Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/192

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MARMION.
XI.That night, upon the rocks and bay,The midnight moon-beam slumbering lay,And pour'd its silver light, and pure,Through loop-hole, and through embrazure,315 Upon Tantallon tower and hall;But chief where arched windows wideIlluminate the chapel's pride, The sober glances fall.Much was there need; though seam'd with scars,320Two veterans of the Douglas' wars, Though two grey priests were there,And each a blazing torch held high,You could not by their blaze descry The chapel's carving fair.325Amid that dim and smoky light,Chequering the silvery moon-shine bright, A bishop by the altar stood, A noble lord of Douglas blood,With mitre sheen, and rocquet white.330Yet show'd his meek and thoughtful eyeBut little pride of prelacy;More pleased that, in a barbarous age,He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page,Than that beneath his rule he held335The bishopric of fair Dunkeld.Beside him ancient Angus stood,Doff'd his furr'd gown, and sable hood:O'er his huge form and visage pale,He wore a cap and shirt of mail;340And lean'd his large and wrinkled handUpon the huge and sweeping brandWhich wont of yore, in battle fray,His foeman's limbs to shred away,As wood-knife lops the sapling spray.345 He seem'd as, from the tombs around  Rising at judgment-day,
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