Chapter XXIII

“Soon as the midnight bell did ring,
Alone, and armed, forth rode the king
To that old camp’s deserted round:
Sir Knight, you well might mark the mound
Left-hand the town—the Pictish race,
The trench, long since, in blood did trace:
The moor around is brown and bare,
The space within is green and fair.
The spot our village children know,
For there the earliest wildflowers grow;
But woe betide the wandering wight
That treads its circle in the night!
The breadth across, a bowshot clear,
Gives ample space for full career:
Opposed to the four points of heaven,
By four deep gaps are entrance given.
The southernmost our monarch passed,
Halted, and blew a gallant blast;
And on the north, within the ring,
Appeared the form of England’s king
Who then, a thousand leagues afar,
In Palestine waged holy war:
Yet arms like England’s did he wield,
Alike the leopards in the shield,
Alike his Syrian courser’s frame,
The rider’s length of limb the same:
Long afterwards did Scotland know,
Fell Edward was her deadliest foe.