Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride, Felt them in her bosom glow: Rushed to battle, fought, and died; Dying, hurled them at the foe.

Ruffians! pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due; Empire is on us bestowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you. COWPER.

BONDUCA.

[Bonduca the British queen, taking occasion from a defeat of the Romans to impeach their valor, is rebuked by Caratac.]

QUEEN BONDUCA, I do not grieve your fortune.

If I grieve, 'tis at the bearing of your fortunes;

You put too much wind to your sail : discretion

And hardy valor are the twins of honor,

And nursed together, make a conqueror;

Divided, but a talker. 'Tis a truth, That Rome has fled before us twice, and routed;

A truth we ought to crown the gods for, lady,

And not our tongues.

You call the Romans fearful, fleeing Romans,

And Roman girls:

Does this become a doer? are they such?

Where is your conquest then?
Why are your altars crowned with
wreaths of flowers,
The beast with gilt horns waiting
for the fire?

The holy Druidés composing songs
Of everlasting life to Victory?
Why are these triumphs, lady? for
a May-game?

For hunting a poor herd of wretched
Romans?

Is it no more? shut up your temples,

Britons,

And let the husbandman redeem his heifers;

And are not all these Romans? Ten struck battles

I sucked these honored scars from, and all Roman.

Ten years of bitter nights and heavy marches,

When many a frozen storm sung through my cuirass,

And made it doubtful whether that or I

Were the more stubborn metal, have I wrought through, And all to try these Romans. Ten times a night

I have swum the rivers, when the stars of Rome

Shot at me as I floated, and the billows

Tumbled their watery ruins on my shoulders,

Charging my battered sides with

troops of agues,

And still to try these Romans; whom I found

As ready, and as full of that I brought,

(Which was not fear nor flight,) as valiant,

As vigilant, as wise, to do and

Not half so fearful; - not a flight drawn home,

A round stone from a sling, a lover's wish,

E'er made that haste they have. By heavens!

I have seen these Britons that you magnify,

Run as they would have out-run time, and roaring,

Basely for mercy, roaring; the light shadows,

That in a thought scour o'er the fields of corn,

Halted on crutches to them. Yes, Bonduca,

I have seen thee run too, and thee, Nennius;

Yea, run apace, both; then when Penyus,

The Roman girl, cut through your armed carts,

And drove them headlong on ye down the hill;

Then when he hunted ye like Britain foxes,

More by the scent than sight: then did I see

These valiant and approvèd men of Britain,

Like boding owls, creep into tods of ivy,

And hoot their fears to one another nightly.

I fled too,

My helm still on my head, my sword my prow,

Turned to my foe my face, he cried out nobly,

"Go, Briton, bear thy lion's whelp off safely;

Thy manly sword has ransomed thee: grow strong,

And let me meet thee once again in arms:

Then if thou stand'st, thou art mine." I took his offer, And here I am to honor him.

There's not a blow we gave since Julius landed,

That was of strength and worth, but like records

They file to after-ages. Our Registers The Romans are, for noble deeds of honor;

And shall we burn their mentions with upbraidings?

Had we a difference with some petty Isle,

Or with our neighbors, lady, for our landmarks,

The taking in of some rebellious Lord,

Or making a head against commotions,

After a day of blood, peace might be argued:

But where we grapple for the ground we live on,

The Liberty we hold as dear as life, The gods we worship, and next those, our honors,

And with those swords that know no end of battle: Those men beside themselves allow no neighbor;

Those minds that, where the day is, claim inheritance;

And where the sun makes ripe the fruits, their harvest;

And where they march, but measure out more ground

To

add to Rome, and here in the bowels on us;

It must not be; no, as they are our

THE BARD.

I. 1.

"RUIN seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait; Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,

They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail

To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,

From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"

Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride

Of the first Edward scattered wild

dismay,

As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side

He wound with toilsome march his long array.

Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance:

"To arins!" cried Mortimer, and couched his quivering lance.

I. 2.

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; (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air),

And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,

Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. "Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave,

Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!

O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave,

Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;

Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal

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

The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him wait!

Amazement in his van, with flight combined,

And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind.

"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,

Attempered sweet to virgin-grace. What strings symphonious tremble in the air,

What strains of vocal transport round her play

Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;

They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.

Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,

Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colored wings.

III. 3.

"The verse adorn again

Fierce war, and faithful love, And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.

In buskined measures move Pale grief, and pleasing pain, With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.

A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear,

That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,

Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray.

Enough for me; with joy I see The different doom our fates assign.

Be thine despair, and sceptred care; To triumph, and to die, are mine." He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height

Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

GRAY.

LOCHIEL'S WARNING.

WIZARD. LOCHIEL.

Wizard. — Lochiel! Lochiel, beware of the day

When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!

For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,

And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight:

They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown; Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!

Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,

And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.

But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,

What steed to the desert flies frantic

forth,

From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north?

Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!

Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.

Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast

Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?

'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven

From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of heaven.

Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,

Whose banners arise on the battlement's height,

Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;

Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.