Nor oh forbid the twisted thorn,

That rudely binds his turf forlorn,

With spring's green-swelling buds to vegetate anew.

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What though no marble-piled bust
Adorn his desolated dust,

With speaking sculpture wrought?
Pity shall woo the weeping Nine

To build a visionary shrine,

Hung with unfading flowers, from fairy regions brought.

What though refus'd each chanted rite?

Her viewless mourners shall delight

To touch the shadowy shell:

And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom

Of Laura, lost in early bloom,

In many a pensive pause shall seem to ring his knell.

To sooth a lone, unhallow'd shade,

This votive dirge sad duty paid, '

Within an ivied nook:

Sudden the half-sunk orb of day

More radiant shot its parting ray,

And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention took:

,, Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praise;

Nor thus for guilt in specious lays

"

The wreath of glory twine:

,,In vain with hues of gorgeous glow

,Gay Fancy gives her vest to flow,

,, Unless truth's matron-hand the floating folds confine.

„Just Heaven, man's fortitude to prove,

"

Permits through life at large to rove

,,The tribes of hell-born woe:

Yet the same power that wisely sends

Life's fiercest ills, indulgent lends

,,Religion's golden shield to break th' embattled foe.

Her aid divine had lull'd to rest

Yon foul self-murderer's throbbing breast,

,,And stay'd the rising storm:

,,Had bade the sun of hope appear

,,To gild the darken'd hemisphere,

,,And give the wonted bloom to nature's blasted form.

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Vain man! 'tis Heaven's prerogative

To take, what first it deign'd to give,

,, Thy tributary breath:

,, In awful expectation plac'd,

,, Await thy doom, nor impious haste

,,To pluck from God's right hand his instruments of death."

3) THE GRAVE OF KING ARTHUR.
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King Henry the Second having undertaken an expedition into Ireland, to suppress a rebellion raised by Roderick King of Connaught, commonly called O Connor Dun, or the Brown Monarch of Ireland, was entertained, in his passage throngh Wales, with the songs of the Welsh bards. The subject of their poetry was King Arthur, whose history had been so disguised by fabulous in ventions, that the place of his burial was in general scarcely known or remembered. But in one of these Welsh poems sung before Henry, it was recited, that King Arthur, after the battle of Camlan, in Cornwall, was, interred at Glastonbury) abbey, before the high altar, yet without any external mark or memorial. AfterwardsHenry visited the abbey, and commanded the spot described by the bard to be opened: when digging near ao feet deep, they found the body, deposited under a large stone, inscribed with Arthur's name. This is the ground-work of the following ode: but for the better accommodation of the story to our present purpose, is told with some slight variations from the Chronicle of Glastonbury. The Castle of Cilgarran, where this discovery is supposed to have been made, now a romantic ruin, stands on a rock des cending to the river Teivi, in Pembrokeshire; and was built by Roger Montgomery, who led the van of the Normans at Hastings.

Stately the feast, and high the cheer;

Girt with many an armed peer,
And canopied with golden pall,
Amid Cilgarran's castle hall,

*) Das Kloster zu Glastonbury nahm zur Zeit seines Flors einen Strich von 6o Meilen ein. Jetzt ist nichts mehr übrig als ein kleiner Theil der Kirche, Trümmer von der Josephs-Kapelle, die Küche des Abts und etliche morsche Mauern.

Die Britti

schen Barden, unter welchen sich die Überlieferung von dem Tode und dem Begräbnisse des grofsen Königs Arthur erhal ten hatte, waren in die Wallisischen Berge geflüchtet, als ihr Land von den sachsen erobert wurde. Allg. geographische Ephemeriden. Dezember 1800.

it

Sublime in formidable state,

And warlike splendour, Henry sate;
Prepar'd to stain the briny flood

Of Shannon's lakes with rebel blood.
Illumining the vaulted roof,

A thousand torches flam'd aloof:

From massy cups, with golden gleam,
Sparkled the red metheglin's stream:
To grace the gorgeous festival,
Along the lofty-window'd hall,
The storied tapestry was hung:
With minstrelsy the rafters rung
Of harps, that with reflected light
From the proud gallery glitter'd bright:
While gifted bards, a rival throng,
(From distant Mona, nurse of song,
From Teivi, fring'd with umbrage brown,
From Elvy's vale, and Cader's crown,
From many a shaggy precipice
That shades Ierne's hoarse abyss,
And many a sunless solitude

Of Radnor's inmost mountains rude,)
To crown the banquet's solemn close,
Themes of British glory chose;
And to the strings of various chime
Attemper'd thus the fabling rhyme:

,, O'er Cornwall's cliffs the tempest roar'd,
,,High the screaming sea-mew soar'd;
On Tintaggel's *) topmost tower

,, Darksome fell the sleety shower;
,,Round the rough castle shrilly sung

The whirling blast, and wildly flung On each tall rampart's thundering side ,,The surges of the tumbling tide:

,, When Arthur rang'd his red - cross ranks

On conscious Camlan's crimson'd banks:

*) Tintaggel, or Tintadged castle, where King Arthur is said to have been born, and to have chiefly resided. Some of its huge fragments still remain, on a rocky peninsular cape, of a prodigious declivity towards the sea, and almost inaccessible from the land side, on the southern coasts of Cornwall.

,By Mordred's faithless guile decreed
Beneath a Saxon spear to bleed!
, Yet in vain a paynim foe

,,Arm'd with fate the mighty blow;
,,For when he fell, an elfin queen,
,,All in secret, and unseen,

,, O'er the fainting hero threw
„Her mantle of ambrosial blue;
,, And bade her spirits bear him far
,,In, Merlin's agate-axled car,
,,To her green isle's enamel'd steep,
,, Far in the navel of the deep.

,, O'er his wounds she sprinkled dew
,,From flowers that in Arabia grew:
On a rich enchanted bed

And the brave tournaments of yore." They ceas'd: when on the tuneful stage Advanc'd a bard, of aspect sage; His silver tresses, thin besprent, To age a graceful reverence lent; His beard, all white as spangles frore That clothe Plinlimmon's forests hoar, Down to his harp descending flow'd; With time's faint rose his features glow'd;

"

But boastful fiction should be dumb,

Where truth the strain might best become. ,,If thine ear may still be won

,, With songs of Uther's glorious son;

Nor sung nor harp'd in hall or bower;
Which in my youth's full early flower,
A minstrel, sprung of Cornish line,

,, Who spoke of kings from old Locrine,
,, Taught me to chant, one 'vernal dawn,
‚Deep in a cliff- encircled lawn,
,,What time the glistening vapours fled
,,From cloud-envelop'd Clyder's *) head;
And on its sides the torrents gray

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Shone to the morning's orient ray.

When Arthur bow'd his haughty crest,

,,No princess, veil'd in azure vest,

Snatch'd him, by Merlin's potent spell,
,,In groves of golden bliss to dwell;

,, Where, crown'd with wreaths of misletoe,
,, Slaughter'd kings in glory go:

"

But when he fell, with winged speed,

,,His champions, on a milk-white steed,

,,From the battle's hurricane,

*) Or Glyder, a mountain in Caernarvonshire.

**) Glastonbury abbey, said to be founded by Joseph of Arimathea, in a spot anciently called the island or valley of Avalonia.