A narrow and a broken plain,
Before the Trosach's rugged jaws,
And here the horse and spearmen pause,
While, to explore the dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass the archer-men.

"At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,
As all the fiends from heaven that fell
Had peal'd the banner-cry of Hell!
Forth from the pass, in tumult driven,
Like chaff before the wind of heaven,
The archery appear;
For life! for life! their plight they ply,
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broadswords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive, in dreadful race,
Pursuers and pursued;
Before that tide of flight and chase,
How shall it keep its rooted place,
The spearmen's twilight wood?
Down, down, cried Mar, 'your lances down
Bear back both friend and foe!'
Like reeds before the tempest's frown,
That serried grove of lances brown
At once lay levell'd low;
And, closely shouldering side to side,
The bristling ranks the onset bide,--
'We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
As their Tinchel cows the game!
They came as fleet as forest deer,
We'll drive them back as tame.'"

But admirable in its stern and deep excitement as that is, the battle
of Flodden in _Marmion_ passes it in vigour, and constitutes perhaps
the most perfect description of war by one who was--almost--both poet
and warrior, which the English language contains.

And _Marmion_ registers the high-water mark of Scott's poetical power,
not only in relation to the painting of war, but in relation to the
painting of nature. Critics from the beginning onwards have complained
of the six introductory epistles, as breaking the unity of the story.
But I cannot see that the remark has weight. No poem is written for
those who read it as they do a novel--merely to follow the interest of
the story; or if any poem be written for such readers, it deserves to
die. On such a principle--which treats a poem as a mere novel and
nothing else,--you might object to Homer that he interrupts the battle
so often to dwell on the origin of the heroes who are waging it; or to
Byron that he deserts Childe Harold to meditate on the rapture of
solitude. To my mind the ease and frankness of these confessions of
the author's recollections give a pict