141
Follow huge Waltheof, on his barbed steed,
His battle-axe hung at the saddle-bow;
Morcar and Edwin, English earls, are there,
With red-cross banner, and ten thousand men
From Ely and Northumberland; they raise
The death-song of defiance, and advance
With bows of steel. From Scotland's mountain-glens,
From sky-blue lochs, and the wild highland heaths,
From Lothian villages, along the banks 150
Of Forth, King Malcolm leads his clansmen bold,
And, dauntless as romantic, bids unfurl
The banner of St Andrew; by his side
Mild Edgar Atheling, a stripling boy,
His brother, heir to England's throne, appears;
The dawn of youth on his fresh cheek; and, lo!
The broadswords glitter as the tartaned troops
March to the pibroch's sound. The Danish trump
Brays like a gong, heard to the holts and towns
Of Lincolnshire. 160
With crests and shields the same,
A lion frowning on each helmet's cone,
Like the two brothers famed in ancient song,[95]
Godwin and Edmund, sons of Harold, lead
From Scandinavia and the Baltic isles
The impatient Northmen to the embattled host
On Humber's side. The standards wave in air,
Drums roll, and glittering columns file, and arms
Flash to the morn, and bannered-trumpets bray,
Heralds or armourers from tent to tent 170
Are hurrying; crests, and spears, and steel-bows gleam,
Far as the eye can reach; barbed horses neigh,
Their mailed riders wield the battle-axe,
Or draw the steel-bows with a clang; and, hark! 474
From the vast moving host is heard one shout,
Conquest or death!--as now the sun ascends,
And on the bastioned walls of Ravenspur[96]
Flings its first beam--one mighty shout is heard,
Perish the Norman! Soldiers, on!--to York!

CANTO FIRST.

Castle of Ravenspur, on the Humber--Daughter of Harold--Ailric, the
monk.

Let us go up to the west turret's top,
Adela cried; let us go up--the night
Is still, and to the east great ocean's hum
Is scarcely heard. If but a wandering step,
Or distant shout, or dip of hastening oar,
Or tramp of steed, or far-off trumpet, break
The hushed horizon, we can catch the sound
When breathless expectation watches there.
Upon the platform of the high