330

To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria s tears!
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance :
"To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couched his quiv.
ering lance.

THE BARD.

On a rock whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air), And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. "Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! O'er thee, O king, their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe ; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,

To highborn Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hushed the stormy main;

Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed;

Mountains, ye mourn in vain

Modred, whose magic song

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head!
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,
Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail ;
The famished eagle screams and passes by
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,

Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries!
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
I see them sit! they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land :
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy lire! "

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,

The winding-sheet of Edward's race;
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace!

Mark the year, and mark the night,

When Severn shall reëcho with affright

The shrieks of death through Berkeley's roofs that

ring,

Shrieks of an agonizing king!1

She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heaven! What terrors round him

wait!

.

Amazement in his van, with flight combined;
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind! 3

Mighty victor, mighty lord,

Low on his funeral couch he lies!

No pitying heart, no eye afford
A tear to grace his obsequies! 4

1 Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley castle.

2 Isabel of France, queen of Edward the Second.

3 Triumphs of Edward the Third in France.

4 Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his .ast moments by his courtiers.

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I

fled?

Is the sable warrior
Thy son' is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm, that in the noontide beam were borne,
Gone to salute the rising morn.

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;

Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ; 2
Regardless of the sleeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening

prey.

THE BARD.

"Fill high the sparkling bowl,

The rich repast prepare;

Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast :
Close by the regal chair

Fell thirst and famine scowl

A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.3

Heard ye the din of battle bray,

Lance to lance, and horse to horse ?

Long years of havoc urge their destined course, And through the kindred squadrons mow their

way.

4

Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed, 5

1 Edward, the Black Prince, dead some time before his father.

2 Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign.

3 Richard the Second, as we are told by all the older writers, was starved to death.

4 Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster.

5 Henry the Sixth, George, Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard, Duke of York, &c. believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is attributed to Julius Cæsar.

1

Revere his consort's faith, his father's 2 fame,
And spare the meek usurper's holy head! 3
Above, below, the rose of snow

Twined with her blushing foe 4 we spread:
The bristled boar 5 in infant gore

Wallows beneath the thorny shade.

Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom!

66

Edward, lo! to sudden fate

(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.) Half of thy heart we consecrate ! 6

(The web is wove. The work is done.)" Stay, O, stay! nor thus forlorn

66

Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn!
In yon bright track that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes!
But, O, what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.7
All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia's issue, hail! 8

1 Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown.

2 Henry the Fifth.

3 Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown.

4 The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster. 5 The silver boar was the badge of Richard the Third; whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of the Boar.

6 Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales.

"It was the common belief of the Welsh nation that king Arthur was still alive in Fairy-land, and would return again to reign over Britain.

8 Both Medin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain the sovereignty of this island; which scemed to be accomplished in the House of Tudor.

"Girt with many a baron bold,
Sublime their stony fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old,
In bearded majesty appear.
In the midst a form divine! 1

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line;
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attempered sweet to virgin grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air!
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin,2 hear!
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay;
Bright rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colored

wings.

"The verse adorn again,

Fierce war, and faithful love,

And truth severe, by fairy fiction dressed.

In buskined measures 3 move

Pale grief, and pleasing pain,

With honor, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice, as of the cherub-choir,

4

Gales from blooming Eden bear;

And distant warblings 5 lessen on my ear,
That lost in long futurity expire.

Fond, impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,
Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day?
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray.

1 Queen Elizabeth.

2 Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration among his countrymen.

3

Shakspeare.

4 Milton.

5 The succession of poets after Milton's time.