids, that onward drew
Huddling more hideous-stately than before ;
Then Chilperic and Scorro hard pursue,
With all their liegemen of the Norrick shore ;
And red-hair'd Harald with his Swedish force,
And Helgo, hot as fire, in his destructive course.
LXXI.
And Hubba, by whose arm yet stoutly held,
Black to the moon the standard-rav'n up-rears
His strutting neck, and o'er the conquer'd field
To croak with exultation vain appears ;
And Jarmeric unwearied yet to wield
The knotted oak he aye to battle bears,
Wherewith he smites and buffets boisterously
The Caledonian backs that fast before him flee.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
227
LXXII.
And Osbreth, on whose sur-coat daub'd with gold,
The moon rejoices to behold her face.
As bounding brisk along, now doubly bold,
He glitters as a glow-worm in the chase ;
And Haquo, in his bloody bear-skin rolPd,
Vibrating vauntingly his iron mace ;
And Sangelor with all his slinger-band,
And Rolf and surly Sorl, and shouting Hildebrand.
LXXIII.
All these with troops remuster'd, and with fire
Kindled afresh, impetuously pursue.
With arrow and with stone and jav'lin dire,
Molesting, marring the receding crew ;
And all the way they hung on their retire,
From Carrail northward, as the host withdrew
Disordered, and disjoin' d, and disarray'd,
Confounded horse and foot, as up the land they sped.
228 THE THANE OF FIFE. CA,NTO V.
LXXIV.
Yet oft their Captains, as they buckler'd well
Their people's backs with resolute defence,
Wheel'd vengeful round, to chastise and repel
The proud pursuer in his insolence ;
And as his monsters, rowling horrible,
Came grazing on their heels with tusks immense,
They prick them in the throat with sword and spear,
Making them breathe a space from their so bold career.
LXXV.
Not so brave Athol, in his madder mood ;
He from the bosom of the earth up-tore
A moss-grown rock of fearful magnitude,
That bedded there had lain long years before ;
(The peasants still the stony mass eschew'd,
As with their ploughs in spring the turf they shore).
He heav'd it overhead with stormy wheel,
And crushed the monster dead that grubbled at his heel.
CANTO V. THE THANE OF FIFE. 229
LXXVI.
And black-plum'd Bancho, taking it in spleen
Thus to be dogg'd and worried home to bed,
Back turning on his foe, with falchion keen
Gave to his neck a bloody kiss and red ;
Off from his shoulders, shorn and sunder' d clean,
Flew with its helm the insulated head,
The scornful lips, as down it fell, awhile
Held mutt'ring on in wrath reproachful words and vile.
LXXVII.
And stout Stravithy, grieving in his heart
O'er his own grounds thus hotly to be chas'd,
On surly Sorl back bounding with a startj
Gave him an iron greeting in the breast ;
The red-hair'd Chief nigh spitted by that dart,
Writh'd his limbs hideously, with pangs oppressed :
As from his fork the hind shakes grass or hay,
So from his lance the squire shook gasping Sorl away.
230 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO V.
LXXVJII.
Thus they, though chas'd, at times rebounded back
Upon the chaser with a fell salute,
While flies before them, scattered as in wrack,
The rabble of their army, horse and foot :
As when across the moon, the cloudy rack
In winter, when fierce winds the pine up-root,
Skims rapid, by the tempest teas'd and riven,
O'erscudding fast and thick the sea-propt bridge of heaven ;
So they across tjie fields of Fife full fast,
Careering in their panic-urged race,
Covered the moors with sounding conflux vast
Of soldiers hurrying to a hiding-place ;
Kenly's green banks were strewn and overcast
With arms down-scatter'd by that populace ;
Kinkell, Balrymont, and Balmungo's plain,
Resounded with the flight of horses and of men.
CANTO V.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
231
LXXX.
And o'er the bridged rivulet that, flows
Before thy walls, Sanct Androis, fast they rush.
And up into thy gates, that wide enclose
Their iron-studded valves, commingling crush,
Filling the streets with terror and with shows
Of dire alarm, as in the rabble gush
For covert from the Dane, whom in their fray
Still at their heels they deem, in act to strike and slay.
LXXXI.
But all their leaders, lords, and knights, and squires,
More slow retir'd, undaunted though constrained,
And in the shadow of the city's spires,
Without the ramparts, resolute remained ;
There kindling where they stood broad-blazing fires,
Strict and strong watch together they maintained,
Of purpose to disturb and daunt the foe,
From a more near approach to that defensive show.
END OF THE FIFTH CANTO.
THE
THANE OF FIFE.
CANTO VI.
THE
THANE OF FIFE,
CANTO VI.
I.
Now, in the very navel of the sky,
Roird in the vestment of her own fair light,
The gentle moon was walking up on high,
With all her starry handmaids of the night ;
The victor Dane, long ere approaching nigh
Those gates to which the Scot had bent his flight,
Himself with weary weight of toil oppressed,
Surceas'd the further chase, and wish'd his pamp and rest.
THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI,
II.
And he, the green-garb'd God, at whose command
The spawning Ocean spew'd her monsters proud,
Took on Balcomie's highest rock his stand,
And crack'd his long sea- tangle whip aloud,
As signal for his herd to leave the land
And seek their oosy mansions in the flood ;
Thrice did his jerking lash the welkin wound,
And thrice from Crail to Tay the smitten sky did sound,
III.
At that imperious signal heard and known,
All in a moment his brute loathly host
Their uncouth march wheel sea-ward, and anon
Rush with the sound of earthquake to the coast ;
And down the beached steep, o'er rock and stone,
Lumb'ring their lumpish bodies shell-embost,
Flounce plungingly into the flashing flood,
And disencumber Earth for ever of their load.
CANTO VI. THE THANE OF FIFE. 237
IV.
Earth, as rejoicing in the bless'd relief,
Brisk'd up her bosom cheerier to the moon ;
The moon, that corresponded to her grief,
More lightsome, lightened of that nuisance, shone :
Meantime each Danish soldier and each Chief,
Their work of midnight war and labour done,
Had left the field, and in their camp and fleet
Cherish'd themselves with food and slumber soft and sweet.
V.'
So, that red field that had endured all day,
The tort'ring tramp and stormy strife of men,
Beneath the holy Night's peace-giving ray,
In silence now appear'd to sleep again,
Save from the groans of dying men that lay,
Giving their blood to glut the greedy plain,
And with sad gasps of nearly-strangled breath,
Beseeching only graves to wrap them safe in death,
238 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI,
VI.
But in Sanct Androis' city, all the night
Prevailed alarm and perturbation dire,
Not less than, if Combustion in his might
Enkindling, stalk'd in air from spire to spire,
And all her houses, fanes, and temples bright,
Conflagrant, flew to heaven in smoke and fire ;
So were her people terrified, and so
They hurried unresolved and shudd'ring to and fro.
VII.
For, in the city congregate and pent,
The flying host had scatter'd their alarm,
With outcry loud in every street up-sent
Of sword, siege, slaughter from the Danish swarm,
And every heart was troubled and was rent
With anguish from anticipated harm,
And fathers stood confus'd, distraught with fear,
And mothers hid their babes in places dark and drear.
CANTO VI. THE THANE OF FIFE.
VIII.
With arms some hurried to the walls, and mann'd
The battlements, in show of confidence ;
Some on Saint Rule's cloud-kissing turrets stand
At gaze, and searching for the foe from thence ;
Others before the shrines, a pious band,
Cow'r in despair save from the Saint's defence ;
Whilst peaceful Priests crowd in and tremble there,
With candle and with book, and sobs of quiver'd prayer.
IX.
Thus they within the ramparts ; but without,
Less drooping, less dismay'd, the leaders all
Assembling their moon-dazzling fires about,
Held consultation near the city-wall ;
For they were wav'ring now and toss'd in doubt,
Pond'ring what had befallen and might befall,
By what means to their country aid to bring,
Thus danger'd, widow'd thus of hero and of King.
240 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
X.
Up-spoke young Roland, Uthred's hot-mouth'd son,
The Lord of Carrick land and rainy Kyle :
Warriors and Chiefs, that each to-day have done
High feats, and worthy of Herculean toil,
Yet, yet, deem scarce the bloody work begun,
'Tis but a foretaste merely of the broil ;
And God be prais'd though now our sinews fail,
Our hearts, yet unconsum'd, rest sturdy still and hale.
XL
Not, not, methinks, on beach of famous Troy,
Club-arm'd Alcides was so vex'd and chas'd
By that sea-brute up-spew'd for his annoy
One morning by the ^Egean's gulfy breast ;
A summer's day the Juno-hated boy
Was hotly hunted by her ocean beast,
Till Pallas brought at eventide relief,
And built a towery wall to fence the fainting Chief.
CANTO VI. THE THANE OF FIFE. 24-1
XII.
Not he, a God, was harassed then so hard,
As we to-day, a death-subjected band ;
Yet without Pallas and her wall to guard,
Heart-whole, though sinew-shrunken, here we stand ;
Here let us stand till th' Orient gates unbarr'd
Scatter another morning o'er the land,
Then rallied, reimbattled, reinspir'd,
Wreak on th' ambitious Dane the rich revenge desir'd.
XIII.
For this to-day hath been a school wherein
To discipline our rawness for the fight ;
To-morrow tutor'd well, and taught to win,
What loss is borne we shall in full requite ;
Certes the Devil, the sire of grief and sin,
Perforce must lose what he hath stolen by sleight,
And we will beard him, come he arm'd again
With brutes, and behemoths, and bugs of land and main.
24-2 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI,
XIV.
This said, the Thane of mountainous Argyle,
Cullen, the cautious and the cool, begun :
111 now it fits us, friends, with martial toil
So shatter'd and our army so foredone,
With boisterous brag and threat of hotter coil
Here to outwear the night and wait the sun,
Where foes shall haply, ere his car upsprings,
Surprise us braving thus and mutt'ririg mighty things.
XV.
Doth not our Monarch, overcome of wound,
Lie chamber'd, useless to the future war ?
Where is his army's head, the Thane renown'd ?
Captiv'd or slain, or witch'd from us afar ?
Do not our panting soldiers skulking round
These bulwarks hug their very stones in fear,
While our flush foes on glory's tiptoe stand,
Ready once more to rush and chase us up the land ?
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
XVI.
Let us prevent him then, and, ere the day,
Our powers collecting from th' unfurnished town,
March with our King from these her walls away
Amid our hills and moory midlands brown ;
There in our mountain lurking-holds make stay,
Till, finding fit occasion, rush we down,
Recruited and resistless, on the Dane,
As he expatiates loose and plunders through the plain,
XVII.
He had not finish'd when the prudent Knight
Dungald overtook him in his race of words :
Not thus I counsel ; not so cautious quite,
I do consult our army's weal, my Lords :
Needs must we to the mountains take our flight ?
Not so if yet these hands gripe well their swords,
If yet we be not in despair, my voice
Bids us still tarry here to conquer and rejoice.
24-4? THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
XVIII.
First then, obedient to the belly's call,
Jejune and pining as we are with fast,
Here let us sup beside the city-wall,
And prop our tott'ring hearts with sweet repast :
This moonshine sky shall be our supper-hall ;
This moon our chandelier, globose and vast ;
And the green hearty grass, on which we tread,
Shall be the table where our viands shall be spread.
XIX.
That duty to our wasted bodies done,
Bethink we next of choosing from our train
Two hardy heroes, fleet of foot to run,
And strong of heart their purpose to maintain ;
Let these, ere morning's watch be yet begun,
March scouting o'er the moor t' explore the Dane,
And slyly steal, e'en in his camp's confines,
Intelligence of all his doings and designs.
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
24.5
XX.
So, warn'd by their report, and well aware
Of his intentions, with the morning light
We shall fore-arm our people, and prepare,
If fight be wish'd again, again for fight ;
Or should he, dealing to the dead his care,
Require a truce to burn his dead aright,
Ours be it then t' avail ourselves the while,
And pluck advantage fair from th' intermitted toil.
XXL
He ended, and his words had gain'd th' assent
Of all the Chiefs then gathered on the green ;
To supper's business then at once they went,
Full ardent, for their hunger's rage was keen ;
And soon from porket, sheep, and steer, were rent
The lives that in their blood inwrapp'd had been ;
And to the glowing embers were consigned
Chines, ribs, and savoury thighs, with luscious fat entwin'd.
246 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI,
XXII.
Thus while to heaven up-mounts the smoke of feast,
Lo ! from the city's wide-spread gate descends
Good Adrian in his priestly vestments drest,
Glist'ning as tow'rd the troop his motion bends;
And at his back a menial train, opprest
With shoulder-borne huge jars of wine, attends,
Wine from the vaults Episcopal convey'd,
Where it had ripen'd long in chilly darkness laid.
XXIII.
This present to th' assembled troops he brought,
With joyous fume t' exhilarate their cares,
A present worthy heroes who had fought
All day so nobly in their country's wars ;
He gave them hail, and in his holy thought
He bless'd their persons and their good affairs,
And told them he had come with them to sup,
And had uncav'd his jars to heave their spirits up.
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
247
XXIV.
So to their smoking supper down they sate
Together on the smooth moon-shiny grass.
Whilst by each Chief his spear, robust and great,
Stood fix'd, and earth'd in ground its beamy brass,
All ready to be grasp'd, should Danish hate
Assault them whilst their meal in progress was :
Good Adrian, ere the grace-cup, gave them grace,
Granting them license full to fill and feed apace.
XXV.
So on their banquet with a furious gust
They pounc'd, and havock'd thigh, and rib, and chine,
Aye intermixing (as frail men needs must
That cherish life), abundant draughts of wine,
That wash'd away and recompens'd the dust
And toil of battle with its juice divine,
Invigorating wearied nerve and limb,
And heaving up their souls to altitudes sublime.
248 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI,
XXVI.
But when appeas'd with meat was stomach's rage,
And toil-worn hearts by Bacchus were repaired,
Up-rose again the Thane of Caithness sage,
And thus his prudent purposes declar'd :
Now, what adventurous heroes will engage,
With dauntless bosoms to each danger bar'd,
At this nocturnal hour the scout to play,
And from the Dansker's camp filch his designs away ?
XXVII.
Upstarted then full many a Knight and Squire,
Ambitious all that honour to obtain,
Roland, whose boist'rous soul is e'er on fire,
Brave Bancho, Lochaber's black-plumed Thane,
Wing-footed Eth, that boasts a royal sire,
Lyon, whose sword still hungers for the Dane,
With Rothes and Grangemuir, and many more
Of Fife's stout-hearted Chiefs that hazards still implore.
CANTO VI. THE THANE OF FIFE. 249
XXVIII.
This dubious strife, 'gan Caithness' lord exclaim,
The lot's arbitrement shall soon decide;
And in the casque of Bancho throws each name,
That fortune o'er th' election may preside :
Three times within the helmet's brassy frame
He toss'd the various claims from side to side ;
Then drew the symbols of th' advent'rous pair,
And Roland's name appear'd, and Bancho's namewas there.
XXIX.
Now by the mass, cried Carrick's Chieftain out,
Blind thou art not, O Fortune, as men say ;
Begird we, Bancho, our night-cloaks about,
For we must travel on a dubious way ;
And I have sworn to top my part of scout,
And steal a Cimbric head or two away,
Therewith to decorate this city-wall,
Divulging to the sun a theft so capital.
250 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
XXX.
This said, the gallant pair themselves bedight
In arms befitting their night-ramble bold ;
A demi-lance each brandish'd short and light,
Gleam'd on their thighs their cutlasses of gold ;
Thus lightly arm'd, they bade their friends good-night,
And pass the Kennis-brook, and forward hold
On their night-march rejoicing to the moon,
.To whom they whistle blithe, and thank her for her boon,
XXXI.
Meantime, while these o'er-trip the Prior-muir,
On scouting expedition bravely bent,
Down in the bowels of the world obscure,
Where burrow fays, and ouphes, and goblins quaint ;
Right under Fife, where in their domes of pure
Nice-carved silver they are resident,
The Sprites indigenous in haste convene,
CalPd by theloud-blown trump of their high-thronedQueen,
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
251
XXXII.
And now in crystal council-hall are met
That conclave substanceless of gilded things,
And now consulting deeply are they set
Of jostling armies and of warring Kings;
For they had heard overhead the horrid beat
Of troops and crash of war's encounterings,
Wherewith their subterranean city's vault
Had rattled all the day 'neath Mars's loud assault.
XXXIII.
And well they knew in what a panting plight,
Scatter'd and scar'd, the Scottish army lay,
And how their Monarch, wounded in the fight,
Enfeebled from the field was borne away ;
And how the Thane, bewitch'd by dext'rous sleight,
At highest need was ravish'd from the fray ;
And how the Danish Gods, provoking harms.
Were. out upon the world t' assist the Danish arms.
252 THE THANE OF FIFE- CANTO VI.
XXXIV.
Who then, proclaimed the Queen, shall reascend
Through the thin breathing-holes of Mother Earth,
To quaff the dainty moon-light, and defend
The pair of warriors that now sally forth i'Ci
Alone and with their virtue sole to friend,
Amid yon red-hair'd warriors of the North ?
Who will abet them to achieve their boast,
And bring them glorying back, triumphant o'er an host ?
XXXV.
Up from his beryl bench, in gallant guise,
Started a grandee-fay of mettle dread,
Plenipotent, though puny, for his size
O'ertopp'd his Peers by shoulders and by head ;
Plotcock his name, a creature slim, but wise,
'Whose fame of old round Fillan's spring was spreadj
And in Glendevon's lonely vale, for there
Long swum on Devon's wave his silver palace fair.
CANTO VI. THE THANE OF FIFE. 253
XXXVI.
Mine be it, cried the Prince, as up he rose
Gigantic by three inches o'er the rest,
Mine be the task, through dangers and through foes,
To guide the Chiefs in their nocturnal quest ;
And instantly he buckled round him close
The filmy sash that gathered in his vest,
And took his wings of Iris-mocking dies,
That wont to fledge his form for distant embassies.
XXXVII.
And through an earthy spiracle that bends
Obliquely upward to the beam-bless'd sky,
Like smoke through sooty chimney he ascends,
Worming his way with strange legerity ;
Till, where in green Earth's ample surface ends,
Kissing and kiss'd by all the winds that fly,
He, glad to 'scape his gloomy vent so soon,
Into the presence bolts of Heaven's all-glorious moon,
254 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
XXXVIII.
Afore the heroes' footsteps right he shot,
Without a struggle issued by the clod,
Like gilded fly, that gay in summer coat
From cups of half-blown lilies flies abroad;
Around their heads, amid the shine afloat,
He hover'd ; ever, as they onward trod,
Brushing their helms and cheeks, as if in play,
With his long-streaming train of freaked mantle gay.
XXXIX.
And aye his body, shifting in its flight
Its postures, as it quiver'd to the moon,
Went twinkling every colour brave and bright,
That lurks in th' opal's ever-changing stone ;
The stars of heaven, amended in their light,
Through his transparent frisky members shone,
As, flourishing the glory of his wings,
Between them and the sky he anticks and he flings.
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
255
XL.
Now, what is this, the Chief of Carrick cries,
That wheels and buzzes round about us so ?
Hath Heaven's huge rainbow to our very eyes
Born a gilt baby of such glossy glow ?
Or, as the summer sun breeds speckled flies,
Breeds too the moon her pretty wasps for show ?
Whate'er its birth, my sword shall with a stroke
Anatomize the thing be 't flesh or be it smoke.
XLI.
So saying, his rash weapon raught anon
On that thin creature as he capers round,
A stroke, which, had his frame been flesh and bone,
Had brought him clov'n asunder to the ground ;
The unobstructed blade, descending prone,
Pass'd shearing through him with innocuous wound ;
A second slash cross'd deep his breast and wings ;
The merrier at the gash Prince Plotcock flirts and flings.
256 THE THANE OF FIFE. CA1TTO Tl,
XLII.
Thus sped the heroes o'er the heathy field,
Escorted by their goblin-satellite,
Who round them all the while rerohring wheel'd,
Like white-winged moth about the candle's light ;
Little, I wot, to them was then reveal'd
The friendly virtue of th' amtiliar sprite,
Who, unrepuls'd by stab of sword or lance,
Environed aye their march with his protective dance.
XLIII.
Bat when they reach'd old Caryl's bloody plain,
With carcass-heaps encumbered and emboss'd,
And now drew near the encampment of the Dane,
Where his white tents stood glitt'ring by the coast,
A miracle was wrought upon them twain
By the shrewd elf when need requiVd it most ;
He smote their bodies with his silver wand
Invisible and dark they walk along the land.
CANTO VI. THE THANE OF FIFE. 257
XLIV.
Dark and invisible, and hedg'd around
With veil of air about them wov'n and wrought,
The men approach the peril- cover'd ground,
Their bodies lost and swallow'd into nought ;
Saving at times their speech's winged sound,
That seem'd from vacancy's unreal throat
To fly articulate, was nothing there
To testify and prove the presence of the pair.
XLV.
So down unto th' encampment are they gone,
Unseen, yet knowing not they are unseen,
Confiding in their virtuous souls alone
Sith quite unconscious of their airy skreen ;
The fires of watch that at the out-gates shone,
The armed guards patrolling on the green,
Unnotic'd and unquestioned did they pass ;
The watchmen heard their voice, but knew not whence
it was !
R
258 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
XLVI.
Into the streets, and moon-illumin'd rows
Of mansions of expanded canvass, quite
They plunge, amid a hive of ireful foes,
Casting on every side their curious sight :
Here, strown upon the ground for short repose,
Exhausted men steal slumber from the night,
Their heads unpillow'd, save upon the mould,
And on their broad-spread limbs heaven's dews descend-
ing cold.
XLVIL
There, huddling round their fires in jolly rings,
Less drowsy men carousingly rejoice,
Letting their souls fly out on Bacchus' wings,
Stunning the moon with clamour and with noise ;
Those hands, to which the blood of foes still clings
Unwash'd, now to their thirsty lips up-poise
The bousy cans, that fury re-inspire,
Engend'ring boasts and fumes, and words of wrath and ire.
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
259
XLVI1L
Nor less from tent and booth on every hand,
Resounds the din of merry-make and boast,
Of Chiefs, who, deeming now the Scottish band
Subdu'd, and scatter'd like the dust her host,
On the vain peak of maudlin triumph stand
Self-hois'd, and to the God whom fear they most
Th' uplifted chalice dedicate and drain,
And, swagg'ring in their rouse, boast many a Scotsman
slain.
XLIX.
That pride, these boasts, to whip and to chastise,
Came on their camp these goblin-guarded men,
Like two destroying angels, to men's eyes
Denied, their dazzling weapons only seen :
Saint Andrew guide our sickles, Carrick cries,
. Lo ! what a harvest courts us on this green :
Give us good weather only, and some breath,
And we will heap with ghosts the creaking wains of death.
260 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
L.
So saying, to their harvest-work they fell,
Like sturdy sicklemen, that by the morn
Full early rise, when signs sad rains foretell,
To house from red Orion's wrath their corn ;
Here Roland, Bancho there, wheel'd terrible
Amid the men by drunkenness o'erborne,
Their blades, that made the neckless heads to bound
From th' unprepared trunks that still sat stiff on ground.
LI.
As when a peevish school-boy, ere he goes
To school, upon a shiny morning fair,
Lags in his father's garden, where he strows,
With spiteful staff, the poppies tow'ring there ;
So thick and ruinous the heads of foes,
Clean from their wearers cropt, ere they were 'ware,
Fell rattling down, and with their spouting blood
Bedew'd the very cups that crown'd before them stood.
CANTO VI.
THE THANE OF FIFE.
26!
LII.
Nor to th' astonish'd enemy were shown
These hands whence such a shower of murder came ;
For, looking round, they saw the swords alone,
Ungrasp'd, that slash'd about and flar'd like flame,
As if, endued with virtue of their own,
They sported, self-propelPd, that bloody game :
Terror the living seiz'd ; but, in their fright,
These swords were at their necks ere they had time for
flight.
LIII.
Amid the crew of revellers there sate.
Carousing to the moon with impudence,
Big Jarmeric, who, in his strength elate,
Boasted aloud with arrogance immense,
That on that day his hand to Pluto's gate
Had jerk'd a score of sullen Scotsmen hence,
And had the night not fall'n to screen the foes
His mouth receiv'd the stab which chok'd the period's close.
262 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI.
LIV.
But Roller on the ground at length asleep,
Receiv'd th' unconscious blow that struck him dead ;
For there he dreaming lay, that o'er the deep,
Homeward to meet the lady he had wed,
He flew, and saw her in her chamber weep,
In weeds of widow dolefully array'd ;
That gloomy dream to ratify, now came
Fierce Roland on his rest, far gloomier than a dream.
LV.
Another Chief was added to the slain :
That night, by chance, from Drontheim's distant ford.
With fifty ships to magnify the Dane,
Haquin arriv'd, Nidrosia's wizard Lord ;
For he had linger'd, ere he took the main,
Long in his lake with all his troops aboard,
To catch a dexter sign, portending good,
From Eagle sweeping down from Selbo's upland wood.
CANT O VI . THE THANE OF FIFE. 263
LVI.
That sign was aye denied ; yet nevertheless
He hois'd his tardy inauspicious sail,
And now his ships are moor'd beside the Ness,
And now he comes to bid his kinsman hail,
Ev'n at the hour when fierce and pitiless
These hands with murderment the camp assail ;
Of Scottish salt he found not time to taste
He supp'd on Bancho's steel, and found it vile repast.
LVII.
Thus they, still sab'ring on without controul,
With bloody sorrow dash'd the Danish pride ;
Meanwhile the watchful Bear, that round the Pole
Wheels his large circuit, scornful of the tide,
Curl'd up his tail to North-west, and now stole
Back from the glimpse of Morn, whom now he spied
Just shooting her thin hairs, with gold up-curl'd,
Out from the boundless sea that welters round the world.
264 THE THANE OF FIFE. CANTO VI,
LVIIL
Now let us hence, cried Roland, as he spies
That glimmering announcement of clear da}* ;
For one poor morning's work let this suffice ;
Printed by Walker & Greig,
Edinburgh.
December 1821
WORKS JUST PUBLISHED
BY
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY,
EDINBURGH.
THE
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,
LITERARY MISCELLANY;
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EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. 3
CONTENTS OF THE NUMBERS FROM JULY (commencing Vol. IX. of an Improved
Series] TO NOVEMBER 1821.
JULY.
1 . Some Account of the Famouse Historic of Petronius Maximus, a rare
Tragedy 2. Review of Spurzheirn on Education 3. The Spirit of the Age
4. Life of Nicholas Poussin, (concluded) 5. Observations on the Late
Session of Parliament 6. Periodical Literature of Great Britain 7. The
Universe ; a Poem : by Mr Maturin 8. Original Poetry Edina, Canto I.
Reflections suggested by the Death of Buonaparte The Shipwreck 9. The
Parthenon 10. The Modern Horace 11. Lady Morgan's Italy 12. Va-
rieties Laurent's Tour in Greece Tale by Dr Leyden The Midnight City
The Smoky Town To an Eye For a Queen's Man, &c. &c. &c. 13. Li-
terary and Scientific Intelligence 14. Monthly Register, &c.
AUGUST.
1. Dibdin's Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in France
and Germany 2. Literary Labour Popularity and Merit 3. Lord Byron,
Don Juan, and Thomas Davison 4. Edinburgh Annual Register, 1817
5. Translations from the Spanish 6. A Lament 7. Verses by Dr Charles
Burney 8. Remarks on Dr Chalmers' Christian and Civic Economy, No. 8.
9. Old Mulberry on Introductions 10. On Prophecy 11. Scott's (the late
John) Sketches of Society and Manners in France, Italy, &c. 12. Humboldt's
Personal Narrative, Vol. V. 13. The Fatal Error; a Tale 14. Original
Poetry Napoleon The Pedlar Boy Genius, an Ode The Plaid of the
North 15. The Grave of Romney 16. The Spanish Drama 17. The Ten
Years' Exile of Madame de Stael 18. Remarks on the Life of Haggart 19.
Horae Otiosse Haggart and Plautus Biblical Notices Theatre ; Miss Dance
Clerical Eccentricities Sonnet by Queen Elizabeth 20. Literary and Sci-
entific Intelligence 21. Monthly Register, &c.
SEPTEMBER.
I. Dibdin's Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in France
and Germany, (concluded) 2. Character and Writings of Tacitus 3. Life
and Writings of Henry Ainsworth 4. Character Principle, with other Grave
Matters 5. Humboldt's Personal Narrative, Vol. V. (concluded) 6. Pic-
tures of Country Life, No. I. Old Isaac 7. Lyon's Travels in Northern
Africa 8. The Ant (Formica Rufescens) 9. Original Poetry -Edina, Can-
to II. The Little Child A Monody Italian Sunrise 10. Trip to Carlisle
The Northern English Circuit 11. Hints concerning Quotations, by Old
Mulberry 12. Letter from R. Goodfellow 13. Kate Gow versus Tom Hood ;
or Tit for Tat, a Tale 14. Party Prejudice Mr Roscoe and the Quarterly
Review 15. Dr Davy's Account of the Interior of Ceylon 17. Monthly Re-
gister, &c.
OCTOBER.
1. Remarks on Mr Dugald Stewart's Dissertation, exhibiting a General
View of the Progress of Philosophy, &c. &c. 2. Superstition, or the Devil
and the Pigs 3. Upon the Present State of the Bibliomania 4. The Chance
Dinner 5. Mary Scott of Edenknow 6. Letter to Lady Morgan ; by the
Retievver of her " Italy" 7. Pauper Marriages, and Mr Scarlett's Bill 8.
The Powris of Moseke, ane rychte plesant Ballunt, maide be Maister Jamis
Hougge 9. Fairy Legends, from Popular Traditions of the Danes 10. Lo-
cal Associations of Poetry Cowper Lord Byron 11. Curious Experiments
12. The Pythoness 13. Stanzas 14. The Highlander 15. Literary and
Scientific Intelligence 16. Monthly Register, &c.
NOVEMBER.
1. Lady Morgan and M. Dupin, (Notices to Correspondents) 2. The Chance
Dinner, (concluded from last Number) 3. The Caravan in the Deserts 4.
4 WORKS JUST PUBLISHED BY
Notice of Dr Cotton's List of the Editions of the Bible, and Parts thereof,
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Hawthorn Tree 12. Stanzas, suggested by Moore's Lines, entitled " Non-
sense" 13. The Wanderer's Lament o'er the Grave of his Love 14. Letter
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Landon 19. Specimens of a Manuscript Tragedy, entitled " Wallace" 20.
Literary Intelligence 21. Monthly Register, &c. &c.
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