Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/109

440The moor around is brown and bare,
The space within is green and fair.
The spot our village children know,
For there the earliest wild-flowers grow;
But woe betide the wandering wight,
445That treads its circle in the night!
The breadth across, a bowshot clear,
Gives ample space for full career;
Opposed to the four points of heaven,
By four deep gaps are entrance given.
450The southernmost our Monarch past,
Halted, and blew a gallant blast;
And on the north, within the ring,
Appeared the form of England's King,
Who then a thousand leagues afar,
455In Palestine waged holy war:
Yet arms like England's did he wield,
Alike the leopards in the shield,
Alike his Syrian courser's frame,
The rider's length of limb the same:
460Long afterwards did Scotland know,
Fell Edward was her deadliest foe.

XXIV.
'The vision made our Monarch start,
But soon he mann'd his noble heart,
And in the first career they ran,
465The Elfin Knight fell, horse and man;
Yet did a splinter of his lance
Through Alexander's visor glance,
And razed the skin—a puny wound.
The King, light leaping to the ground,
470With naked blade his phantom foe
Compell'd the future war to show.
Of Largs he saw the glorious plain,
Where still gigantic bones remain,
 Memorial of the Danish war;