But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more
beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and
spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The
thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is
such a one as would have shone in Homer or in Virgil:
So thus did both these nobles die,
Whose courage none could stain;
An English archer then perceived
The noble Earl was slain.
He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree,
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Unto the head drew he.
Against Sir Hugh Montgomery
So right his shaft he set,
The gray-goose wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.
This fight did last from break of day
Till setting of the sun;
For when they rung the ev'ning bell
The battle scarce was done.
One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author
has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in
giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little
characters of particular persons.
And with Earl Douglas there was slain
Sir Hugh Montgomery,
Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field
One foot would never fly.
Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,
His sister's son was he;
Sir David Lamb so well esteem'd,
Yet saved could not be.
The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the
description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but
to show the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last
verses look almost like a translation of Virgil.
--_Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus_
_Qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus aequi_.
_Diis aliter visum_.
_AEn._ ii. 426.
Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight,
Just of his word, observant of the right:
Heav'n thought not so.