Ode on Visiting Flodden — John Leyden

ODE

ON VISITING FLODDEN.

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GREEN Flodden, on thy blood-stain'd headDescend no rain nor vernal dew!But still, thou chamel of the dead,May whitening bones thy surface strew!Soon as I tread thy rush-clad vale,Wild fancy feels the clasping mail;The rancour of a thousand yearsGlows in my breast; again I burnTo see the banner'd pomp of war return,And mark beneath the moon the silver light of spears.

Lo! bursting from their common tomb,The spirits of the ancient deadDimly streak the parted gloom,With awful faces, ghastly red;As once around their martial kingThey clos'd the death-devoted ring,With dauntless hearts, unknown to yield;In slow procession round the pileOf heaving corses moves each shadowy file,And chaunts in solemn strain the dirge of Flodden field.

What youth, of graceful form and mien,Foremost leads the spectred brave,While o'er his mantle's folds of greenHis amber locks redundant wave?When slow returns the fated day,That view'd their chieftain's long array,Wild to the harp's deep, plaintive string,The virgins raise the funeral strain,From Ord's black mountain to the northern main,And mourn the emerald hue which paints the vest of spring.

Alas! that Scottish maid should singThe combat where her lover fell!That Scottish bard should wake the string,The triumph of our foes to tell!Yet Teviot's sons, with high disdain,Have kindled at the thrilling strainThat mourn'd their martial fathers' bier;And, at the sacred font, the priestThrough ages left the master-hand unblest,To urge with keener aim the blood-encrusted spear.

Red Flodden! when thy plaintive strainIn early youth rose soft and sweet,My life-blood through each throbbing veinWith wild tumultuous passion beat.And oft, in fancied might, I trodeThe spear-strewn path to fame's abode,Encircled with a sanguine flood;And thought I heard the mingling hum,When, croaking hoarse, the birds of carrion comeAfar on rustling wing to feast on English blood.

Rude border chiefs, of mighty nameAnd iron soul, who sternly toreThe blossoms from the tree of fame,And purpled deep their tints with gore,Rush from brown ruins scarr'd with age,That frown o'er haunted Hermitage; 'Where, long by spells mysterious bound,They pace their round with Lifeless smile,And shake with restless foot the guilty pile,Till sink the mouldering towers beneath the burden'd ground.

Shades of the dead, on Alfer's plainWho scorn'd with backward step to move,But, struggling 'mid the hills of slain,Against the Sacred Standard strove;Amid the lanes of war I traceEach broad claymore and ponderous mace!Where'er the surge of arms is tost,Your glittering spears, in close array,Sweep, like the spider's filmy web, awayThe flower of Norman pride, and England's victor host!

But distant fleets each warrior ghost,With surly sounds that murmur far:Such sounds were heard when Syria's hostRoll'd from the walls of proud Samàr.Around my solitary headGleam the blue lightnings of the dead,While murmur low the shadowy band—"Lament no more the warrior's doom!"Blood, blood alone, should dew the hero's tomb,"Who falls, 'mid circling spears, to save his native land."