Uplifting toward high Heaven her fiery brand, A cherished Priestess of the new-baptized! But chastisement shall follow peace despised. The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land By Rome abandoned; vain are suppliant cries, And prayers that would undo her forced farewell; For she returns not.-Awed by her own knell, She casts the Britons upon strange Allies
Soon to become more dreaded enemies Than heartless misery called them to repel.
STRUGGLE OF THE BRITONS AGAINST THE BARBARIANS.
RISE!-they have risen: of brave Aneurin ask How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends: The Spirit of Caractacus descends
Upon the Patriots, animates their task ;— Amazement runs before the towering casque Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field The virgin sculptured on his Christian shield:- Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask The Host that followed Urien as he strode
O'er heaps of slain ;-from Cambrian wood and moss Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross;
Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode, Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!
NOR wants the cause the panic-striking aid Of hallelujahs* tost from hill to hill- For instant victory. But Heaven's high will Permits a second and a darker shade
Of Pagan night. Afflicted and dismayed,
The Relics of the sword flee to the mountains:
O wretched Land! whose tears have flowed like fountains;
Whose arts and honours in the dust are laid
By men yet scarcely conscious of a care
For other monuments than those of Earth; Who, as the fields and woods have given them birth, Will build their savage fortunes only there;
Content, if foss, and barrow, and the girth Of long-drawn rampart, witness what they were.
MONASTERY OF OLD BANGor †.
THE oppression of the tumult-wrath and scorn— The tribulation-and the gleaming blades— Such it the impetuous spirit that pervades The song of Taliesin ;-Ours shall mourn
The unarmed Host who by their prayers would turn The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,
And Christian monuments, that now must burn To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things swerve From their known course, or vanish like a dream; Another language spreads from coast to coast; Only perchance some melancholy Stream And some indignant Hills old names preserve, When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!
A BRIGHT-HAIRED company of youthful slaves, Beautiful strangers, stand within the pale Of a sad market, ranged for public sale, Where Tiber's stream the immortal City laves; ANGLI by name; and not an ANGEL waves His wing who could seem lovelier to man's eye Than they appear to holy Gregory;
Who, having learnt that name, salvation craves For Them, and for their Land. The earnest Sire, His questions urging, feels, in slender ties Of chiming sound, commanding sympathies; DE-IRIANS-he would save them from God's IRE; Subjects of Saxon ELLA--they shall sing Glad HALLE-lujahs to the eternal King!
FOR ever hallowed be this morning fair, Blest be the unconscious shore on which ye tread, And blest the silver Cross, which ye, instead Of martial banner, in procession bear; The Cross preceding Him who floats in air, The pictured Saviour!-By Augustin led, They come and onward travel without dread, Chanting in barbarous ears a tuneful prayer— Sung for themselves, and those whom they would free! Rich conquest waits them :-the tempestuous sea Of Ignorance, that ran so rough and high And heeded not the voice of clashing swords, These good men humble by a few bare words, And calm with fear of God's divinity.
BUT, to remote Northumbria's royal Hall, Where thoughtful Edwin, tutored in the school Of sorrow, still maintains a heathen rule, Who comes with functions apostolical ?
Mark him, of shoulders curved, and stature tall, Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek, His prominent feature like an eagle's beak; A Man whose aspect doth at once appal
And strike with reverence. The Monarch leans Toward the pure truths this Delegate propounds Repeatedly his own deep mind he sounds. With careful hesitation,-then convenes A synod of his Councillors :-give ear, And what a pensive Sage doth utter, hear!
"MAN'S life is like a Sparrow, mighty King! "That-while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit "Housed near a blazing fire-is seen to flit "Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering, "Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing, "Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold; "But whence it came we know not, nor behold "Whither it goes. Even such, that transient Thing, "The human Soul; not utterly unknown
"While in the Body lodged, her warm abode; "But from what world She came, what woe or weal "On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown; "This mystery if the Stranger can reveal, "His be a welcome cordially bestowed*!"
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