In torrents from his wounded side. 
  “Then it was truth!” he said,—­“I knew
  That the dark presage must be true.—­
  I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
  The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
    Would spare me but a day! 
  For wasting fire, and dying groan,
  And priests slain on the altar stone,
    Might bribe him for delay. 
  It may not be!—­this dizzy trance,—­
  Curse on yon base marauder’s lance,
  And doubly cursed my failing brand! 
  A sinful heart makes feeble hand.” 
  Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk,
  Supported by the trembling monk.

  With fruitless labor, Clara bound,
  And strove to stanch the gushing wound: 
  The monk, with unavailing cares,
  Exhausted all the Church’s prayers. 
  Ever, he said, that, close and near,
  A lady’s voice was in his ear,
  And that the priest he could not hear,
    For that she ever sung,
  “In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,
  Where mingles war’s rattle with groans of the
       dying!”
    So the notes rung:—­
  “Avoid thee, Fiend!—­with cruel hand,
  Shake not the dying sinner’s sand!—­
  O, look, my son, upon yon sign
  Of the Redeemer’s grace divine: 
    O, think on faith and bliss!—­
  By many a death-bed I have been,
  And many a sinner’s parting seen,
    But never aught like this.”

  The war, that for a space did fail,
  Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,
    And STANLEY! was the cry:—­
  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.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

* * * * *

THE BONNETS OF BONNIE DUNDEE.

[About 1688.]

  To the lords of convention ’twas Claverhouse spoke,
  “Ere the king’s crown shall fall, there are crowns to be broke;
  So let each cavalier who loves honor and me
  Come follow the bonnets of bonnie Dundee!”

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can; Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; Come open the Westport and let us gang free, And it’s room for the bonnets of bonnie Dundee!

  Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street,
  The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat;
  But the provost, douce man, said, “Just e’en let him be,
  The gude toun is well quit of that deil of Dundee!”

  As he rode doun the sanctified bends of the Bow,
  Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow;
  But the young plants of grace they looked cowthie and slee,
  Thinking, Luck to thy bonnet, thou bonnie Dundee!

  With sour-featured whigs the Grass-market was thranged,
  As if half the west had set tryst to be hanged;
  There was spite in each look, there was fear in each ee,
  As they watched for the bonnets of bonnie Dundee.