Green Flodden! on thy bloodstained head Descend no rain or vernal dew; But still, thou charnel of the dead, May whitening bones thy surface strew! Soon as I tread thy rush-clad vale, Wild fancy feels the clasping mail; The rancour of a thousand years Glows in my breast; again I burn To see the banner’d pomp of war return, And mark, beneath the moon, the silver light of spears. Lo! bursting from their common tomb, The spirits of the ancient dead Dimly streak the parted gloom With awful faces, ghastly red; As once, around their martial king, They closed the death-devoted ring, With dauntless hearts, unknown to yield; In slow procession round the pile Of heaving corses, moves each shadowy file, And chants, in solemn strain, the dirge of Flodden Field. What youth, of graceful form and mien, Foremost leads the spectred brave, While o’er his mantle’s folds of green His amber locks redundant wave? When slow returns the fated day, That viewed their chieftain’s long array, Wild to the harp’s deep plaintive string, The virgins raise the funeral strain, From Ord’s black mountain to the northern main, And mourn the emerald hue which paints the vest of spring! Alas! that Scottish maid should sing The combat where her lover fell! That Scottish bard should wake the string, The triumph of our foes to tell! Yet Teviot’s sons, with high disdain, Have kindled at the thrilling strain, That mourn’d their martial fathers’ bier; And at the sacred font, the priest Through ages left the master-hand unblessed, To urge, with keener aim, the blood-encrusted spear. Red Flodden! when thy plaintive strain In early youth rose soft and sweet, My life-blood, through each throbbing vein, With wild tumultuous passion beat; And oft in fancied might, I trode The spear-strewn path to Fame’s abode, Encircled with a sanguine flood; And thought I heard the mingling hum, When, croaking hoarse, the birds of carrion come Afar, on rustling wing, to feast on English blood. Rude Border Chiefs, of mighty name, And iron soul, who sternly tore The blossoms from the tree of fame, And purpled deep their tints with gore, Rush from brown ruins, scarr’d with age, That frown o’er haunted Hermitage; Where, long by spells mysterious bound, They pace their round, with lifeless smile, And shake, with restless foot, the guilty pile, Till sink the mouldering towers beneath the burdened ground.