The Siege of Carduel—The Saxon forces—Stanzas relative to Ludovick the Vandal, in explanation of the failure of his promised aid, and in description of the events in Vandal-land—The preparations of the Saxon host for the final assault on the City, under cover of the approaching night—The state of Carduel—Discord—Despondence—Famine—The apparent impossibility to resist the coming Enemy—Dialogue between Caradoc and Merlin—Caradoc hears his sentence, and is resigned—He takes his harp and descends into the town—The progress of Song; in its effects upon the multitude—Caradoc's address to the people he has roused, and the rush to the Council Hall—Meanwhile the Saxons reach the walls——The burst of the Cymrians—The Saxons retire into the plain between the Camp and the City, and there take their stand—The battle described—The single combat between Lancelot and Harold—Crida leads on his reserve; the Cymrians take alarm and waver—The prediction invented by the noble devotion of Caradoc—His fate—The enthusiasm of the Cymrians, and the retreat of the enemy to their Camp—The first entrance of a Happy Soul into Heaven—The Ghost that appears to Arthur, and leads him through the Cimmerian tomb to the Realm of Death—The sense of time and space are annihilated—Death, the Phantasmal Everywhere—Its brevity and nothingness—The condition of soul is life, whether here or hereafter—Fate and Nature identical—Arthur accosted by his Guardian Angel—After the address of that Angel (which represents what we call Conscience), Arthur loses his former fear both of the realm and the Phantom—He addresses the Ghost, which vanishes without reply to his question—The last boon—The destined Soother—Arthur recovering, as from a trance, sees the Maiden of the Tomb—Her description—The Dove is beheld no more—Strange resemblance between the Maiden and the Dove—Arthur is led to his ship, and sails at once for Carduel—He arrives on the Cymrian territory, and lands with Gawaine and the Maiden, near Carduel, amidst the ruins of a hamlet devastated by the Saxons—He seeks a Convent, of which only one tower, built by the Romans, remains—From the hill-top he surveys the walls of Carduel and the Saxon encampment—The appearance of the holy Abbess, who recognizes the King, and conducts him and his companions to the subterranean grottos built by the Romans for a summer retreat—He leaves the Maiden to the care of the Abbess, and concerts with Gawaine the scheme for attack on the Saxons—The Virgin is conducted to the cell of the Abbess—Her thoughts and recollections, which explain her history—Her resolution—She attempts to escape—Meets the Abbess, who hangs the Cross round her neck, and blesses her—She departs to the Saxon Camp.
King Crida's hosts are storming Carduel!1
From vale to mount one world of armour shines,
Round castled piles for which the forest fell,
Spreads the white war-town of the Teuton lines;
To countless clarions countless standards swell;
King Crida's hosts axe storming Carduel!
There, all its floods the Saxon deluge pours;2
All the fierce tribes; from those whose fathers first,
With their red seaxes from the southward shores,
Carved realms for Hengist,—to the bands that burst
Along the Humber, on the idle wall
Rome built for manhood rotted by her thrall.
There, wild allies from many a kindred race,3
In Cymrian lands hail Teuton thrones to be:
Dark Jutland wails her absent populace,—
And large-limb'd sons, his waves no more shall see,
Leave Danube desolate! afar they roam
Where halts the Raven there to find a home!
But wherefore fail the Vandal's promised bands?4
Well said the Greek, "Not till his latest hour
Deem man secure from Fortune;" in our hands
We clutch the sunbeam when we grasp at power;—
No strength detains the unsubstantial prize,
The light escapes us as the moment flies.
And monarchs envied Ludovick the Great!5
And wisdom's seers his wiles did wisdom call,
And Force stood sentry at his castle gate,
And Mammon soothed the murmurers in the hall;
For Freedom's forms disguised the despot's thought—
He ruled by synods—and the synods bought!
Yet empires rest not or on gold or steel;6
The old in habit strike the gnarlèd root;
But vigorous faith—the young fresh sap of zeal,
Must make the life-blood of the planted shoot—
And new-born states, like new religions, need
Not the dull code, but the impassion'd creed.
Give but a cause, a child may be a chief!7
What cause to hosts can Ludovick supply?
Swift flies the Element of Power, Belief,
From all foundations hollow'd to a lie.
One morn, a riot in the streets arose,
And left the Vandal crownless at the close.
A plump of spears the riot could have crush'd!8
"Defend the throne, my spearmen!" cried the king.
The spearmen arm'd, and forth the spearmen rush'd,
When, woe! they took to reason on the thing!
And then conviction smote them on the spot,
That for that throne they did not care a jot.
With scuff and scum, with urchins loosed from school,9
Thieves, gleemen, jugglers, beggars, swell'd the riot;
While, like the gods of Epicurus, cool
On crowd and crown the spearmen look'd in quiet,
Till all its heads that Hydra call'd "The Many,"
Stretch'd hissing forth without a stroke at any.