I said, Tantallon's dizzy steep 25 Hung o'er the margin of the deep. Many a rude tower and rampart there Repell'd the insult of the air, Which, when the tempest vex'd the sky, Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by. 30 Above the rest, a turret square Did o'er its Gothic entrance bear, Of sculpture rude, a stony shield; The Bloody Heart was in the Field, And in the chief three mullets stood, 35 The cognizance of Douglas blood. The turret held a narrow stair, Which, mounted, gave you access where A parapet's embattled row Did seaward round the castle go. 40 Sometimes in dizzy steps descending, Sometimes in narrow circuit bending, Sometimes in platform broad extending, Its varying circle did combine Bulwark, and bartisan, and line, 45 And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign: Above the booming ocean leant The far-projecting battlement; The billows burst, in ceaseless flow, Upon the precipice below. 50 Where'er Tantallon faced the land, Gate-works, and walls, were strongly mann'd; No need upon the sea-girt side; The steepy rock, and frantic tide, Approach of human step denied; 55 And thus these lines, and ramparts rude, Were left in deepest solitude. III. And, for they were so lonely, Clare Would to these battlements repair, And muse upon her sorrows there, 60 And list the sea-bird's cry; Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide Along the dark-grey bulwarks' side, And ever on the heaving tide Look down with weary eye. 65 Oft did the cliff, and swelling main, Recall the thoughts of Whitby's fane,-- A home she ne'er might see again; For she had laid adown, So Douglas bade, the hood and veil, 70 And frontlet of the cloister pale, And Benedictine gown: It were unseemly sight, he said, A novice out of convent shade.-- Now her bright locks, with sunny glow, 75 Again adorn'd her brow of snow; Her mantle rich, whose borders, round, A deep and fretted broidery bound, In golden foldings sought the ground; Of holy ornament, alone 80 Remain'd a cross with ruby stone; And often did she look On that which in her hand she bore, With velvet bound, and broider'd o'er, Her breviary book. 85 In such a place, so lone, so grim, At dawning pale, or twilight dim, It fearful would have been To meet a form so richly dress'd, With book in hand, and cross on breast, 90 And such a woeful mien. Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow, To practise on the gull and crow, Saw her, at distance, gliding slow, And did by Mary swear,-- 95 Some love-lorn Fay she might have been, Or, in Romance, some spell-bound Queen; For ne'er, in work-day world, was seen