337 THE FIRST WALPURGIS NIGHT. A DRUID. 'Tis May-'tis May! The wood is gay, And the icy winds are far away; The snow is gone, The tender lawn Her welcome sings, as the spring comes on; The hill tops frore Now glitter hoar, All clear, where damp clouds hung before. Cold and white, Yon farthest height, Yet thither, yet thither we go to-night, We go, as our fathers went before, The Father of All to bless and adore; - A holy time an ancient rite And see! and see! the bursting light Throws off the reek, more red, more bright; Our fathers bowed and worshipped there; As blaze through smoke the conquering fires, DRUIDS. We go, as our fathers went before, Have you ONE OF THE PEOPLE. lost all sense of fear? Know you not the danger here? Know you not our conquerors Persecute and plague the heathen; The pass's mountain walls are warded, Alas, alas! a heavy day Hath come: our wives, our babes they slay, Our old religion fades away. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Alas, alas! a heavy day; For fallen are we, and proud are they. Our roofs they burn, our babes they slay, Our old religion dies away. Bring wood for the torches secretly: We will lie unseen In the copse-wood green, And steal along by its shadowy skreen- Our children and our wives to ward, While we move by night to the hill-top hoar, CHORUS OF WATCHERS. Through the tangled forest here Watch with wakeful eye and ear; Watch in silence through the night, While afar, on yon lone height, WATCHER. Let us mock the mock-believers, Act the legends we disdain ; With stake, and rake, and torch, and clamour, All will seem the work of glamour. 'Mid the shout, and rout, and revelry, While they dream of their hell and its devilry, Through the mountain pass neglected, Wings and noises of the night CHORUS OF WATCHERS. From the brushwood and the brake, With laugh, and scream, and revelry, |