V. In rapid round the Baron bent; He sighed a sigh, and prayed a prayer : The prayer was to his patron saint, The sigh was to his ladye fair. Stout Deloraine nor sighed, nor prayed, But he stooped his head, and couched his spear, The meeting of these champions proud 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; Into a thousand flinders flew. But Cranstoun's lance, of more avail, Pierced through, like silk, the Borderer's mail; Through shield, and jack, and acton, past, Till, stumbling in the mortal shock, Down went the steed, the girthing broke, VII. But when he reined his courser round, Lie senseless as the bloody clay, He bade his page to stanch the wound, 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; His Lord's command he ne'er withstood, The dwarf espied the mighty book! Like a book-bosomed 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, For when the first he had undone, It closed as he the next begun. With the Borderer's curdled gore; 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, * Magical delusion. † A shepherd's hut. So fierce, it stretched him on the plain, From the ground he rose dismayed, Man of age, thou smitest sore!” No more the elfin page durst try Into the wonderous book to pry; The clasps, though smeared 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 addressed, |