That each was other’s mortal foe,
And snorted fire, when wheel’d around
To give each foe his vantage-ground.
V
In rapid round the Baron bent;
He sigh’d a sigh, and pray’d a prayer:
The prayer was to his patron saint,
The sigh was to his ladye fair.
Stout Deloraine nor sigh’d nor pray’d,
Nor saint, nor ladye, call’d to aid;
But he stoop’d his head, and couch’d his spear,
And spurred his steed to full career.
The meeting of these champions proud
Seem’d like the bursting thunder-cloud.
VI
Stern was the dint the Borderer lent!
The stately Baron backwards bent;
Bent backwards to his horse’s tail
And his plumes went scattering on the gale;
The tough ash spear, so stout and true,
Into a thousand flinders flew.
But Cranstoun’s lance, of more avail
Pierc’d through, like silk, the Borderer’s mail;
Through shield, and jack, and acton, past,
Deep in his bosom broke at last.
Still sate the warrior saddle-fast
Till, stumbling in the mortal shock,
Down went the steed, the girthing broke,
Hurl’d on a heap lay man and horse.
The Baron onward pass’d his course;
Nor knew, so giddy rolled his brain,
His foe lay stretch’d upon the plain.
VII
But when he rein’d his courser round,
And saw his foeman on the ground
Lie senseless as the bloody clay,
He badehis page to stanch the wound,
And there beside the warrior stay,
And tend him in his doubtful state,
And lead him to Brauksome castle gate:
His noble mind was inly moved
For the kinsman of the maid he loved.
“This shalt thou do without delay:
No longer here myself may stay;
Unless the swifter I speed away
Short shrift will be at my dying day.”
VIII
Away in speed Lord Cranstoun rode;
The Goblin-Page behind abode;
His lord’s command he ne’er withstood,
Though small his pleasure to do good.
As the corslet off he took,
The Dwarf espied the Mighty Book!
Much he marvell’d a knight of pride,
Like a book-bosom’d priest should ride:
He thought not to search or stanch the wound
Until the secret he had found.
IX
The iron band, the iron clasp,
Resisted long the elfin grasp:
For when the first he had undone
It closed as he the next begun.
Those iron chlsps, that iron band,
Would not yield to unchristen’d hand
Till he smear’d the cover o’er
With the Borderer’s curdled gore;
A moment then the volume spread,
And one short spell therein he read:
It had much of glamour might;
Could make a ladye seem a knight;
The cobwebs on a dungeon wall
Seem tapestry in lordly hall;
A nutshell seem a gilded barge,
A sheeling seem a palace large,
And youth seem age, and age seem youth:
All was delusion, nought was truth.
X
He had not read another spell,
When on his cheek a buffet fell,
So fierce, it stretch’d him on the plain
Beside the wounded Deloraine.
From the ground he rose dismay’d,
And shook his huge and matted head;
One word he mutter’d, and no more,
“Man of age, thou smitest sore!”
No more the Elfin Page durst try
Into the wondrous Book to pry;
The clasps, though smear’d with Christian gore,
Shut faster than they were before.
He hid it underneath his cloak.
Now, if you ask who gave the stroke,
I cannot tell, so mot I thrive;
It was not given by man alive.
XI
Unwillingly himself he address’d,
To do his master’s high behest:
He lifted up the living corse,
And laid it on the weary horse;
He led him into Branksome hall,
Before the beards of the warders all;
And each did after swear and say
There only pass’d a wain of hay.
He took him to Lord David’s tower,
Even to the Ladye’s secret bower;
And, but that stronger spells were spread,
And the door might not be opened,
He had laid him on her very bed.
Whate’er he did of gramarye
Was always done maliciously;
He flung the warrior on the ground,
And the blood well’d freshly from the wound.
XII
As he repass’d the outer court,
He spied the fair young child at sport:
He thought to train him to the wood;
For, at a word be it understood,
He was always for ill, and never for good.
Seem’d to the boy, some comrade gay
Led him forth to the woods to play;
On the drawbridge the warders stout
Saw a terrier and lurcher passing out.
XIII
He led the boy o’er bank and fell,
Until they came to a woodland brook
The running stream dissolv’d the spell,