WHILE great events were on the gale, And each hour brought a varying tale, And the demeanour, changed and cold, Of Douglas fretted Marmion bold, And, like the impatient steed of war He snuffed the battle from afar; And hopes were none, that back again Herald should come from Terouenne, Where England’s king in leaguer lay, Before decisive battle-day; Whilst these things were, the mournful Clare Did in the dame’s devotions share: For the good countess ceaseless prayed To Heaven and saints, her sons to aid, And with short interval did pass From prayer to book, from book to mass, And all in high baronial pride— A life both dull and dignified; Yet as Lord Marmion nothing pressed Upon her intervals of rest, Dejected Clara well could bear The formal state, the lengthened prayer, Though dearest to her wounded heart The hours that she might spend apart.
I said, Tantallon’s dizzy steep Hung o’er the margin of the deep. Many a rude tower and rampart there Repelled the insult of the air, Which, when the tempest vexed the sky, Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by. Above the rest, a turret square Did o’er its Gothic entrance bear, Of sculpture rude, a stony shield; The bloody heart was in the field, And in the chief three mullets stood, The cognisance of Douglas blood. The turret held a narrow stair, Which, mounted, gave you access where A parapet’s embattled row Did seaward round the castle go. Sometimes in dizzy steps descending, Sometimes in narrow circuit bending, Sometimes in platform broad extending, Its varying circle did combine Bulwark, and bartisan, and line, And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign: Above the booming ocean leant The far projecting battlement; The billows burst in ceaseless flow Upon the precipice below. Where’er Tantallon faced the land, Gateworks and walls were strongly manned; No need upon the sea-girt side; The steepy rock, and frantic tide, Approach of human step denied; And thus these lines, and ramparts rude, Were left in deepest solitude.
And, for they were so lonely, Clare Would to these battlements repair, And muse upon her sorrows there, And list the sea-bird’s cry; Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide Along the dark grey bulwark’s side, And ever on the heaving tide Look down with weary eye. Oft did the cliff, and swelling main, Recall the thoughts of Whitby’s fane— A home she ne’er might see again; For she had laid adown, So Douglas bade, the hood and veil, And frontlet of the cloister pale, And Benedictine gown: It were unseemly sight, he said, A novice out of convent shade. Now her bright locks, with sunny glow, Again adorned her brow of snow; Her mantle rich, whose borders round, A deep and fretted broidery bound, In golden foldings sought the ground; Of holy ornament, alone Remained a cross with ruby stone; And often did she look On that which in her hand she bore, With velvet bound, and broidered o’er, Her breviary book. In such a place, so lone, so grim, At dawning pale, or twilight dim, It fearful would have been To meet a form so richly dressed, With book in hand, and cross on breast, And such a woeful mien. Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow, To practise on the gull and crow, Saw her, at distance, gliding slow, And did by Mary swear— Some lovelorn fay she might have been, Or, in romance, some spell-bound queen; For ne’er, in work-day world, was seen A form so witching fair.