What though the enemy taunt and deride us! Up! and we stand for the England to be. Then, as the Head and the Front of the Nations, Brothers, your health!-from the snotties at sea! 'Stand well,' say the snotties (Good luck,' say the snotties), 'And wisely and firmly and great shall we be ; For monarchies tremble, And empires dissemble, But Britain shall stand'-say the snotties at sea! George Frederic Stewart Bowles. CXIX THE BARD 'RUIN seize thee, ruthless King! To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, He wound with toilsome march his long array : Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance; 'To arms!' cried Mortimer, and couched his quivering lance. On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air), 'Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay. L 'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue That hushed the stormy main : Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy Mountains, ye mourn in vain bed: Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head. The famished eagle screams and passes by. On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, I see them sit; they linger yet, With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line. 'Weave the warp and weave the woof, When Severn shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death through Berkeley's roof that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing king! She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs, That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, Amazement in his van, with Flight combined, Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies. |