"If not your valour, let your terrors speak.162
Where fly?—what path can lead ye from the foes?
Where hide?—what cavern will not vengeance seek?
What shun ye? Death?—Death smites ye in repose!
Back to your king: from Hela snatch the brave—
We best escape, when most we scorn, the grave."
Roused by the words, though half reluctant still,163
The listless ranks reform their slow array,
Sullen but stern they labour up the hill,
And gain the brow!—In smouldering embers lay
The castled camp, and slanting sunbeams shed
Light o'er the victors—quiet o'er the dead.
Hush'd was the roar of war—the conquer'd ground164
Waved with the glitter of the Cymrian spears;
The temple fort the Dragon standard crown'd;
And Christian anthems peal'd on Pagan ears;
The Mercian halts his bands—their front surveys;
No fierce eye kindles to his fiery gaze.
One dull, dishearten'd, but not dastard gloom165
Clouds every brow,—like men compell'd to die,
Who see no hope that can elude the doom,
Prepared to fall but powerless to defy.
Not those the ranks, yon ardent hosts to face!
The Hour had conquer'd earth's all-conquering race.
The leader paused, and into artful show,166
Doubling the numbers with extended wing;
"Here halt," he said, "to yonder hosts I go
With terms of peace or war to Cymri's king."
He turn'd, and towards the Victor's bright array,
With tromp and herald, strode his bitter way.
Before the signs to war's sublime belief167
Sacred, the host disparts its hushing wave.
Moved by the sight of that renownèd chief,
Joy stills the shout that might insult the brave;
And princeliest guides the stately foeman bring,
Where Odin's temple shrines the Christian king.
The North's fierce idol, roll'd in pools of blood,168
Lies crush'd before the Cross of Nazareth.
Crouch'd on the splinter'd fragments of their god,
Silent as clouds from which the tempest's breath
Has gone,—the butchers of the priesthood rest.—
Each heavy brow bent o'er each stony breast.
Apart, the guards of Cymri stand around169
The haught repose of captive Teuton kings;
With eyes disdainful of the chains that bound,
And fronts superb—as if defeat but flings
A kinglier grandeur over fallen power:—
So suns shine larger in their setting hour.
From these remote, unchain'd, unguarded, leant170
On the gnarl'd pillar of the fort of pine,
The Saturn of the Titan armament,
His looks averted from the alter'd shrine
Whence iron Doom the antique Faith has hurl'd,
For that new Jove who dawns upon the world!
And one broad hand conceal'd the monarch's face;171
And one lay calm on the low-bended head
Of the forgiving child, whose young embrace
Clasp'd that grey wreck of Empire! All had fled
The heart of pride:—Thrones, hosts, the gods! yea all
That scaled the heaven, strew'd Hades with their fall!