Lull’d to everlasting rest,
With folded arms and gory breast—
Cold in death, and ghastly pale,
Chieftains press the reeky vale,
Who late, amidst their kindred throng,
Prepar’d the feast, and join’d the song;
Or like the sudden tempest rose,
And hurl’d destruction on the foes.
Warriors I saw who led the fray,
Stern desolation strew’d their way;
Aloft the glitt’ring blade they bore,
Their garments hung with clotted gore.
The furious thrust, the clanging shield,
Confound the long-disputed field.
But when Rheged’s chief pursues,
His way through iron ranks he hews;
Hills pil’d on hills, the strangers bleed:
Amaz’d I view his daring deed!
Destruction frowning on his brow,
Close he urg’d the panting foe,
’Till hemm’d around, they met the shock,
Before Galysten’s hoary rock.
Death and torment strew’d his path;
His dreadful blade obey’d his wrath:
Beneath their shields the strangers lay,
Shrinking from the fatal day.
Thus in victorious armour bright,
Thou brave Euronwy, pant for fight:
With such examples in thine eyes,
Haste to grasp the hero’s prize.
And till old age has left me dumb—
Till death has call’d me to the tomb—
May cheerful joys ne’er crown my days,
Unless I sing of Urien’s praise!
TALIESIN’S PROPHECY. [{86}]
By Mrs. Hemans.
A voice from time departed, yet floats thy hills among,
O Cambria! thus thy prophet bard, thy Taliesin sung,
The path of unborn ages is trac’d upon my soul,
The clouds, which mantle things unseen, away before me roll.
A light, the depths revealing, hath o’er my spirit passed;
A rushing sound from days to be swells fitful on the blast,
And tells me that for ever shall live the lofty tongue,
To which the harp of Mona’s woods by Freedom’s hand was strung.