Bright as the shape that smote the Assyrian,142
The fulgent splendour from the arms divine
Paled the hell-fires round God's elected Man,
And burst like Truth upon the demon-shrine.
Among the thousands stood the Conquering One,
Still, lone, and unresisted as a sun!
Now through the doors, commingling side by side,143
Saxon and Cymrian struggle hand in hand;
For there the war, in its fast ebbing tide,
Flings its last prey—there, Crida takes his stand;
There his co-monarchs hail a funeral pyre
That opes Walhalla from the grave of fire.
And as a tiger swept adown a flood144
With meaner beasts, that dyes the howling water
Which whirls it onward, with a waste of blood,
And gripes a stay with fangs that leave the slaughter,—
So where halts Crida, groans and falls a foe—
And deep in gore his steps receding go.
And his large sword has made in reeking air145
Broad space (through which, around the golden ring
That crownlike clasps the sweep of his grey hair,)
Shine the tall helms of many a Teuton king;
Lord of the West—broad-breasted Chevaline;
And Ymrick's son of Hengist's giant line;
Fierce Sibert, throned by Britain's kingliest river,146
And Elrid, honour'd in Northumbrian homes;
And many a sire whose stubborn soul for ever
Shadows the fields where England's thunder comes.
High o'er them all his front grey Crida rears,
As some old oak whose crest a forest clears.
High o'er them all, that front fierce Arthur sees,147
And knows the arch-invader of the land;
Swift through the chiefs—swift path his falchion frees;
Corpse falls on corpse before the avenger's hand;
For fair-hair'd Ælla, Cantia's maids shall wail;
Hurl'd o'er the dead, rings Elrid's crashing mail;
His follower's arms stunn'd Sibert's might receive,148
And from the death-blow snatch their bleeding lord;
And now behold, O fearful Geneviève,
O'er thy doom'd father shines the charmèd sword,
And shaking, as it shone, the glorious blade,
The hand for very wrath the death delay'd.
"At last, at last we meet, on Cymri's soil;149
And foot to foot! Destroyer of my shrines,
And murderer of my people! Ay, recoil
Before the doom thy quailing soul divines!
Ay—turn thine eyes,—nor hosts nor flight can save!
Thy foe is Arthur—and these halls thy grave!"
"Flight," laugh'd the king, whose glance had wander'd round,150
Where through the throng had pierced a woman's cry,
"Flight for a chief, by Saxon warriors crown'd,
And from a Walloon!—this is my reply!"
And, both hands heaving up the sword enorme,
Swept the swift orbit round the luminous form;
Full on the gem the iron drives its course,151
And shattering clinks in splinters on the floor;
The foot unsteadied by the blow's spent force,
Slides on the smoothness of the soil of gore;
Gore, quench the blood-thirst! guard, O soil, the guest!
For Freedom's heel is on the Invader's breast!