Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/674

 SIR WALTER SCOTT

O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd,

The pride he would not crush, restraint,

Show'd their fierce zeal a worthier cause,

And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws.

Hadst thou but lived, though stripped of power,

A watchman on the lonely tower,

Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,

When fraud or danger were at hand;

By thee, as by the beacon-light,

Our pilots had kept course aright;

As some proud column, though alone,

Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.

Now is the stately column broke,

The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,

The trumpet's silver voice is still,

The warder silent on the hill'

O think, how to his latest day, When Death, just hovering, clainTd his prey, With Palinure's unalter'd mood Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repell'd, With dying hand the rudder held, Till in his fall with fateful sway The steerage of the realm gave way. Then while on Britain's thousand plains One unpolluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around The bloody tocsin's maddening sound, But still upon the hallow'd day Convoke the swains to praise and pray;

�� �