Give them the priest’s whole century,
They shall not spell you letters three;
Their pleasure in the books the same
The magpie takes in pilfer’d gem. 225
Thy volumes, open as thy heart,
Delight, amusement, science, art,
To every ear and eye impart;
Yet who, of all who thus employ them,
Can like the owner’s self enjoy them?—­ 230
But, hark!  I hear the distant drum! 
The day of Flodden Field is come.—­
Adieu, dear Heber! life and health,
And store of literary wealth.

CANTO SIXTH.

The battle.

While great events were on the gale,
And each hour brought a varying tale,
And the demeanour, changed and cold,
Of Douglas, fretted Marmion bold,
And, like the impatient steed of war, 5
He snuff’d the battle from afar;
And hopes were none, that back again
Herald should come from Terouenne,
Where England’s King in leaguer lay,
Before decisive battle-day; 10
Whilst these things were, the mournful Clare
Did in the Dame’s devotions share: 
For the good Countess ceaseless pray’d
To Heaven and Saints, her sons to aid. 
And, with short interval, did pass 15
From prayer to book, from book to mass,
And all in high Baronial pride,—­
A life both dull and dignified;—­
Yet as Lord Marmion nothing press’d
Upon her intervals of rest, 20
Dejected Clara well could bear
The formal state, the lengthen’d prayer,
Though dearest to her wounded heart
The hours that she might spend apart.

II.

I said, Tantallon’s dizzy steep 25
Hung o’er the margin of the deep. 
Many a rude tower and rampart there
Repell’d the insult of the air,
Which, when the tempest vex’d the sky,
Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by. 30
Above the rest, a turret square
Did o’er its Gothic entrance bear,
Of sculpture rude, a stony shield;
The Bloody Heart was in the Field,
And in the chief three mullets stood, 35
The cognizance of Douglas blood. 
The turret held a narrow stair,
Which, mounted, gave you access where
A parapet’s embattled row
Did seaward round the castle go. 40
Sometimes in dizzy steps descending,
Sometimes in narrow circuit bending,
Sometimes in platform broad extending,
Its varying circle did combine
Bulwark, and bartisan, and line, 45
And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign: 
Above the booming ocean leant
The far-projecting battlement;
The billows burst, in ceaseless flow,
Upon the precipice below. 50
Where’er Tantallon faced the land,
Gate-works, and walls, were strongly mann’d;
No need upon the sea-girt side;
The steepy rock, and frantic tide,
Approach of human step denied; 55
And thus these lines, and ramparts rude,
Were left in deepest solitude.