’Thou warn’st me I have done amiss,—­
I should have earlier looked to this;
I lost it in this bustling day.—­
Retrace with speed thy former way;
Spare not for spoiling of thy steed,
The best of mine shall be thy meed. 
Say to our faithful Lord of Mar,
We do forbid the intended war;
Roderick this morn in single fight
Was made our prisoner by a knight,
And Douglas hath himself and cause
Submitted to our kingdom’s laws. 
The tidings of their leaders lost
Will soon dissolve the mountain host,
Nor would we that the vulgar feel,
For their Chief’s crimes, avenging steel. 
Bear Mar our message, Braco, fly!’
He turned his steed,—­’My liege, I hie,
Yet ere I cross this lily lawn
I fear the broadswords will be drawn.’ 
The turf the flying courser spurned,
And to his towers the King returned.

XXXIII.

Ill with King James’s mood that day
Suited gay feast and minstrel lay;
Soon were dismissed the courtly throng,
And soon cut short the festal song. 
Nor less upon the saddened town
The evening sunk in sorrow down. 
The burghers spoke of civil jar,
Of rumoured feuds and mountain war,
Of Moray, Mar, and Roderick Dhu,
All up in arms;—­the Douglas too,
They mourned him pent within the hold,
’Where stout Earl William was of old.’—­
And there his word the speaker stayed,
And finger on his lip he laid,
Or pointed to his dagger blade. 
But jaded horsemen from the west
At evening to the Castle pressed,
And busy talkers said they bore
Tidings of fight on Katrine’s shore;
At noon the deadly fray begun,
And lasted till the set of sun. 
Thus giddy rumor shook the town,
Till closed the Night her pennons brown.

Cantosixth.

The Guard-room.

I.

The sun, awakening, through the smoky air
    Of the dark city casts a sullen glance,
Rousing each caitiff to his task of care,
    Of sinful man the sad inheritance;
Summoning revellers from the lagging dance,
    Scaring the prowling robber to his den;
Gilding on battled tower the warder’s lance,
    And warning student pale to leave his pen,
And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of men.

What various scenes, and O, what scenes of woe,
    Are witnessed by that red and struggling beam! 
The fevered patient, from his pallet low,
    Through crowded hospital beholds it stream;
The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam,
    The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail,
’The love-lore wretch starts from tormenting dream: 
    The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale,
Trims her sick infant’s couch, and soothes his feeble wail.

II.