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, [line's And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy

II. 1. · Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The windingsheet 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 reecho with affright The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roof that Shrieks of an agonizing King '4!

[ring, She wolf of France's, 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

No pitying heart, no eye, afford
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled 18?

Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm, that in thy noontide beam were born?
Gone to salute the rising morn.

19

Fair laughs the morn '9, 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: Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening

prey.

II. 3.

"

Fill high the sparkling bowl 20,

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. 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.

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

19 Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See Froissart and other contemporary writers.

20 Richard the Second, as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and the confederate Lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and all the older writers, was starved to death. The story of his assassination, by Sir Piers of Exton, is of much later date.

1

Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster.

<

Ye Towers of Julius 22, London's lasting shame,

With many a foul and midnight murder fed, Revere his consort's faith 23, his father's fame 24, And spare the meek usurper's holy head". Above, below, the rose of

26

snow 9

Twined with her blushing foe, we spread: The bristled Boar 27 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.

JII. 1.

Edward, lo! to sudden fate

(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.)
Half of thy heart we consecrate 28.
(The web is wove. The work is done.)
Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn:

22 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 vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar.

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

24 Henry the Fifth.

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

26 The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster.

27 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.

In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
But oh! 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 29,
All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail 3o !

III. 2.

'Girt with many a Baron bold Sublime their starry fronts they rear;

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.

In the midst a form divine!
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line;
Her lion port, her awe-commanding face 31,
Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air,

32

What strains of vocal transport round her play! Hear from the grave, great Talliessin 32, 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-coloured

wings.

III. 3.

34

• The verse adorn again

Fierce War, and faithful Love 33,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dress’d.

In buskin’d measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.

A voice, as of the cherub-choir 35,
Gales from blooming Eden bear:
And distant warblings lesson on my ear 36,

That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond impious man, think’st thou yon sanguine

cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb

of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me: with joy I see

The different doom our fates assign. Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care, To triumph, and to die, are mine.' He spoke; and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.