Last of my race, on battle plain
That shout shall ne'er be heard again !—
Yet my last thought is England's: Fly!
To Dacre bear my signet-ring;
Tell him his squadrons up to bring;
Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie!
Tunstall lies dead upon the field;
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down-my life is reft!
The Admiral alone is left.
Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon
Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.
Must I bid twice ?-Hence, varlets, fly!
Leave Marion here alone-to die."
They parted-and alone he lay:
Clare drew her from the sight away,
Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan;
And half he murmured: "Is there none,
Of all my halls have nursed,
Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of blessed water from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst?"
O woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish ring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!
Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the Baron's casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran;
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears:
The plaintive voice alone she hears—
Sees but the dying man.
She stooped her by the runnel's side,
But in abhorrence backward drew;
For, oozing from the mountain-side,
Where raged the war, a dark red tide
Was curdling in the streamlet blue!
Where shall she turn ?-behold her mark
A little fountain cell,
Where water, clear as diamond spark,
In a stone basin fell.
She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And, with surprise and joy, espied
A monk supporting Marmion's head:
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrive the dying, bless the dead.
Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave,
And as she stooped his brow to lave-
"Is it the hand of Clare," he said,
"Or injured Constance, bathes my head?"
Then, as remembrance rose,
“Talk not to me of shrift or prayer,
I must redress her woes!
Short space, few words, are mine to spare!
Forgive and listen, gentle Clare!"
"Alas!" she said, the while;
“Oh, think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Constance is your zeal-
She died at Holy Isle!”
Lord Marmion started from the ground,
As light as though he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide
In torrents from his wounded side!
"Then it was truth!" he said: "I knew
That the dark presage must be true!
I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would spare me but a day!
For, wasting fire, and dying groan,
And priests slain on the altar-stone,
Might bribe him for delay.
may not be this dizzy trance! Curse on yon base marauder's lance!
And doubly curs'd my failing brand!
A sinful heart makes feeble hand!"
Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk,
Supported by the trembling monk.
With fruitless labour Clara bound,
And strove to stanch the gushing wound:
The Monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church's prayers:
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear
For that she ever sung :-
"In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle,
With groans of the dying!"
So the notes rung.
"Avoid thee, fiend! with cruel hand,
Shake not the dying sinner's sand!
Oh! look, my son, upon yon sign,
Cf the Redeemer's grace divine!
Oh! think on faith and bliss!
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,
But never aught like this!"
The war that for a space did fail,
Now, trebly thundering, swelled the gale
And-" Stanley!" was the
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye;
With dying hand above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted, "Victory!
Charge! Chester, charge! On, Stanley! on!"
Were the last words of Marmion."
THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.
THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.
A MAN in many a country town we know,
Professes openly with Death to wrestle;
Entering the field against the grimly foe,
Armed with a mortar and a pestle.
Yet some affirm no enemies they are;
But meet just like prize-fighters in a fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguey knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother:
So many a suffering patient saith-
Though the apothecary fights with Death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.
A member of this Esculapian line
Lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your bed.
Of occupations these were quantam suff.:
Yet still he thought the list not long enough;
And therefore midwifery he chose to pin to't.
This balanced things; for if he hurled
A few score mortals from the world,
He made amends by bringing others into't.
His fame full six miles round the country ran;
In short, in reputation he was solus:
All the old women called him a "fine man!".
His name was Bolus.
Benjamin Bolus, though in trade
Which oftentimes will genius fetter
Read works of fancy, it is said,
And cultivated the belles-lettres.
And why should this be thought so odd?
Can't men have taste who cure a phthisic?
Of poetry though patron god,
Apollo patronises physic.
Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in't, That his prescriptions he resolved to write in't.
No opportunity he e'er let pass
Of writing the directions on his labels In dapper couplets, like Gay's Fables, Or rather like the lines in Hudibras.
Apothecary's verse! and where's the treason?
'Tis simply honest dealing, not a crime;
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.
He had a patient lying at death's door,
Some three miles from the town, it might be four,
To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article
In pharmacy that's called cathartical,
And on the label of the stuff
He wrote this verse,
Which one would think was clear enough,
And terse:
When taken,
To be well shaken.
Next morning early, Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,
Who a vile trick of stumbling had :
It was indeed a very sorry hack;
But that's of course;
For what's expected from a horse,
With an apothecary on his back?
Bolus arrived, and gave a doubtful tap,
Between a single and a double rap.
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