XIV.

It chanced, as fell the second night,
  That on the battlements they walk’d,
And, by the slowly fading light,
  Of varying topics talk’d;
And, unaware, the Herald-bard 275
Said, Marmion might his toil have spared,
  In travelling so far;
For that a messenger from heaven
In vain to James had counsel given
  Against the English war:  280
And, closer question’d, thus he told
A tale, which chronicles of old
In Scottish story have enroll’d:-

XV.

Sir David Lindsey’s Tale.

’Of all the palaces so fair,
  Built for the royal dwelling, 285
In Scotland, far beyond compare
  Linlithgow is excelling;
And in its park, in jovial June,
How sweet the merry linnet’s tune,
  How blithe the blackbird’s lay! 290
The wild buck bells from ferny brake,
The coot dives merry on the lake,
The saddest heart might pleasure take
  To see all nature gay. 
But June is to our Sovereign dear 295
The heaviest month in all the year: 
Too well his cause of grief you know,
June saw his father’s overthrow. 
Woe to the traitors, who could bring
The princely boy against his King! 300
Still in his conscience burns the sting. 
In offices as strict as Lent,
King James’s June is ever spent.

XVI.

’When last this ruthful month was come,
And in Linlithgow’s holy dome 305
  The King, as wont, was praying;
While, for his royal father’s soul,
The chanters sung, the bells did toll,
  The Bishop mass was saying—­
For now the year brought round again 310
The day the luckless King was slain—­
In Katharine’s aisle the monarch knelt,
With sackcloth-shirt, and iron belt,
  And eyes with sorrow streaming;
Around him in their stalls of state, 315
The Thistle’s Knight-Companions sate,
  Their banners o’er them beaming. 
I too was there, and, sooth to tell,
Bedeafen’d with the jangling knell,
Was watching where the sunbeams fell, 320
  Through the stain’d casement gleaming;
But, while I mark’d what next befell,
  It seem’d as I were dreaming. 
Stepp’d from the crowd a ghostly wight,
In azure gown, with cincture white; 325
His forehead bald, his head was bare,
Down hung at length his yellow hair.—­
Now, mock me not, when, good my Lord,
I pledge to you my knightly word,
That, when I saw his placid grace, 330
His simple majesty of face,
His solemn bearing, and his pace
  So stately gliding on,—­
Seem’d to me ne’er did limner paint
So just an image of the Saint, 335
Who propp’d the Virgin in her faint,—­
  The loved Apostle John!