Saint George’s banner, broad and gay, Now faded, as the fading ray Less bright, and less, was flung; The evening gale had scarce the power To wave it on the donjon tower, So heavily it hung. The scouts had parted on their search, The castle gates were barred; Above the gloomy portal arch, Timing his footsteps to a march, The warder kept his guard; Low humming, as he paced along, Some ancient Border gathering song. III. A distant trampling sound he hears; He looks abroad, and soon appears O’er Horncliff Hill a plump of spears, Beneath a pennon gay; A horseman, darting from the crowd, Like lightning from a summer cloud, Spurs on his mettled courser proud, Before the dark array. Beneath the sable palisade That closed the castle barricade, His bugle-horn he blew; The warder hasted from the wall, And warned the captain in the hall, For well the blast he knew; And joyfully that knight did call, To sewer, squire, and seneschal. IV. “Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie, Bring pasties of the doe, And quickly make the entrance free, And bid my heralds ready be, And every minstrel sound his glee, And all our trumpets blow; And, from the platform, spare ye not To fire a noble salvo-shot: Lord Marmion waits below!” Then to the castle’s lower ward Sped forty yeomen tall, The iron-studded gates unbarred, Raised the portcullis’ ponderous guard, The lofty palisade unsparred, And let the drawbridge fall. V. Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode, Proudly his red-roan charger trode, His helm hung at the saddlebow; Well by his visage you might know He was a stalwart knight, and keen, And had in many a battle been; The scar on his brown cheek revealed A token true of Bosworth field; His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire, Showed spirit proud and prompt to ire; Yet lines of thought upon his cheek Did deep design and counsel speak. His forehead, by his casque worn bare, His thick moustache, and curly hair, Coal-black, and grizzled here and there, But more through toil than age; His square-turned joints, and strength of limb, Showed him no carpet knight so trim, But in close fight a champion grim, In camps a leader sage. VI.