But indistinct the pageant proud,
As fancy forms of midnight cloud, 730
When flings the moon upon her shroud
  A wavering tinge of flame;
It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud,
From midmost of the spectre crowd,
  This awful summons came:—­ 735

XXVI.

’Prince, prelate, potentate, and peer,
  Whose names I now shall call,
Scottish, or foreigner, give ear! 
Subjects of him who sent me here,
At his tribunal to appear, 740
  I summon one and all: 
I cite you by each deadly sin,
That e’er hath soil’d your hearts within;
I cite you by each brutal lust,
That e’er defiled your earthly dust,—­ 745
  By wrath, by pride, by fear,
By each o’er-mastering passion’s tone,
By the dark grave, and dying groan! 
When forty days are pass’d and gone,
I cite you at your Monarch’s throne, 750
  To answer and appear.’—­
Then thundered forth a roll of names:—­
The first was thine, unhappy James! 
  Then all thy nobles came;
Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle, 755
Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle,-
Why should I tell their separate style? 
  Each chief of birth and fame,
Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle,
Fore-doom’d to Flodden’s carnage pile, 760
  Was cited there by name;
And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye,
Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye;
De Wilton, erst of Aberley,
The self-same thundering voice did say.—­ 765
  But then another spoke: 
’Thy fatal summons I deny,
And thine infernal Lord defy,
Appealing me to Him on high,
  Who burst the sinner’s yoke.’ 770
At that dread accent, with a scream,
Parted the pageant like a dream,
  The summoner was gone. 
Prone on her face the Abbess fell,
And fast, and fast, her beads did tell; 775
Her nuns came, startled by the yell,
  And found her there alone. 
She mark’d not, at the scene aghast,
What time, or how, the Palmer pass’d.

XXVII.

Shift we the scene.—­The camp doth move, 780
  Dun-Edin’s streets are empty now,
Save when, for weal of those they love,
  To pray the prayer, and vow the vow,
The tottering child, the anxious fair,
The grey-hair’d sire, with pious care, 785
To chapels and to shrines repair—­
Where is the Palmer now? and where
The Abbess, Marmion, and Clare?—­
Bold Douglas! to Tantallon fair
  They journey in thy charge:  790
Lord Marmion rode on his right hand,
The Palmer still was with the band;
Angus, like Lindesay, did command,