Classic Poem

PART THE FIRST

W ALLACE with his sixteen men
Is on his weary way;
They have hasting been all night,
And hasting been all day;
And now, to lose their only hope,
They hear the bloodhound bay.

The bloodhound's bay comes down the wind,
Right upon the road;
Town and tower are yet to pass,
With not a friend's abode.

Wallace neither turned nor spake;
Closer drew the men;
Little had they said that day,
But most went cursing then.

Oh! to meet twice sixteen foes
Coming from English ground,
And leave their bodies on the track,
To cheat King Edward's hound.

Oh! to overtake one wretch
That left them in the fight,
And leave him cloven to the ribs,
To mock the bloody spite

Suddenly dark Fawdon stopped,
As they neared a town;
He stumbled with a desperate oath,
And cast him fiercely down

He said, " The leech took all my strength,
My body is unblest;
Come dog, come devil, or English rack,
Here must Fawdon rest."

Fawdon was an Irishman
Had joined them in the war;
Four orphan children waited him
Down by Eden Scawr

But Wallace hated Fawdon's ways,
That were both fierce and shy;
And at his words he turned, and said,
" That's a traitor's lie.

" No thought is thine of lingering here,
A captive for the hound;
Thine eye is bright; thy lucky flesh
Hath not a single wound;
The moment we depart, the lane
Will see thee from the ground."

Fawdon would not speak nor stir,
Speak as any might;
Scorned or soothed, he sat and loured,
As though in angry spite.

Wallace drew a little back,
And waved his men apart;
And Fawdon half leaped up and cried,
" Thou wilt not have the heart!"

Wallace with his dreadful sword,
Without further speech,
Clean cut off dark Fawdon's head,
Through its stifled screech:

Through its stifled screech, and through
The arm that fenced his brow;
And Fawdon, as he leaped, fell dead,
And safe is Wallace now.

Safe is Wallace with his men,
And silent is the hound;
And on their way to Castle Gask
They quit the sullen ground.

PART THE SECOND

W ALLACE lies in Castle Gask,
Safely with his men;
Not a soul has come, three days,
Within the warder's ken.

Safely with his men lies Wallace,
Yet he fareth ill;
There is fever in his blood;
His mind may not be still.

It was night, and all were housed,
Talking long and late;
Who is this that blows the horn
At the castle-gate?

Who is this that blows a horn
Which none but Wallace hears?
Loud and louder grows the blast
In his frenzied ears.

He sends by twos, he sends by threes,
He sends them all to learn;
He stands upon the stairs, and calls,
But none of them return.

Wallace flings him forth down stairs;
And there the moonlight fell
Across the yard upon a sight,
That makes him seem in hell.

Fawdon's headless trunk he sees,
With an arm in air,
Brandishing his bloody head
By the swinging hair.

Wallace with a stifled screech
Turned and fled amain,
Up the stairs, and through the bowers
With a burning brain:

From a window Wallace leaped
Fifteen feet to ground,
And never stopped till fast within
A nunnery's holy bound.

And then he turned, in gasping doubt,
To see the fiend retire,
And saw him not at hand, but saw
Castle Gask on fire.

All on fire was Castle Gask;
And on its top, endued
With the bulk of half a tower,
Headless Fawdon stood.

Wide he held a burning beam,
And blackly filled the light;
His body seemed, by some black art,
To look at Wallace, heart to heart,
Threatening through the night.

Wallace that day week arose
From a feeble bed;
And gentle though he was before,
Yet now to orphans evermore
He gentlier bowed his head.