harp they be!
Woe is written on thy visage,
- Death is looking from thy face:
Speak, though it be of overthrow—
- It cannot be disgrace!"
Right bitter was the agony
- That wrung the soldier proud:
Thrice did he strive to answer,
- And thrice he groaned aloud.
Then he gave the riven banner
- To the old man's shaking hand,
Saying—"That is all I bring ye
- From the bravest of the land!
Ay! ye may look upon it—
- It was guarded well and long,
By your brothers and your children,
- By the valiant and the strong.
One by one they fell around it,
- As the archers laid them low,
Grimly dying, still unconquered,
- With their faces to the foe.
Ay! ye well may look upon it—
- There is more than honour there,
Else, be sure, I had not brought it
- From the field of dark despair.
Never yet was royal banner
- Steeped in such a costly dye;
It hath lain upon a bosom
- Where no other shroud shall lie.
Sirs! I charge you keep it holy,
- Keep it as a sacred thing,
For the stain you see upon it
- Was the life-blood of your King!"
Woe, woe, and lamentation!
- What a piteous cry was there!
Widows, maidens, mothers, children,
- Shrieking, sobbing in despair!
Through the streets the death-word rushes,
- Spreading terror, sweeping on—
"Jesu Christ! our King has fallen—
- O great God, King James is gone!
Holy Mother Mary, shield us,
- Thou who erst did lose thy Son!
O the blackest day for Scotland
- That she ever knew before!
O our King—the good, the noble,
- Shall we see him never more?
Woe to us and woe to Scotland,
- O our sons, our sons and men!
Surely some have 'scaped the Southron,
- Surely some will come again!"
Till the oak that fell last winter
- Shall uprear its shattered stem—
Wives and mothers of Dunedin—
- Ye may look in vain for them!
But within the Council Chamber
- All was silent as the grave,
Whilst the tempest of their sorrow
- Shook the bosoms of the brave.
Well indeed might they be shaken
- With the weight of such a blow:
He was gone—their prince, their idol,
- Whom they loved and worshipped so!
Like a knell of death and judgment
- Rung from heaven by angel hand,
Fell the words of desolation
- On the elders of the land.
Hoary heads were bowed and trembling,
- Withered hands were clasped and wrung:
God had left the old and feeble,
- He had ta'en away the young.
Then the Provost he uprose,
- And his lip was ashen white,
But a flush was on his brow,
- And his eye was full of light.
"Thou hast spoken, Randolph Murray,
- Like a soldier stout and true;
Thou hast done a deed of daring
- Had been perilled but by few.
For thou hast not shamed to face us,
- Nor to speak thy ghastly tale,
Standing—thou, a knight and captain—
- Here, alive within thy mail!
Now, as my God shall judge me,
- I hold it braver done,
Than hadst thou tarried in thy place,
- And died above my son!
Thou needst not tell it: he is dead.
- God help us all this day!
But speak—how fought the citizens
- Within the furious fray?
For, by the might of Mary,
- 'Twere something still to tell
That no Scottish foot went backward
- When the Royal Lion fell!"
"No one failed him! He is keeping
- Royal state and semblance still;
Knight and noble lie around him,
- Cold on Flodden's fatal hill.
Of the brave and gallant-hearted,
- Whom ye sent with prayers away,
Not a single man departed
- From his monarch yesterday.
Had you seen them, O my masters!
- When the night began to fall,
And the English spearmen gathered
- Round a grim and ghastly wall!
As the wolves in winter circle
- Round the leaguer on the heath,
So the greedy foe glared upward,
- Panting still for blood and death.
But a rampart rose before them,
- Which the boldest dared not scale;
Every stone a Scottish body,
- Every step a corpse in mail!
And behind it lay our monarch
- Clenching still his shivered sword:
By his side Montrose and Athole,
- At his feet a southern lord.
All so thick they lay together,
- When the stars lit up the sky,
That I knew not who were stricken,
- Or who yet remained to die,
Few there were when Surrey halted,
- And his wearied host withdrew;
None but dying men around me,
- When the English trumpet b