'The verse adorn again,
Fierce War and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dress'd.
In buskin'd measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice[24] as of the cherub-choir
Gales from blooming Eden bear,
And distant warblings[25] lessen on my ear,
That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,
Raised by thy breath, has quench'd 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.
[Footnote 1: 'Hauberk:' the hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets or
rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body,
and adapted itself to every motion.]
[Footnote 2: 'Stout Glo'ster:' Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red,
Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward.]
[Footnote 3: 'Mortimer:' Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They
both were Lords Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and
probably accompanied the King in this expedition.]
[Footnote 4: 'Arvon's shore:' the shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite
to the isle of Anglesey.]
[Footnote 5: 'King:' Edward II., cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle.]
[Footnote 6: 'She-wolf of France:' Isabel of France, Edward II.'s
adulterous queen.]
[Footnote 7: 'From thee:' triumphs of Edward III. in France.]
[Footnote 8: 'Funeral couch:' death of that king, abandoned by his
children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his
mistress.]
[Footnote 9: 'Sable warrior:' Edward the Black Prince, dead some time
before his father.]
[Footnote 10: 'Fair laughs the morn:' magnificence of Richard II.'s
reign; see Froissard, and other contemporary writers.]
[Footnote 11: 'Sparkling bowl:' Richard II. was starved to death; the
story of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much
later date.]
[Footnote 12: 'Battle bray:' ruinous civil wars of York and
Lancaster.]
[Footnote 13: 'Towers of Julius:' Henry VI., George Duke of Clarence,
Edward V., Richard Duke of York, &c., believed to be murdered secretly
in the Tower of London; the oldest part of that structure is vulgarly
attributed to Julius Cæsar.]
[Footnote 14: 'Consort:' Margaret of Anjou.]
[Footnote 15: 'Father:' Henry V.]
[Footnote 16: 'Usurper:' Henry VI., very near being canonised; the
line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown.]
[Footnote 17: 'Rose of snow:' the White and Red Roses, devices of York
and Lancaster.]
[Footnote 18: 'Boar:' the silver Boar was the badge of Richard III.,
whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of The Boar.]
[Footnote 19: 'Half of thy heart:' Eleanor of Castile, Edward's wife,
died a few years after the conquest of Wales.]
[Footnote 20: 'Long-lost Arthur:' it was the common belief of the
Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and
should return again to reign over Britain.]
[Footnote 21: 'Genuine kings:' both Merlin and Taliessin had
prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this
island, which seemed to be accomplished in the House of Tudor.]
[Footnote 22; 'Awe-commanding face:' Queen Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 23: 'Taliessin:' chief of the Bards, flourished in the sixth
century; his works are still preserved, and his memory held in high
veneration, among his countrymen.]
[Footnote 24: 'A voice:' Milton.]
[Footnote 25: 'Warblings:' the succession of poets after Milton's
time.]
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