Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/78

 In his stone-coffin forth he rides,
 A ponderous bark for river tides,
 Yet light as gossamer it glides,
270  Downward to Tilmouth cell.
Nor long was his abiding there,
Far southward did the saint repair;
Chester-le-Street, and Rippon, saw
His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw
275 Hail'd him with joy and fear;
And, after many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last,
Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
 Looks down upon the Wear;
280There, deep in Durham's Gothic shade,
His relics are in secret laid;
 But none may know the place,
Save of his holiest servants three,
Deep sworn to solemn secrecy,
285 Who share that wondrous grace.

XV.
Who may his miracles declare!
Even Scotland's dauntless king, and heir,
 (Although with them they led
Galwegians, wild as ocean's gale,
290And Lodon's knights, all sheathed in mail,
And the bold men of Teviotdale,)
 Before his standard fled.
'Twas he, to vindicate his reign,
Edged Alfred's falchion on the Dane,
295And turn'd the Conqueror back again,
When, with his Norman bowyer band,
He came to waste Northumberland.

XVI.
But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn
If, on a rock, by Lindisfarne,