Scarce could they hear or see their foes,
       Until at weapon-point they close. 
     They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,
     With sword-sway, and with lance’s thrust;
       And such a yell was there,
     Of sudden and portentous birth,
     As if men fought upon the earth,
       And fiends in upper air;
     Oh, life and death were in the shout,
     Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
       And triumph and despair. 
     Long look’d the anxious squires; their eye
     Could in the darkness naught descry.”

At length the breeze threw aside the shroud of battle, and there might be seen ridge after ridge of spears.  Pennon and plume floated like foam on the crest of the wave.  Spears shook; falchions flashed; arrows fell like rain; crests rose, and stooped, and rose again.

    “Yet still Lord Marmion’s falcon flew
     With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
       Around the battle-yell. 
     The Border slogan rent the sky! 
     A Home! a Gordon! was the cry: 
     Loud were the clanging blows;
     Advanced—­forced back—­now low, now high,
       The pennon sunk and rose;
     As bends the barque’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: 
    ’By heaven and all its saints!  I swear,
       I will not see it lost;
     Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare
     May bid your beads, and patter prayer,—­
       I gallop to the host.’”

To the fray he rode, followed by the archers.  At the next moment, fleet as the wind, Marmion’s steed riderless flew by, the housings and saddle dyed crimson.  Eustace mounted and plunged into the fight, resolved to rescue the body of his fallen lord.

Alone, in that dreadful hour, a courage not her own armed the gentle girl with strength to play a noble part.  She was thinking only of De Wilton, when two horsemen drenched with human gore, rode up, bearing a wounded knight, his shield bent, his helmet gone.  He yet bore in his hand a broken brand.  Could this be Marmion?  Blount unlaced the armor; Eustace removed the casque; revived by the free air, Marmion cried: 

“Fitz-Eustace, Blount,

    “’Redeem my pennon,—­charge again! 
      Cry,—­“Marmion to the rescue!”
       ’Must I bid twice?—­hence, varlets! fly! 
        Leave Marmion here alone,—­to die.’ 
        They parted, and alone he lay;
        Clare drew her from the sight away,
      Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
      And half he murmur’d—­’Is there none,
        Of all my halls have nursed,
      Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
      Of blessed water from the spring,
        To slake my dying thirst!’”