Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/185

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CANTO VI.
155
Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glideAlong the dark-grey bulwarks' side,And ever on the heaving tide65 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,70So 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.—75Now her bright locks, with sunny glow,Again adorn'd her brow of snow;Her mantle rich, whose borders, round,A deep and fretted broidery bound,In golden foldings sought the ground;80Of holy ornament, aloneRemain'd a cross with ruby stone; And often did she lookOn that which in her hand she bore,With velvet bound, and broider'd o'er,85 Her breviary book.In such a place, so lone, so grim,At dawning pale, or twilight dim, It fearful would have beenTo meet a form so richly dress'd,90With 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,95 And did by Mary swear,—Some love-lorn 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.
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