Classic Poem

An Epitaph M. Shelley slain at Musselburgh

When Mars had moved mortal hate
and forced furnish heat,
And high Bellona had decreed
to sit with sword in seat,
The Scots untrue, with fighting hand
their promise to deny,
Assembled fast, and England thought
the troth with them to try;
Chose Musselburgh their fighting place,
amid those barren fields
Their breach of faith there not to try
with troth, but trothless shields.
In battle brave and army strong
encamped sure they lay,
Ten Scots to one (a dreadful thing,
a doleful fighting day)
That Englishmen were all aghast,
with quaking staves in hand,
To see their enemies lie so near,
and death with them to stand.
No other remedy there was
but fight it out or fly,
And who should first the onset give
was sure therein to die.
Thus all dismayed and wrapped in fear
with doubtful mind they stand,
If best it be, with fight of foot
to strive, or flight of hand.
Till at the length, a captain stout
with haughty mind gan speak:
" O cowards all, and maidly men,
of courage faint and weak,
" Unworthy come of Brutus' race!
is this your manhood gone,
" And is there none, you dastards all,
that dare them set upon?"
Then Shelley all inflamed with heat,
with heat of valiant mind:
" No cowards we, nor maidly men,
ne yet of dastards' kind
" I would you wist did ever come,
but dare be bold to try
" Our manhood here, though nought appear
but death to all men's eye."
And with these words (O noble heart)
no longer there he stayed,
But forth before them all he sprang
as one no whit dismayed.
With charged staff on foaming horse
his spurs with heels he strikes,
And forward runs with swifty race
among the mortal pikes.
And in this race with famous end,
to do his country good,
Gave onset first upon his foes,
and lost his vital blood.