Sir Walter Scott

Marmion Sir Walter Scott

A distant trampling sound he hears; He looks abroad, and soon appears O'er Horncliff Hill a plump of spears, Beneath a pennon gay; A horseman, darting from the crowd, Like lightning from a summer cloud, Spurs on his mettled courser proud, Before the dark array. Beneath the sable palisade That closed the castle barricade, His bugle-horn he blew; The warder hasted from the wall, And warned the captain in the hall, For well the blast he knew; And joyfully that knight did call, To sewer, squire, and seneschal.