Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/126

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MARMION.
And far beneath, where slow they creep,200From pool to eddy, dark and deep,Where alders moist, and willows weep, You hear her streams repine.The towers in different ages rose;Their various architecture shows205 The builders' various hands;A mighty mass, that could oppose,When deadliest hatred fired its foes, The vengeful Douglas bands.
XI.Crichtoun! though now thy miry court210 But pens the lazy steer and sheep, Thy turrets rude, and totter'd Keep,Have been the minstrel's loved resort.Oft have I traced, within thy fort, Of mouldering shields the mystic sense,215 Scutcheons of honour, or pretence,Quarter'd in old armorial sort, Remains of rude magnificence.Nor wholly yet had time defaced Thy lordly gallery fair;220Nor yet the stony cord unbraced,Whose twisted knots, with roses laced, Adorn thy ruin'd stair.Still rises unimpair'd below,The court-yard's graceful portico;225Above its cornice, row and row Of fair hewn facets richly show  Their pointed diamond form, Though there but houseless cattle go,  To shield them from the storm.230 And, shuddering, still may we explore,  Where oft whilom were captives pent, The darkness of thy Massy More;  Or, from thy grass-grown battlement,May trace, in undulating line,235The sluggish mazes of the Tyne.
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