"Joy," cried the King, "behold, the land lives still!"150
Then Gawaine pointed, where in lengthening line
The Saxon watch-fires from the haunted hill
(Shorn of its forest old) their blood-red shine
Fling over Isca, and with wrathful flush
Gild the vast storm-cloud of the armèd hush.
"Ay," said the King, "in that lull'd Massacre151
Doth no ghost whisper Crida—'Sleep no more!'
"Hark, where I stand, dark murder-chief, on thee
I launch the doom! ye airs, that wander o'er
Ruins and graveless bones, to Crida's sleep
Bear Cymri's promise, which her king shall keep!"
As thus he spoke, upon his outstretch'd arm152
A light touch trembled,—turning he beheld
The maiden of the tomb; a wild alarm
Shone from her eyes; his own their terror spell'd.
Struggling for speech, the pale lips writhed apart,
And, as she clung, he heard her beating heart;
While Arthur marvelling soothed the agony153
Which, comprehending not, he still could share,
Sudden sprang Gawaine—hark! a timorous cry
Pierced yon dim shadows! Arthur look'd, and where
On artful valves revolved the stony door,
A kneeling nun his knight is bending o'er.
Ere the nun's fears the knightly words dispel,154
As towards the spot the maid and monarch came,
On Arthur's brow the slanted moonbeams fell,
And the nun knew the King, and call'd his name,
And clasp'd his knees, and sobb'd through joyous tears,
"Once more; once more! our God his people hears!"
Kin to his blood—the welcome face of one155
Known as a saint throughout the Christian land,
Arthur recall'd, and as a pious son
Honouring a mother—on that sacred hand
Bent low, in murmuring—"Say, what mercy saves
Thee, blest survivor in this shrine of graves?"
Then the nun led them through the artful door,156
Mask'd in the masonry, adown a stair
That coil'd its windings to the grottoed floor
Of vaulted chambers desolately fair;
Wrought in the green hill, like an Oread's home,
For summer heats by some soft lord of Rome,
On shells, which nymphs from silver sands might cull,157
On paved mosaics, and long-silenced fount,
On marble waifs of the far Beautiful
By graceful spoiler garner'd from the mount
Of vocal Delphi, or the Elean town,
Or Sparta's rival of the violet-crown—
Shone the rude cresset from the homely shrine158
Of that new Power, upon whose Syrian Cross
Perish'd the antique Jove! And the grave sign
Of the glad faith (which, for the lovely loss
Of poet-gods, their own Olympus frees
To men!—our souls the new Uranides),
High from the base on which of old reposed159
Grape-crown'd Iacchus, spoke the Saving Woe!
The place itself the sister's tale disclosed.
Here, while, amidst the hamlet doom'd below,
Raged the fierce Saxon—was retreat secured;
Nor gnaw'd the flame where those deep vaults immured.