VIII

TEMPTATIONS FROM ROMAN

REFINEMENTS

1821 1822

WATCH, and be firm! for, soul-subduing vice,
Heart-killing luxury, on your steps await.
Fair houses, baths, and banquets delicate,
And temples flashing, bright as polar ice,
Their radiance through the woods

fice

To sap your hardy virtue, and abate

may yet suf

Your love of Him upon whose forehead sate

The crown of thorns; whose life-blood flowed, the price

Of your redemption. Shun the insidious arts

That Rome provides, less dreading from her frown Than from her wily praise, her peaceful gown, Language, and letters; - these, though fondly viewed

As humanising graces, are but parts

And instruments of deadliest servitude!

IX

DISSENSIONS

1821 1822

THAT heresies should strike (if truth be scanned
Presumptuously) their roots both wide and deep,
Is natural as dreams to feverish sleep.

Lo! Discord at the altar dares to stand
Uplifting toward high Heaven her fiery brand,
A cherished Priestess of the new-baptized!
But chastisement shall follow peace despised.
The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land
By Rome abandoned; vain are suppliant cries,
And prayers that would undo her forced farewell;
For she returns not. Awed by her own knell,
She casts the Britons upon strange Allies

Soon to become more dreaded enemies

Than heartless misery called them to repel.

X

STRUGGLE OF THE BRITONS AGAINST

RISE!

THE BARBARIANS

1821 1822

they have risen: of brave Aneurin ask

How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends:
The Spirit of Caractacus descends

Upon the Patriots, animates their task; -
Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The virgin sculptured on his Christian shield:-
Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask
The Host that followed Urien as he strode
O'er heaps of slain; — from Cambrian wood and

moss

Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross;

Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode,
Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!

XI

SAXON CONQUEST

1821 1822

NOR wants the cause the panic-striking aid
Of hallelujahs 44 tost from hill to hill-
For instant victory. But Heaven's high will
Permits a second and a darker shade

Of Pagan night. Afflicted and dismayed,

The Relics of the sword flee to the mountains:

O wretched Land! whose tears have flowed like

fountains;

Whose arts and honours in the dust are laid

By men yet scarcely conscious of a care

For other monuments than those of Earth; 45

Who, as the fields and woods have given them birth,

Will build their savage fortunes only there;

Content, if foss, and barrow, and the girth

Of long-drawn rampart, witness what they were.

XII

MONASTERY OF OLD BANGOR 46

1821 1822

THE oppression of the tumult-wrath and scorn —
The tribulation - and the gleaming blades —
Such is the impetuous spirit that pervades
The song of Taliesin; Ours shall mourn

The unarmed Host who by their prayers would turn
The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store
Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,

And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things swerve
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream
And some indignant Hills old names preserve,
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!