Stung with these thoughts, he urged to speed His troop, and reached, at eve, the Tweed, Where Lennel’s convent closed their march; (There now is left but one frail arch, Yet mourn thou not its cells: Our time a fair exchange has made; Hard by, in hospitable shade, A reverend pilgrim dwells, Well worth the whole Bernardine brood That e’er wore sandal, frock, or hood.) Yet did Saint Bernard’s Abbot there Give Marmion entertainment fair, And lodging for his train and Clare. Next morn the baron climbed the tower, To view afar the Scottish power, Encamped on Flodden edge: The white pavilions made a show, Like remnants of the winter snow, Along the dusky ridge. Long Marmion looked: at length his eye Unusual movement might descry Amid the shifting lines: The Scottish host drawn out appears, For, flashing on the edge of spears The eastern sunbeam shines. Their front now deepening, now extending Their flank inclining, wheeling, bending, Now drawing back, and now descending, The skilful Marmion well could know, They watched the motions of some foe, Who traversed on the plain below. XIX. Even so it was. From Flodden ridge The Scots beheld the English host Leave Barmore Wood, their evening post, And heedful watched them as they crossed The Till by Twisel Bridge. High sight it is, and haughty, while They dive into the deep defile; Beneath the caverned cliff they fall, Beneath the castle’s airy wall. By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree, Troop after troop are disappearing; Troop after troop their banners rearing; Upon the eastern bank you see. Still pouring down the rocky den, Where flows the sullen Till, And rising from the dim-wood glen, Standards on stardards, men on men, In slow succession still, And, sweeping o’er the Gothic arch, And pressing on, in ceaseless march, To gain the opposing hill. That morn, to many a trumpet clang, Twisel! thy rocks deep echo rang; And many a chief of birth and rank, Saint Helen! at thy fountain drank. Thy hawthorn glade which now we see In spring-tide bloom so lavishly, Had then from many an axe its doom, To give the marching columns room. XX.