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

144 XAtXION. CANTO IN
And on the north, within the ring,
Appeared the form of England's king!
Who then a thousand leagues afar,
In Palestine waged holy war:
Yet arms like England's did he wield,
Alike the leopards in the shield,
Alike his Syrian courser's frame,
The rider's length of limb'the same:
Long afterwards did Scotland know,
Fell Edward was her deadliest foe.
XXIV.
a The vision made our monarch start,
But soon he mann'd his noble heart,
And in the first career they ran,
The Elfin Knight fell horse and man;
Yet did a splinter of his.lance
Through Alexander's visor glance,
And razed the skin-a puny wound.
The king, light leaping to the ground,
With naked blade his phantom foe
Compelled the future war to show.
Of Largs he saw the glorious plain,
Where still gigantic bones remain,
Memorial of the Danish war;
Himself he saw, amid the field,
On high his brandished war-axe wield,
And strike proud Haco from his cal,
iWhile, all around the shadowy kings,
Denmark's grim ravens cower'd their win>,'Tis said, that, in that awful night,
Remoter visions met his sight,
Fore-showing future conquests far,
When our sons' sons wage northern war;
A royal city, tower and spire,
Reddened the midnight sky with fire;
And shouting crews her navy bore,
Triumphant, to the victor shore.'Such signs may learned clerks exphlain
They pass the wit of simple swain.
XXV.
& The joyful king turned home again,! aded his host, and quelled the Dane;