“O Woman! in our hours of ease,
      Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
      And variable as the shade
      By the light quivering aspen made;
      When pain and anguish wring the brow,
      A ministering angel thou! 
      Scarce were the piteous accents said,
      When, with the baron’s casque, the maid
        To the nigh streamlet ran: 
      Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
      The plaintive voice alone she hears,
      Sees but the dying man.”

She stooped by the side of the rill, but drew back in horror,—­it ran red with the best blood of two kingdoms.  Near by, a fountain played, the well of Sybil Grey.  At this, the helmet was quickly filled, and accompanied by a monk, who was present to shrive the dying or to bless the dead, the Lady Clare hurried to the side of Marmion.  Deep he drank, saying: 

“Is it the hand of Constance or of Clare that bathes my brow?  Speak not to me of shrift and prayer; while the spark of life lasts, I must redress the wrongs of Constance.”

Between broken sobs the Lady Clare replied: 

    “’In vain for Constance is your zeal;
      She—­died at Holy Isle.’”

Lord Marmion started from the ground, but fainting fell, supported by the monk.

The din of war ceased for a moment, then there swelled upon the gale the cry, “Stanley!  Stanley!”

    “A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
       And fired his glazing eye: 
     With dying hand, above his head,
     He shook the fragment of his blade,
       And shouted ’Victory! 
     Charge, Chester, charge!  On, Stanley, on!’
     Were the last words of Marmion.”

The monk gently placed the maid on her steed, and led her to the fair Chapel of Tilmouth.  The night was spent in prayer, and at dawn she was safely given to her kinsman, Lord Fitz-Clare.

All day, till darkness drew her wing over the ghastly scene, more desperate grew the deadly strife.  When night had fallen, Surrey drew his shattered bands from the fray.  Then Scotland learned her loss.

    “Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
     They melted from the field as snow,
     Tweed’s echoes heard the ceaseless splash
       While many a broken band,
     Disorder’d, through her currents dash,
       To gain the Scottish land;
     To town and tower, to down and dale,
     To tell red Flodden’s dismal tale,
     And raise the universal wail. 
     Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
     Shall many an age that wail prolong: 
     Still from the sire the son shall hear
     Of the stern strife, and carnage drear. 
       Of Flodden’s fatal field,
     Where shiver’d was fair Scotland’s spear,
       And broken was her shield!