Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/46

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MARMION.
III.A distant trampling sound he hears;He looks abroad, and soon appears,O'er Horncliff-hill a plump of spears,30 Beneath a pennon gay;A horseman, darting from the crowd,Like lightning from a summer cloud,Spurs on his mettled courser proud, Before the dark array.35Beneath the sable palisade,That closed the Castle barricade, His buglehorn he blew;The warder hasted from the wall,And warn'd the Captain in the hall,40 For well the blast he knew;And joyfully that knight did call,To sewer, squire, and seneschal.
IV.'Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie, Bring pasties of the doe,45And quickly make the entrance freeAnd bid my heralds ready be,And every minstrel sound his glee, And all our trumpets blow;And, from the platform, spare ye not50To fire a noble salvo-shot; Lord Marmion waits below!'Then to the Castle's lower ward Sped forty yeomen tall,The iron-studded gates unbarr'd,55Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard,The lofty palisade unsparr'd, And let the drawbridge fall.
V.Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
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