Scarce could they hear or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close.
They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway, and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air;
Oh, life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair.
Long look'd the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness naught descry."
At length the breeze threw aside the shroud of battle, and there might
be seen ridge after ridge of spears. Pennon and plume floated like foam
on the crest of the wave. Spears shook; falchions flashed; arrows fell
like rain; crests rose, and stooped, and rose again.
"Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
Around the battle-yell.
The Border slogan rent the sky!
A Home! a Gordon! was the cry:
Loud were the clanging blows;
Advanced--forced back--now low, now high,
The pennon sunk and rose;
As bends the barque's mast in the gale,
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,
It waver'd 'mid the foes.
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