Fails homage from the living shapes of earth:
On him the savage, fierce and monstrous, fawn
Tame adoration; from his rugged sleep
The wild boar, sleek his bristling wrath, aloof
Shrinks, the grim wolf no more his rest disturbs,
Than the calm motion of the moon she bays.

green.

Now, by her native sylvan Wye, that Maid
Left to cold penitence and prayer, again
Sets forth the high Avenger: now his path
Through Towey's vale winds velvet soft and
The year is in its waning autumn glow,
But the warm Sun, with all his summer love,
Hangs o'er this gentle valley, loath to part
From the blue stream that to his amorous beams
Now her cool bosom spreads, now coyer slides
Under her alder shade, whose umbrage green,
Gancing and breaking the fantastic rays,

The deep dark mirror frets with mazy light.
A day that seems in its rich noon to blend
All seasons' choice deliciousness, high hung
On Dinevaur and Carreg Cennon rude,
And on bold Drusslyn gleam'd the woods their hues,
Changeful and brilliant, as their leaves had drunk
The sun's empyreal fountains; not more bright
The groves of those Atlantic Isles, where rove
(Dream'd elder Poesy such fancies sweet)
The spirits of the brave, stern Peleus' son,
And Diomede, through bowers that the blue air
Arch'd with immortal spring of fragrant gold.
The merry birds, as though they had o'erdream'd
The churlish winter, spring-tide virelays
Carolling, pruned their all-forgotten plumes.
Upon the sunny shallow lay the trout
Kindling the soft gems of its skin; the snake
As fresh and wanton in its green attire
Wound its gay rings along the flowery sward.

That overpowering beauty in mild bonds
Of sweet amazement and infatuate bliss,
Took prisoner Samor's spirit. On a rock,
'Neath a white canopy of glistening birch,
He lay surrender'd. The thin whispering leaves,
The welling waters flow, the lingering, long,
Love-dwelling descant of the joyous birds
Came mingling with the languor of his sense,
Most soothing each in turn, must slumb'ring soft.

"Tis no harsh breaking in that train of sound
Delicious, but a low and measured dash
That blends and deepens all the mingling tones;
"Tis nought to cloud or dim that slow intrudes
On the universal brilliance; crowning all
Moves the gay apparition, and fires up
The restless glittering to intenser blaze.

Slow up the tide the gaudy bark comes on,
Her oars scarce startling the unruffled air;
The waters to her swan-like prow give place,
Along the oar-blades leap up to the sun
In lucid flakes, and dance, as 't were their sport
To waft that beauteous freight. And exquisite
As that voluptuous Memphian on the stream
Of Cydnus, leading with bliss-breathing smiles

Her throngs of rash beholders, glided down
To welcome to his soft imprisonment
The Lord of half the world, so wondrous fair
Under an awning cool of fluttering silk
The Lady of that graceful galley sate.
But not in her instinct the melting form
With passion, the smooth limbs in dazzling glow
Translucent through the thin lascivious veil,
Skilful with careless blandishments to fire
The loose imaginations, she herein
Least like that Oriental harlot Queen.
Of all her shape, of all her soul was pride
The sustenance, the luxury, the life.
The innate scorn of her full eye repaid
With lofty thanklessness the homage fawn'd
By her fair handmaids, and her oarmen gay,
Who seem'd to wanton in their servile toil.
Around she gazed, as in her haughtiness
She thought that God had form'd this living pomp
Of woodland, stream, and rock, her height of soul
To pamper, that to welcome her the earth
Attired its breathing brightness, and the sun
Only on her look'd from his azure sphere.

Knows Samor that bright Lady? Who knows not
Amid her twinkling retinue of stars
The queenly summer moon? Ye too he knows,
The minion rowers of her royal state,
Entitled once by courteous falsehoods bland
Nobles of Britain, from the general wreck
Most despicably saved by Saxon scorn,
Meet vassalage for Vortigern, now shrunk
And dwindled from proud Britain's sov'reign lord
To petty Prince of Dyfed.* Ye yet cling
Even to the hollow semblance of a crown,
Ye gauzy summer motes, that float and bask
In the warm noontide of a court, light things
Of noise and glittering, that to royal ears
Tinkle your poisonous flatteries, then most proud
When most obtrusive your gay nothingness.

Under a rock where Samor lay unseen Beneath the sparkling birchen shade, the bark Glided so near, the silver-twinkling leaves Play'd like a wavering veil o'er the bright face And marble neck of that reclining Queen.

Now, Samor, now 't is at thy thirsty lips The cup of vengeance, now quaff' deep, quaff deep! Now, by the bones that bleach on Ambri plain, By thy lost Emeric's silent chamber bowers, By that soft cheek o'er which the primrose blooms, Now lanch the unerring javelin! to, she tempts, The Saxon's daughter, and the false King's bride, The tame and baffled lingering of revenge.

And up the Avenger stood; a ray of light Quiver'd the brandish'd javelin; creeping awe Froze up the rowers' hearts; down fell the oars, And to the shore round swung the ungovern'd bark But 'mid those feminine and timorous men Intrepid that soft lady her fair front

* Or, Dimetia, i. e. South Wales.

"Pardon, and honour, Lady! one alone
Jealous prerogative of pardon holds
O'er Samor's soul, the universal God!
Caer Merddhyn's honours! to fall'n Vortigern
To be install'd prime flatterer, meekly laud
The bounteous-hearted monarch, who cast off
His throne, his people, and his fame, and thought
For bride so fair the dowry all too poor."

No wrath, but brighter joy the Lady's cheek
Emblazon'd; "Why should slight and tinsel ties
Of blood and birthplace hold asunder hearts
Kindred in grandeur? thou art brave and free,
And brave and free is Hengist; why disdains
Valour to mate with valour, might with might?"
"Valour beneath the sun goes proudly forth;
And in the cloudy battle's van affronts
His hauberk'd foe, but folds not secret steel
Under the mild and festal robe of peace,
Nor creeps with midnight stealth on the weak sleep
Of women and soft infants."-Then appear'd
Tears in her haughty eyes, tears beautiful,

For drops of shame they were for those black crimes
That fleck'd and dimm'd her father's blaze of fame.
Still paused not the Avenger." Did my God,
Did Britain claim the offering, I dare hope
Yet I could rend from this worn heart away
Its pleasant lust of vengeance: private wrongs
Are but thin drops in my full tide of hate;
But all my country's injuries, all my God's
Concentrate in the mighty passion flood,
My life, my soul, my being; we must be,
I and thy father, through all space of time,
Even to the end, Destroyer or Destroy'd."

"Harsh and Implacable! yet be not thou Discourteous: wilt thou to Caer Merddhyn come, An honour'd guest, in freedom to depart When, where thou wilt, thy pledge my royal faith?"

"A Saxon's faith!" burst bitter from his lips, He check'd the upbraiding tone. "If fraud and sin In such a lovely temple hold their shrine,

It were not strange did fiends of darkness dwell Within yon beauteous sun!" But she with smile Mild as May morning on a violet bank, "Why stay'st thou? can the Unconquerable fear-?” "Fear, Lady! fear and I are strangers now." "What wondrous spell," pursued her playful mirth, "So steels thee?"-"One most simple and most strong, A calm proud conscience, and a faith in God."

Then sate he by the Lady's side; set forth
Upon its dancing voyage down the tide
The bark obeisant to its dashing oars.
But those gay rowers veering with the wind
Of soft court favour, 'gan with subtle joy
And cold factitious transport hail again
Their gentle peer, their old and honour'd friend.
But with a glance the imperial lady froze
To silence their smooth-lying lips, nor brook'd
Idle intrusion on her rapturous feast.
Deep drank she in the majesty and pomp,
Wherewith instinct the Avenger moved and spake,
And what high beauty from heroic soul
Emanates on the outward shape, nor pall'd
On her insatiate appetite the joy;

Till that commercing deep of stately thoughts,
Proud admiration, and intense delight
In what is heart-subliming, towering, grand,
Regenerate from the trance that bathed her sense,
Sprang up a fiery passion, o'er her flow'd
Secret the intoxicating ecstasy,
Love, dangerous, deep, intolerable love.

What beauteous seeming and magnificent,
Weareth that brilliant sin? now not o'er her
Came it in melting languor, soft and bland,
But like her own high nature, eminent,
Disdainful, and elate, allied to all
That beautified, that glorified, and seem'd
Mysterious union of upscaring spirits,
Wedding of lofty thoughts with lofty thoughts,
And the fine joy of being to this earth
A thing of wonder: and as floats the air
Clear, white, and stainless in the highest heavens,
Seem'd from its exaltation fresh and pure,
Above all taint her amorous madness rose.
Had it seem'd love, her very pride had quell'd
The unplumed fantasy, her inbred scorn
Warr'd on the young infirmity, but now
Upon her soul's bold crest it planted high
Its banner of dominion, and she hail'd
Its coming as a guest of pomp and power.

But, though o'er all her features mantling spead A vivid restlessness, a lustrous glow,

A deepening purple, though her eye indulged
Richer delirium, though her languid breath

Came with a throb and struggled from her heart,
Yet in that noble kindness that disdains
With greedy and suspicious gaze to search
The sin that may be, rather chastening all
With his own native purity, serene
The Warrior sate. The placid gliding bark
With motion like to stillness, flowing on,
Where with green diadem of woods above,
Beneath the white breadth of the expanding stream,
Caer Merddhyn in the liquid noontide rose..

Fair rose Caer Merddhyn, rose her towery height
The air enriching, nor mis-seem'd a King
Such stately dwelling; populous her streets,
And throng'd with human faces, but o'er all
A lassitude and heavy sadness hung,
Blankness of looks and weariness of hearts,
And listlessness of motion faltering on.
With all the pomps, the luxuries of life,
It seem'd a city of the dead. The shapes,
The steps of men were there, but soul and spirit,
And stirring energy, and vivid mind,
Passion and earnestness in torpor slept,

The cold blood stagnates in the drowsy veins.
Alike all feelings lazy languor seal'd;
To still them, not delight, the mothers held
Their infants, as the radiant Queen past on;
But even in them the laughing spring of joy
Was dead, and dry, and frozen.-“Oh, high God!
(So spake the Wanderer in his secret soul)
Hath tyranny such bleak and withering power
Man's heavenly essence to embrute, and thou,
Once princely Vortigern, the tyrant thou!"—

Worse sight! worse shame! they reach the broad hill's brow,

Where in its royalty the palace look'd
Awe on its vassal city; there, even there,
On that high threshold, armed Saxon files
From the weak people fenced the weaker King.
But through that legion hateful and accurst
Onward the Avenger that bright Lady's hand
Led, as the Sibyl sage the Love-queen's son
Calm through the doleful regions of the dead.

Within the hall with royal banners hung,
And shields of royal blazon, royal arms,
Least royal he, sate Vortigern; deep thought
And miserable on his faded brow

Traced its bleak lines; before him glittering lay
The crown of Britain, which his eye perused
With a sick sadness, as each gem were full
Of woeful ruminations, blank remorse;
And as bad Angels loathe, yet upward watch,
Heaven's Sun, bright type of their once radiant state,
Even so in bitterness that fallen King,
Painfully banqueting on self-reproach,
A drear remembrance of lost grandeurs drew
From that fair ring, and cursed its blaze that flash'd
Past splendours o'er the darkness of his soul,
And memory from what height to what depth sunk,
He welters in the abyss of shame profound.
Beside him o'er his harp Aneurin bow'd,
The white-hair'd Bard, sole faithful he, sole friend;

For minds of poets from their own high sphere
Look down on earth's distinctions, high and low,
Sunken or soaring, as the equal sun
Sheds light along the vale and mountain's brow.
He in the hall of feasting who fast seal'd
The treasures of his harmony, now pours
Into the wounded heart his syrups sweet,
And laps it in the silken folds of sound.
But even along his strings the infectious grief
Hath crept, and wither'd up the wantonness
And lost in wayward wanderings of despair
Stray the vague tones; anon bursts full and free
A start, a swell of pride, then sinks away
Involuntary to such doleful fall,

Misery so musical, its languid breath
Feeds, while it softens the deep-rooted woe.
Such melodies at tragic midnight heard
'Mid a deserted city, gliding o'er

1

The deep green moss of tower and fane o'erthrown,
Had seem'd immortal sorrows in the air,
O'er man's inconstant grandeurs. Sad such wreck,
More sad, more worthy Angels woe the waste
And desolation of a noble mind,

High fertile faculties run wild and rank,
Bright fiery qualities in darkness slaked.
That liquid intercourse of grief broke off,
Thus spake the King-" Who thus unbidden bursts
On kingly solitude? why ask I thee?

No brow between the Scot and Southern sea
Beareth such gallant insolence abroad,

But Samor, the wild Wanderer, the denounced,
The desperate! Art thou here to stun mine ears
With "Vortigern is abject, lost, disgraced?"
"Tis well that with thee comes my bright excuse,
My poverty's rich treasure, my night's star,
Beauteous Rowena."-Joy seem'd his, but yet
Was effort and was struggle in that joy,
The clinging of a desperate soul to what
It would delight in, but did not delight,
The striving of a barren heart to force
The perish'd bloom of pleasure.—“ King, I come
To put a spell upon thee, conjure up
Thy valour from its tomb within thy breast,
To rend the adamant that trammels fast
Thy strength of soul. By yon bright glaive that smote
By Esk's wild bank, beneath his father's shield,

The royal Caledonian's Son; yon flag,
That, when by fated Arles rash Britain lost
Her wild bright hazard for imperial state,
Clouding the car of adverse victory shook
Untarnish'd in the sun its blazon broad,
Nor stoop'd though all was fallen; by yon rich crown
Whereon when flow'd the holy oil, this isle
From all her seas her gratulant acclaim
Sent up, and overcast heaven's vault with joy;
By Vortigern, the great, the brave, the wise!"—
"Brave! wise! ay, that it is. The veriest wretch
That from base birth-place to his baser grave,
Creeps with his fellow reptiles, that ne'er knew
What luxury 't is, what loftiness to soar,
And with one soul to wield a host of souls
In free subjection, oh that fireless dust,
Clay uninform'd that only lives to die,