And urged, in dreams, the forest race, III. Nine-and-twenty knights of fame Hung their shields in Branksome hall; Nine-and-twenty squires of name Brought them their steeds from bower to stall; Waited, duteous, on them all: They were all nights of metal true, IV. Ten of them were sheathed in steel, With corselet laced, Pillowed on buckler cold and hard; They carved at the meal With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred. V. Ten squires, ten yeomen, mailclad men, Waited the beck of the warders ten; Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight, VI. Why do these steeds stand ready dight? They watch, against Southern force and guile, From Warkworth, or Naworth, or merry Carlisle. VII. Such is the custom of Branksome hall. Many a valiant knight is here; But he, the chieftain of them all, His sword hangs rusting on the wall Beside his broken spear. Bards long shall tell, How lord Walter fell! When startled burghers fled, afar, The furies of the border war; When the streets of high Dunedin Saw lances gleam, and falchions redden, Then the chief of Branksome fell. VIII. Can piety the discord heal, Or stanch the death-feud's enmity? In mutual pilgrimage they drew; For chiefs, their own red falchions slew: While Cessford owns the rule of Car, While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott, The slaughtered chiefs, the mortal jar, The havoc of the feudal war, Shall never, never be forgot! IX. In sorrow o'er lord Walter's bier; * The war cry, or gathering word, of a Border clan. Vengeance deep brooding o'er the slain, Her son lisped from the nurse's knee--"And, if I live to be a man, "My father's death revenged shall be !" Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek. X. All loose her negligent attire, All loose her golden hair, Hung Margaret o'er her slaughtered sire, And wept in wild despair. But not alone the bitter tear Had filial grief supplied; For hopeless love, and anxious fear, Her lover, 'gainst her father's clan, When Mathouse burn to Melrose ran All purple with their blood; And well she knew, her mother dread, XI. Of noble race the Ladye came; Her father was a clerk of fame, Of Bethune's line of Picardie: He learned the art, that none may name, Men said he changed his mortal frame For when, in studious mood, he paced XII. And of his skill, as bards avow, And now she sits in secret bower, Is it the roar of Teviot's tide, That chafes against the scaur's* red side? What may it be, the heavy sound, That moans old Branksome's turrets round? * Scaur, a precipitous bank of earth. N |