XXIV.

’The vision made our Monarch start,
But soon he mann’d his noble heart,
And in the first career they ran,
The Elfin Knight fell, horse and man; 465
Yet did a splinter of his lance
Through Alexander’s visor glance,
And razed the skin—­a puny wound. 
The King, light leaping to the ground,
With naked blade his phantom foe 470
Compell’d the future war to show. 
Of Largs he saw the glorious plain,
Where still gigantic bones remain,
  Memorial of the Danish war;
Himself he saw, amid the field, 475
On high his brandish’d war-axe wield,
  And strike proud Haco from his car,
While all around the shadowy Kings
Denmark’s grim ravens cower’d their wings. 
’Tis said, that, in that awful night, 480
Remoter visions met his sight,
Foreshowing future conquest far,
When our sons’ sons wage northern war;
A royal city, tower and spire,
Redden’d the midnight sky with fire, 485
And shouting crews her navy bore,
Triumphant, to the victor shore. 
Such signs may learned clerks explain,
They pass the wit of simple swain.

XXV.

’The joyful King turn’d home again, 490
Headed his host, and quell’d the Dane;
But yearly, when return’d the night
Of his strange combat with the sprite,
  His wound must bleed and smart;
Lord Gifford then would gibing say, 495
“Bold as ye were, my liege, ye pay
  The penance of your start.” 
Long since, beneath Dunfermline’s nave,
King Alexander fills his grave,
  Our Lady give him rest! 500
Yet still the knightly spear and shield
The Elfin Warrior doth wield,
  Upon the brown hill’s breast;
And many a knight hath proved his chance,
In the charm’d ring to break a lance, 505
  But all have foully sped;
Save two, as legends tell, and they
Were Wallace wight, and Gilbert Hay.—­
Gentles, my tale is said.’

XXVI.

The quaighs were deep, the liquor strong, 510
And on the tale the yeoman-throng
Had made a comment sage and long,
  But Marmion gave a sign: 
And, with their lord, the squires retire;
The rest around the hostel fire, 515
  Their drowsy limbs recline: 
For pillow, underneath each head,
The quiver and the targe were laid. 
Deep slumbering on the hostel floor,
Oppress’d with toil and ale, they snore:  520
The dying flame, in fitful change,
Threw on the group its shadows strange.

XXVII.