Detain me yet amid the lovely throng,2
Hold yet thy Sabbat, thou melodious spell!
Still to the circle of enchanted song
Charm the high Mage of Druid parable,
The Fairy, bard-led from her Caspian Sea,
And Genius, lured from caves in Araby!
Though me, less fair if less familiar ways,3
Sought in the paths by earlier steps untrod,
Allure—yet ever, in the marvel-maze,
The flowers afar perfume the virgin sod;
The simplest leaf in fairy gardens cull,
And round thee opens all the Beautiful!
Alas! the sunsets of our Northern main4
Soon lose the tints Hesperian Fancy weaves;
Soon the sweet river feels the icy chain,
And haunted forests shed their murmurous leaves;
The bough must wither, and the bird depart,
And winter clasp the world—as life the heart!
A day had pass'd since first the Saxons fled5
Before the Christian, and their war lay still;
From morn to eve the Cymrian riders spread
Where flocks yet graze on some remoter hill,
Pale, on the walls, fast-sinking Famine waits,
When hark, the droves come lowing through the gates!
Yet still, the corpse of Caradoc around,6
All day, and far into the watch of night,
The grateful victors guard the sacred ground;
But in that hour when all his race of light
Leave Eos lone in heaven,—earth's hollow breast
Oped to the dawn-star and the singer's rest.
Now, ere they lower'd the corpse, with noiseless tread7
Still as a sudden shadow, Merlin came
Through the arm'd crowd; and paused before the dead,
And, looking on the face, thrice call'd the name.
Then, hush'd through all an awed compassion ran,
And all gave way to the old quiet man.
For Cymri knew that of her children none8
Had, like the singer, loved the lonely sage;
All felt, that there a father call'd a son
Out from that dreariest void,—bereavèd age;
Forgot the dread renown, the mystic art,
And saw but sacred there—the human heart!
And thrice the old man kiss'd the lips that smiled,9
And thrice he call'd the name,—then to the grave,
Hush'd as the nurse that bears a sleeping child
To its still mother's breast,—the form he gave:
With tender hand composed the solemn rest,
And laid the harp upon the silent breast.
And then he sate him down, a little space10
From the dark couch, and so of none took heed;
But lifting to the twilight skies his face,
That secret soul which never man could read,
Far as the soul it miss'd, from human breath,
Rose—where Thought rises when it follows Death!
And swells and falls in gusts the funeral dirge11
As hollow falls the mould, or swells the mound;
And (Cymri's warlike wont) upon the verge
The orbèd shields are placed in rows around;
Now o'er the dead, grass waves;—the rite is done;
And a new grave shall greet a rising sun.