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MARMION.
 Loud were the clanging blows;Advanced,—forced back,—now low, now high,815 The pennon sunk and rose;As bends the bark's mast in the gale,When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It waver'd 'mid the foes.No longer Blount the view could bear:820'By Heaven, and all its saints! I swear I will not see it lost!Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady ClareMay bid your beads, and patter prayer,— I gallop to the host.'825And to the fray he rode amain,Follow'd by all the archer train.The fiery youth, with desperate charge,Made, for a space, an opening large,— The rescued banner rose,—830But darkly closed the war around,Like pine-tree rooted from the ground, It sank among the foes.Then Eustace mounted too:—yet staid,As loath to leave the helpless maid,835 When, fast as shaft can fly,Blood-shot his eyes, his nostrils spread,The loose rein dangling from his head,Housing and saddle bloody red, Lord Marmion's steed rush'd by;840And Eustace, maddening at the sight, A look and sign to Clara cast, To mark he would return in haste,Then plunged into the fight.
XXVIII.Ask me not what the maiden feels,845 Left in that dreadful hour alone:Perchance her reason stoops, or reels; Perchance a courage, not her own,Braces her mind to desperate tone.—
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