The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott ... Notes & life of the author.

MARMION. CAN.TO V
Though at its open portals stood,
Thirsting to pour forth blood for blood,
The kinsmen of the dead;
Yet one asylum is my own,
Against the dreaded hour;
A low, a silent, and alone,
Where kings have little power.
One victim is before me there.Mother, your blessing, and in prayer
Remember your unhappy Clare! "Loud weeps the Abbess, and bestows
Kind blessings many a one;
Weeping and wailing loud arose
Round patient Clare, the clamorous woes
Of every simple nun.
HIis eyes the gentle Eustace dried,
And scarce rude Blount the sight could bide,
Then took the squire her rein,
And gently led away her steed,
And, by each courteous word and deed,
To cheer her strove in vain.
XXXIII.
But scant three miles the band had rode,
When o'er a height they passed,
And, sudden, close before them showed
His towers, Tantallon vast:
Broad, massive, high, and stretching far,
And held impregnable in war.
On a projecting rock they rose,
And round three sides the ocean flows;
The fourth did battled walls enclose,
And double mound and fosse.
By narrow draw-bridge, outworks strong,
Through studded gates, an entrance long,
To the main court they cross.
It was a wide and stately square;
Around were lodgings, fit and fair,
And towers of various form,
Which on the court projected far,
And broke its lines quadrangular.
Here was square keep, there turret high,
Or pinnaclethat sought the sky,
Whence oft the Warder could descry
The gathering ocean storm,