'Their light-armed archers far and near Surveyed the tangled ground, Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, A twilight forest frowned, Their barded horsemen in the rear The stern battalia crowned. No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, Still were the pipe and drum; Save heavy tread, and armor's clang, The sullen march was dumb. There breathed no wind their crests to shake, Or wave their flags abroad; Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake That shadowed o'er their road. Their vaward scouts no tidings bring, Can rouse no lurking foe, Nor spy a trace of living thing, Save when they stirred the roe; The host moves like a deep-sea wave, Where rise no rocks its pride to brave High-swelling, dark, and slow. The lake is passed, and now they gain A narrow and a broken plain, Before the Trosachs' rugged jaws; And here the horse and spearmen pause While, to explore the dangerous glen Dive through the pass the archer-men. XVII. 'At once there rose so wild a yell Within that dark and narrow dell, As all the fiends from heaven that fell Had pealed the banner-cry of hell! Forth from the pass in tumult driven, Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear: For life! for life! their flight they ply-- And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear. Onward they drive in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued; Before that tide of flight and chase, How shall it keep its rooted place, The spearmen's twilight wood?--" "Down, down," cried Mar, "your lances down' Bear back both friend and foe! "-- Like reeds before the tempest's frown, That serried grove of lances brown At once lay levelled low; And closely shouldering side to side, The bristling ranks the onset bide.--" "We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their Tinchel cows the game! They come as fleet as forest deer, We'll drive them back as tame." XVIII.