Marmion (poem)

Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field is a historical romance in verse of 16th-century Scotland and England by Sir Walter Scott, published in 1808. Consisting of six cantos, each with an introductory epistle, and copious antiquarian notes, it concludes with the fateful Scottish defeat at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.

Quotes

Canto I

• November’s sky is chill and drear,
  November’s leaf is red and sear.
  • Introduction, st. 1.

• Had'st thou but lived, though stripp'd of power,
  A watchman on the lonely tower.
  • Introduction, st. 8.

• Now is the stately column broke,
  The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
  The trumpet's silver sound is still,
  The warder silent on the hill!
  • Introduction, st. 8.
  • Occasioned by the death in office of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in 1806. Quoted by William Ewart Gladstone in remembrance of Sir Robert Peel (Hansard, 3rd s., vol. 112, 3 July 1850, col. 857):

    I will only, Sir, quote those most touching and feeling lines which were applied by one of the greatest poets of this country to the memory of a man great indeed, but yet not greater than Sir Robert Peel.

• Stood for his country’s glory fast,
  And nail’d her colours to the mast!
  • Introduction, st. 10.

• But search the land of living men,
  Where wilt thou find their like again?
  • Introduction, st. 11.
  • Cp. Hamlet, act I, sc. 2:

    He was a man, take him for all in all,
    I shall not look upon his like again.

• Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.
  • Introduction, st. 16.

Canto II

• Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
  When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
  • Introduction, st. 4.

• When, musing on companions gone,
  We doubly feel ourselves alone.
  • Introduction, st. 5.

• 'Tis an old tale and often told;
    But did my fate and wish agree,
  Ne'er had been read, in story old,
  Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
    That loved, or was avenged, like me.
  • Stanza 27.

• And come he slow, or come he fast,
  It is but Death who comes at last.
  • Stanza 30.

Canto III

• When Prussia hurried to the field,
  And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.
  • Introduction, st. 3.
  • See Philip Freneau, "To the Memory of the Americans who fell at Eutaw":

    Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
    They took the spear—but left the shield.

• In the lost battle,
    Borne down by the flying,
  Where mingles war's rattle
    With groans of the dying.
  • Stanza 11.

Canto IV

• Where's the coward that would not dare
    To fight for such a land?
  • Stanza 30.

Canto V

• So shall he strive, in changeful hue,
  Field, feast, and combat, to renew,
  And loves, and arms, and harpers' glee,
  And all the pomp of chivalry.
  • Introduction, st. 8.

• Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
  And loved to plead, lament, and sue;
  Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,
  For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
  • Stanza 9.

• O, young Lochinvar is come out of the West,
  Through all the wide Border his steed was the best.
  • St. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 1).

• So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
  There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
  • St. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 1).

• For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
  Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
  • St. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 2).

• 'O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
  Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?'
  • St. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 3).

• And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
  To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
  • St. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 4).

• She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh,
  With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
  • St. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 5).

• But woe awaits a country when
  She sees the tears of bearded men.
  • Stanza 16.

Canto VI

• Heap on more wood!-the wind is chill;
  But let it whistle as it will,
  We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
  • Introduction, st. 1.

• England was merry England, when
  Old Christmas brought his sports again.
  ’Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale;
  ’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
  A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
  The poor man’s heart through half the year.
  • Introduction, st. 3.

•         And darest thou then
  To beard the lion in his den,
    The Douglas in his hall?
  • St. 14.

O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

• O, what a tangled web we weave,
  When first we practise to deceive!
  • St. 17.

• O, Woman! in our hours of ease,
  Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
  And variable as the shade
  By the light quivering aspen made;
  When pain and anguish wring the brow,
  A ministering angel thou!
  • St. 30.

• A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
  And fired his glazing eye:
  With dying hand, above his head,
  He shook the fragment of his blade,
  And shouted "Victory!—
  Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
  Were the last words of Marmion.
  • St. 32.

• Oh for a blast of that dread horn
  On Fontarabian echoes borne!
  • Stanza 33.
  • Oh for the voice of that wild horn! — Rob Roy (1817), chap. ii.

• The stubborn spear-men still made good
  Their dark impenetrable wood,
  Each stepping where his comrade stood,
  The instant that he fell.
  • Stanza 34.

• Still from the sire the son shall hear
  Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,
  Of Flodden's fatal field,
  Where shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear,
  And broken was her shield!
  • Stanza 34.

L'Envoy

• To all, to each, a fair good-night,
  And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!
  • To the Reader.

Quotes about Marmion

Parodies

• O woman! in the hour of strife,
  The plague, the torment of our life,
  And variable as the shade
  By the light quivering aspen made;
  Whenever gifts there are enow
  A condescending creature thou!
  • Peter Pry, Marmion Travestied: A Tale of Modern Times (London: G. Hazard for Thomas Tegg, 1809), Canto VI, St. 30

See also

• John Leyden

External links

• Marmion (Oxford, 1889), ed. Thomas Bayne