THE CONQUEROR’S SLEEP.
Sleep midst thy banners furl’d!
Yes! thou art there, upon thy buckler lying,
With the soft wind unfelt around thee sighing,
Thou chief of hosts, whose trumpet shakes the world!
Sleep, while the babe sleeps on its mother’s breast.
Oh! strong is night—for thou too art at rest!
Stillness hath smooth’d thy brow,
And now might love keep timid vigils by thee,
Now might the foe with stealthy foot draw nigh thee,
Alike unconscious and defenceless thou!
Tread lightly, watchers! Now the field is won,
Break not the rest of nature’s weary son!
Perchance some lovely dream
Back from the stormy fight thy soul is bearing,
To the green places of thy boyish daring,
And all the windings of thy native stream.
Why, this were joy! Upon the tented plain,
Dream on, thou Conqueror!—be a child again!
But thou wilt wake at morn,
With thy strong passions to the conflict leaping,
And thy dark troubled thoughts all earth o’ersweeping;
So wilt thou rise, O thou of woman born!
And put thy terrors on, till none may dare
Look upon thee—the tired one, slumbering there!
Why, so the peasant sleeps
Beneath his vine!—and man must kneel before thee,
And for his birthright vainly still implore thee!
Shalt thou be stay’d because thy brother weeps?—
Wake! and forget that midst a dreaming world,
Thou hast lain thus, with all thy banners furl’d!
Forget that thou, even thou,
Hast feebly shiver’d when the wind pass’d o’er thee,
And sunk to rest upon the earth which bore thee,
And felt the night-dew chill thy fever’d brow!
Wake with the trumpet, with the spear press on!—
Yet shall the dust take home its mortal son.
OUR LADY’S WELL.[327]
Fount of the woods! thou art hid no more
From heaven’s clear eye, as in time of yore.
For the roof hath sunk from thy mossy walls,
And the sun’s free glance on thy slumber falls;
And the dim tree-shadows across thee pass,
As the boughs are sway’d o’er thy silvery glass;
And the reddening leaves to thy breast are blown,
When the autumn wind hath a stormy tone;
And thy bubbles rise to the flashing rain—
Bright Fount! thou art nature’s own again!
Fount of the vale! thou art sought no more
By the pilgrim’s foot, as in time of yore,
When he came from afar, his beads to tell,
And to chant his hymn at Our Lady’s Well.
There is heard no Ave through thy bowers,
Thou art gleaming lone midst thy water-flowers!
But the herd may drink from thy gushing wave,
And there may the reaper his forehead lave,
And the woodman seeks thee not in vain—
Bright Fount! thou art nature’s own again!
Fount of the Virgin’s ruin’d shrine!
A voice that speaks of the past is thine!
It mingles the tone of a thoughtful sigh
With the notes that ring through the laughing sky;
Midst the mirthful song of the summer bird,
And the sound of the breeze, it will yet be heard!—
Why is it that thus we may gaze on thee,
To the brilliant sunshine sparkling free?
’Tis that all on earth is of Time’s domain—
He hath made thee nature’s own again!
Fount of the chapel with ages gray!
Thou art springing freshly amidst decay;
Thy rites are closed, and thy cross lies low,
And the changeful hours breathe o’er thee now.
Yet if at thine altar one holy thought
In man’s deep spirit of old hath wrought;
If peace to the mourner hath here been given,
Or prayer, from a chasten’d heart, to heaven—
Be the spot still hallow’d while Time shall reign,
Who hath made thee nature’s own again!
[327] A beautiful spring in the woods near St Asaph, formerly covered in with a chapel, now in ruins. It was dedicated to the Virgin, and, according to Pennant, much the resort of pilgrims.
[Those who only know the neighbourhood of St Asaph from travelling along its highways, can be little aware how much delightful scenery is attainable within walks of two or three miles’ distance from Mrs Hemans’s residence. The placid beauty of the Clwyd, and the wilder graces of the sister stream, the Elwy, particularly in the vicinity of “Our Lady’s Well,” and the interesting rocks and caves at Cefn, are little known to general tourists; though, by the lovers of her poetry, it will be remembered how sweetly she has apostrophised the
“Fount of the chapel with ages gray;”
and how tenderly, amid far different scenes, her thoughts reverted to the
“Cambrian river with slow music gliding,
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruin’d towers.”
—(Sonnet to the River Clwyd.)
—Memoir, p. 92-3.]