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Marmion

Anne dyes her hair green by accident in Chapter 27 of Anne of Green Gables:

“”Oh, Marilla, what shall I do?” questioned Anne in tears. “I can never live this down. People have pretty well forgotten my other mistakes–the liniment cake and setting Diana drunk and flying into a temper with Mrs. Lynde. But they’ll never forget this. They will think I am not respectable. Oh, Marilla, `what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’ That is poetry, but it is true. And oh, how Josie Pye will laugh! Marilla, I CANNOT face Josie Pye. I am the unhappiest girl in Prince Edward Island.”

In Chapter 29 of Anne of Green Gables, Anne recites Marmion:

The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them dreamily, repeating aloud the battle canto from Marmion–which had also been part of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss Stacy had made them learn off by heart–and exulting in its rushing lines and the clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines

The stubborn spearsmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better fancy herself one of that heroic ring.

The quote “What a tangled web we weave…” comes from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, Marmion.

In Chapter 3 of Rainbow Valley, Anne’s children are described and mention is made of Anne’s son Walter writing a poem in imitation of Marmion:

Di and Walter were especial chums; Di was the only one to whom he would ever read the verses he wrote himself–the only one who knew that he was secretly hard at work on an epic, strikingly resembling “Marmion” in some things, if not in others. She kept all his secrets, even from Nan, and told him all hers.

in Chapter 14 of Rilla of Ingleside, Walter quotes from Marmion as he talks to Rilla about fighting in World War i.

“There are–plenty–without you.”

“That isn’t the point, Rilla-my-Rilla. I’m going for my own sake–to save my soul alive. It will shrink to something small and mean and lifeless if I don’t go. That would be worse than blindness or mutilation or any of the things I’ve feared.”

“You may–be–killed,” Rilla hated herself for saying it–she knew it was a weak and cowardly thing to say–but she had rather gone to pieces after the tension of the evening.

“‘Comes he slow or comes he fast
It is but death who comes at last.’”

quoted Walter. “It’s not death I fear–I told you that long ago. One can pay too high a price for mere life, little sister. There’s so much hideousness in this war–I’ve got to go and help wipe it out of the world. I’m going to fight for the beauty of life, Rilla-my-Rilla–that is my duty. There may be a higher duty, perhaps–but that is mine. I owe life and Canada that, and I’ve got to pay it. Rilla, to-night for the first time since Jem left I’ve got back my self-respect. I could write poetry,” Walter laughed. “I’ve never been able to write a line since last August. To-night I’m full of it. Little sister, be brave–you were so plucky when Jem went.”

The title of A Tangled Web comes from Marmion.

Marmion
By Sir Walter Scott

(excerpt)
XVII.

‘In brief, my lord, we both descried
(For then I stood by Henry’s side)
The Palmer mount, and outwards ride,
Upon the Earl’s own favourite steed:
All sheathed he was in armour bright,
And much resembled that same knight,
Subdued by you in Cotswold fight:
Lord Angus wish’d him speed.’–
The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,
A sudden light on Marmion broke;–
‘Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!’
He mutter’d; ‘Twas nor fay nor ghost
I met upon the moonlight wold,
But living man of earthly mould.–
O dotage blind and gross!
Had I but fought as wont, one thrust
Had laid De Wilton in the dust,
My path no more to cross.–
How stand we now?–he told his tale
To Douglas; and with some avail;
‘Twas therefore gloom’d his rugged brow.–
Will Surrey dare to entertain,
‘Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?
Small risk of that, I trow.
Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;
Must separate Constance from the Nun–
O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
A Palmer too!–no wonder why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye:
I might have known there was but one,
Whose look could quell Lord Marmion

XXXIV.

But as they left the dark’ning heath,
More desperate grew the strife of death,
The English shafts in volleys hail’d,
In headlong charge their horse assail’d;
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep
To break the Scottish circle deep,
That fought around their King.
But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,
Unbroken was the ring;
The stubborn spear-men still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,
Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.
No thought was there of dastard flight;
Link’d in the serried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;
Till utter darkness closed her wing
O’er their thin host and wounded King.
Then skilful Surrey’s sage commands
Led back from strife his shatter’d bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves, from wasted lands,
Sweep back to ocean blue.
Then did their loss his foemen know;
Their King, their Lords, their mightiest low,
They melted from the field, as snow,
When streams are swoln and south winds blow
Dissolves in silent dew.
Tweed’s echoes heard the ceaseless plash,
While many a broken band,
Disorder’d, through her currents dash,
To gain the Scottish land;
To town and tower, to down and dale,
To tell red Flodden’s dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.
Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong:
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,
Of Flodden’s fatal field,
Where shiver’d was fair Scotland’s spear,
And broken was her shield!

(excerpt)
XXX.

“And now my tongue the secret tells,
Not that remorse my bosom swells,
But to assure my soul that none
Shall ever wed with Marmion.
Had fortune my last hope betrayed,
This packet, to the King conveyed,
Had given him to the headsman’s stroke,
Although my heart that instant broke.
Now, men of death, work forth your will,
For I can suffer, and be still;
And come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last.

Click to read more ==> the complete Marmion (Gutenberg Etext)