Now ftruck the curfew, when the mellow throng.

Prais'd the kind Bard, and thank'd him for his fong:
Each to his pillow took the nearest way,
And flept till Chanticleer proclaim'd the day.

• Confufion on thy banners wait! Tho' fann'd by Conqueft's crimson wing,

They mock the air with idle ftate.

S Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, fhall avail,
To fave thy fecret foul from nightly fears,
• From Cambria's curfe, from Cambria's tears !*
Such were the founds, that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowden's fhaggy fide

He wound with toilfome march his long array.
Stout Glo'fter ftood aghaft in fpeechlefs trance:

• To arms !' cry'd Mortimer †, and couch'd his quiv'ring lance. I. 2.

On a rock, whofe haughty brow

Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,

Rob'd in the fable garb of woe,

With haggard eyes the poet flood;

Gilbert De Clare, furnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford,

fon-in-law to King Edward.

+ Edmond De Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore.

They were both lords-marchers, whofe lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the king in this expedition.

(Loofe

(Loofe his beard, and hoary hair

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep forrows of his lyre.

Hark! how each giant oak, and defart cave,
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O king! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarfer murmurs breathe;

• Vocal no more, fince Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or foft Llewellyn's lay.
I. 3.

Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hush'd the ftormy main ;

Brave Urien fleeps upon his craggy bed;

Mountains, ye mourn in vain

Modred, whofe magick fong

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-top'd head.
On dreary Avon's fhore they lie,

Smear'd with gore, and ghaftly pale:
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens fail;
The famifh'd eagle fcreams, and paffes by.
Dear, loft companions of my tuneful art,
• Dear, as the light that vifits these fad eyes,
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
'Ye dy'd amidst your dying country's cries—
No more I weep. They do not fleep.

On yonder cliffs, a griefly band,

I fee them fit; they linger yet,

* Cambden and others obferve, that eagles used annually to build their aërie among the rocks of Snowden, which from thence (as fome think) were named by the Welch Craigian-eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowden is called the eagle's neft. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of Cumber.. land, Weftmoreland, &c. can teftify: it even has built it's neft in the Peak of Derbyshire. See WILLOUGHBY'S ORNITHOLOGY, published by RAY.

• With

With me in dreadful harmony they join,

And weave*, with bloody hands, the tiffue of thy line.'

II.

1.

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof, "The winding-fheet of Edward's race: "Give ample room, and verge enough, "The characters of hell to trace. "Mark the year, and mark the night, "When Severn fhall re-echo with affright "The fhrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roofs that ring, "Shrieks of an agonizing king +!

"She-Wolf of France t, with unrelenting fangs, "That tear'ft the bowels of thy mangled mate,

"From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs

"The scourge of Heav'n §. What terrors round him wait! "Amazement in his van, with Flight combin'd,

"And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.

II. 2.

"Mighty victor, mighty lord,

"Low on his funeral couch he lies || !

"No pitying heart, no eye, afford

"A tear to grace his obfequies.

" Is the fable warrior ¶ filed?

Thy son is gone. He refts among the dead.
"The fwarm, that in thy noon-tide beam were bora
"Gone to falute the rifing morn.

"Fair laughs the morn 11, and foft the zephyr blows,
"While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,

"In gallant trim the gilded veffel goes;

"Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ;

See the Norwegian Ode, that follows.

Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle.

Ifabel of France, Edward the Second's adulterous queen.

Triumphs of Edward the Third in France.

Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his

laft moments by his courtiers and his miftrefs.

Edward the Black Prince, dead fome time before his father.

Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See FROISSARD, and

Regardless of the fweeping whirlwind's fway,
That, hufh'd in grim repofe, expects his evening prey.
II. 3.

*Fill high the fparkling bowl,

"The rich repast prepare ;

"Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feafte ** Close by the régal chair

"Fell Thirst and Famine scowl

"A baleful fmile upon their baffled guest.
"Heard ye the din of battle bray † ;
"Lance to lance, and horse to horse?

Long years of havock urge their deftin'd courfe,
And thro' the kindred fquadrons mow their way.
"Ye towers of Julius t, London's lasting shame,
"With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
"Revere his confort's § faith, his father's || fame,
"And fpare the meek ufurper's ¶holy head.
"Above, below, the rose of snow,

"Twin'd with her blufhing foe, we spread:
The briftled boar ft, in infant-gore,

"Wallows beneath the thorny fhade.

"Now, brothers, bending o'er th' accurfed loom, "Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

* Richard the Second (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and the confe derate lords in their manifefto, by Thomas of Walfingham, and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his affaffination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date.

Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster.

Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard Duke of York, &c, believed to be murdered fecretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæfar.

Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroick spirit, who struggled hard to fave her husband and her crown.

Henry the Fifth.

Henry the Sixth very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown.

11 The filver boar was a badge of Richard the Third; whence he was ufually known in his own time by the name of the Boar.

III. I.

"Edward, lo! to fadden fate

(Weave we the woof. The thread is fpun.)

"Half of thy heart we consecrate *.

Stay, Oftay! nor thus, forlorn,

• Leave me unblefs'd, unpity'd here to mourn :
In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.

But, oh! what folemn fcenes on Snowden's height,
Descending flow, their glitt'ring skirts unrol?

Vifions of glory, fpare my aching fight;

• Ye unborn ages, croud not on my foul! • No more our long-loft Arthur + we bewail. All hail, ye genuine kings; Britannia's iffue, hail‡! III. 2.

• Girt with many a Baron bold,

• Sublime their starry fronts they rear ;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old,
In bearded majesty appear.

In the midst a form divine!

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line;

Her lion port §, her awe-commanding face,

Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace.

*Eleanor of Caftile died a few years after the conqueft of Wales. The heroick proof fhe gave of her affection for her lord is well known. The monuments of his regret, and forrow for the lofs of her, are still to be seen at Northampton, Geddington, Waltham, and other places.

It was the common belief of the Welch nation, that King Arthur was ftill alive in Fairy-Land, and should return again to reign over Britain.

Both Merlin and Talieffin had prophefied, that the Welch fhould regain their fovereignty over this ifland; which feemed to be accomplished in the Houfe of Tudor.

Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, Ambaffador of Poland, fays: " And thus fhe, lion-like rifing, daunted the "malapert orator no less with her stately port and majeftical deporture, than "with the tartneffe of her princelie checkes.”

• What