Elegant Extracts: Book V. Pindaric, Horatian, and other odes ; Book VI ...

* RUIN seize thee, ruthless king!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"

*This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.

VOL III.

1

Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side

He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance: 'To arms!' cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance.

I. 2.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of wo,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, 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, oh king! their hundred arms they

wave,

Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe ; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

I. 3.

*

'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hush'd 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-topp'd head.

On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,
Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale :
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail;
The famish'd 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 line.

II. 1.

'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 re-echo with affright

The skrieks of death, through Berkley's roof that

ring,

Shrieks of an agonizing king!

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 hin wait!

Amazement in his van, with Flight combin'd,
And Sorrow's faded form and Solitude behind.

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