These mighty piles of magic-planted rock,
Thus rang'd in mystic order, mark the place
Where but at times of holiest festival
The Druid leads his train.
In yonder shaggy cave; on which the moon
Now sheds a side-long glance. His brotherhood
Possess the neighbouring cliffs.
Mine eye descries a distant range of caves,
Delv'd in the ridges of the craggy steep:
And this way, still another.
Reside the sages skill'd in nature's lore:
The changeful universe, its numbers, powers,
Studious they measure, save when meditation
Gives place to holy rites: then in the grove
Each hath his rank and function. Yonder grots
Are tenanted by Bards, who nightly thence,
Robed in their flowing vests of soilless white,
Descend, with harps that glitter to the moon,
Hymning immortal strains. The spirits of air,
Of earth, of water, nay of heaven itself,
Do listen to their lays; and oft 'tis said,
In visible shapes dance they a magic round,
To the high minstrelsy.
Now, if thine eye
Be sated with the view, haste to thy ships,
And ply thine oars; for if the Druids learn
his bold intrusion, thou wilt find it hard
y light-arm'd shallops on this dang'rous strand o sooth a fruitless curiosity:
come in quest of proud CARACTACUS;
'ho, when our veterans put his troops to flight, ound refuge here.
If here the monarch rests,
resumptuous chief! thou might'st as well essay o pluck him from yon stars: earth's ample range ontains no surer refuge: underneath
he soil we tread, a hundred secret paths, coop'd through the living rock in winding maze, ead to as many caverns, dark, and deep:
a which the hoary sages act their rites Lysterious, rites of such strange potency, .s, done in open day, would dim the sun, hough throned in noontide brightness. In such dens le may for life be hid,
By the Rev, George Richards.
From a Prize Poem, recited at the Theatre, Oxford, 1791.
RUDE as the wilds about his sylvan home,
1 savage grandeur, see the Briton roam.
are were his limbs, and strung with toil and cold, y untamed nature cast in giant-mould.
O'er his broad brawny shoulders loosely flung,
Shaggy and long his yellow ringlets bung.
His waist an iron-belted falchion bore,
Massy, and purpled deep with human gore;
His scarr❜d and rudely-painted limbs around
Fantastic horror-striking figures frown'd;
Which monster-like, ev'n to the confines ran
Of nature's work, and left him hardly man.
His knitted brows, and rolling eyes impart
A direful image of his ruthless heart;
Where war and human bloodshed brooding lie,
Like thunder lowering in a gloomy sky.
No tender virgin heard the impassion'd youth
Breathe his warm vows, and swear eternal truth;
No sire encircled by a blooming race,
View'd his own features in his infant's face;
The savage knew not wedlock's chaster rite,
The torch of Hymen pour'd a common light:*
As passion fir'd, the lawless pair were bless'd,
And babes unfather'd hung upon the breast.
Such was the race who drank the light of day,
When lost in western waves Britannia lay.
Content they wander'd o'er their heaths and moors,
Nor thought that ocean roll'd round other shores;
Viewing the fires that blazed around their skies,
'Mid the wide world of waters set and rise;
They vainly deem'd the twinkling orbs of light
For them alone illumed the vault of night;
For them alone the golden lamp of day
Held its bright progress through the heavens' high wa
When the chill breeze of morning over head
Wav'd the dark boughs that roof'd his sylvan bed,
It is related by historians, that several of the ancient Britons b their wives in common; and their children were accounted belong to those to whom their mothers had been married.
p the light Briton sprung, to chase the deer
hrough Humber's vales, or heathy Cheviot drear:
anguid at noon his fainting limbs he cast
n the warm bank, and sought his coarse repast.
'ith acorns shaken from a neighbouring oak,
r sapless bark that from the trunk he broke,
is meal he made; and in the cavern'd dell
rank the hoarse wave that down the rough rocks fell. teve, retracing slow his morning road,
With wearied feet he gain'd his wild abode :
o city rose with spires and turrets crown'd,
o iron war from rocky ramparts frown'd;
ut plain and simple in the shadowy wood,
he shapeless, rude-constructed hamlets stood:
er the deep trench an earthy mound arose,
o guard the sylvan town from beasts and foes.
he crackling fire, beneath the hawthorn shade,
With cheerful blaze illumed the darksome glade:
Ift-times beneath the sheltering oak was spread,
With leaves, and spoils of beasts, the rustic bed;
n open skies he rests his head, and sees
'he stars, that twinkle through the waving trees.
On his bare breast the chilling dews descend,
lis yellow locks the midnight tempest rend;
round the empty wolf in hunger prowls,
And shakes the lonely forest with his howls :
Tet health and toil weigh down the sense,
lis wearied, aching, limbs in balmy sleep;
'ill the pale twilight opes the glimmering glades,
and slowly gains upon the mid-wood shades.
CHARACTER OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS.
From the Elegies of Shenstone.
PLEASED if the glowing landscape wave with corn;
Or the tall oaks, my country's bulwarks, rise;
Pleased, if mine eye, o'er thousand valleys borne,
Discern the Cambrian hills support the skies.
And see Plinlimmon! e'en the youthful sight
Scales the proud hill's etherial cliffs with pain!
Such Caer Caradoc! thy stupendous height,
Whose ample shade obscures the Servian main.
Bleak, joyless regions! where, by Science fired,
Some prying sage his lonely step may bend ;
There, by the love of novel plants inspired,
Invidious view the clambering goats ascend.
Yet for those mountains, clad with lasting snow,
The free-born Briton left his greenest mead;
Receding sullen from his mightier foe,
For here he saw fair Liberty recede.
Then if a chief perform'd a patriot's part,
Sustain'd her drooping sons, repell'd her foes, Above or Persian lore, or Attic art,
The rude majestic monument arose.
Progressive ages caroll'd forth his fame,
Sires to his praise attuned their children's tongue; The hoary Druid fed the gen'rous flame,
While in such strains the rev'rend wizard sung.
"Go forth, my sons! for what is vital breath, Your God's expell'd, your liberty resigned?
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