Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail He wound with toilsome march his long array. "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance. I. 2. On a rock, whose haughty brow 5 With haggard eyes the Poet stood; Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air;7) "Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay." to predominate through the whole. The irresistible violence of the prophet's passions bears him away, who, as he is unprepared by a formal ushering in of the speaker, is unfortified against the impressions of his poetical frenzy, and overpowered by them, as sudden thunders strike the deepest. All readers of taste, I fancy, have felt this effect from the passage; they will be pleased, however, to see their own feelings so well expressed as they are in this note."-Mason. 1 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. 2 Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryrie: it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. a Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. 4 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. 5 "The turbulent impetuosity of the preceding stanza, and the sedate majesty of this, form a most pleasing and animated contrast."— Wakefield. 6 The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel: there are two of these paintings, both believed to be originals; one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans' collection at Paris. "Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd The imperial ensign, which full high advanced, Paradise Lost, 1. 535. 8 "Hoel," observes Mr. Mitford, "is called high-born, as being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales." Llewellyn's poetry, we are told, was characterized by his countrymen as a soft lay, and the Bard is himself styled the tender-hearted prince. Dr. Evans mentions Caduallo and Urien among those bards of whom no works remain. 1. 3. "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hush'd the stormy main: Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.' Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale: Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes, On yonder cliffs, a griesly band, I see them sit; they linger yet, Avengers of their native land: With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line." II. 1. "Weave the warp, and weave the woof,5 The winding-sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roof that ring, She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,7 That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs The scourge of Heaven! What terrors round him wait! 1 "The cloud-capt towers.”—Shakspeare. The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the Isle of Anglesey. 3 Camden and others observe, that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh Craigian-eryrie, or the Crags of the Eagles. At this day the highest point of Snowdon is called the Eagle's Nest. 4 "Here," says an anonymous critic, "a vision of triumphant revenge is judiciously made to ensue, after the pathetic lamentation which precedes it. Breaks-double rhymes-an appropriated cadence -and an exalted ferocity of language, forcibly picture to us the uncontrollable tumultuous workings of the prophet's stimulated bosom."-Mason. 5 "Can there be an image more just, apposite, and nobly imagined, than this tremendous tragical winding-sheet In the rest of this stanza the wildness of thought, expression, and cadence, are admirably adapted to the character and situation of the speaker, and of the bloody spectres, his assistants. It is not indeed peculiar to it alone, but a beauty that runs throughout the whole composition, that the historical events are briefly sketched out by a few striking circumstances, in which the Poet's office of rather exciting and directing, than satisfying the reader's imagination, is perfectly observed. Such abrupt hints, resembling the several fragments of a vast ruin, suffer not the mind to be raised to the utmost pitch by one image of horror, but that instantaneously a second and a third are pre Bented to it, and the affection is still uniformly supported."—Anon. Critic. 6 Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle. 7 Isabel of France, Edward the Second's adulterous Queen, whose relentless cruelty is well known. 8 Triumphs of Edward the Third in France. Amazement in his van, with Flight combined, II. 2. 'Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies!! No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the sable warrior fled ?2 Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,4 In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey."5 "Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare, Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.7 1 Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his cour tiers and his mistress. Edward, the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. 3 The summer friends, in the Hymn to Adversity. "This image is inexpressibly beautiful, but not superior to that which it so happily and unaffectedly introduces."-Wakefield. 4 Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See Froissart, and other contemporary writers. 5 "This representation of the whirlwind, under the image of a beast of prey lying in ambush in the day time, expectant of the night, is not only perfectly just and natural, but incomparably sublime."— Wakefield. Richard the Second (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and the confederate lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date. "This stanza (as an ingenious friend remarks) has exceeding merit. It breathes, in a lesser compass, what the ode breathes at large, the high spirit of lyric enthusiasm. The transitions are sudden and impetuous; the language full of fire and force; and the imagery carried, without impropriety, to the most daring height. The manner of Richard's death by famine exhibits such beauties of personification, as only the richest and most vivid imagination could supply. From thence we are hurried, with the wildest rapidity, into the midst of battle; and the epithet kindred, places at once before our eyes all the peculiar horrors of civil war. Immediately, by a transition most striking and unexpected, the poet falls into a tender and pathetic address; which, from the sentiments, and also from the numbers, has all the melancholy flow, and breathes all the plaintive softness, of Elegy. Again the scene changes; again the Bard rises into an allegorical description of carnage, to which the metre is admirably adapted: and the concluding sentence of personal punishment on Edward is denounced with a solemnity that chills and terrifies."-Mason. ? What can exceed the terrible sublimity of this picture? and what is at all worthy to be pat in competition with it, except that of Milton, which our author seems to have had in view? "He ceased, for both seem'd highly pleased; and Death 8 Ruinous wars of 2 P Grinn'd horrible, a ghastly smile."-Paradise Lost, ii. 845. 50* Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, Twined with her blushing foe, we spread: Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o'er th' accursed loom, III. 1. "Edward, lo! to sudden fate (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.) (The web is wove. The work is done.) Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn: In yon bright track, that fires the western skies, But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height, Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! All hail, ye genuine Kings! Britannia's issue, hail!"9 III. 2. "Girt with many a baron bold, Sublime their starry fronts they rear; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear. 1 Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard Duke of York, &c., be lieved to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgariy attributed to Julius Cæsar. 2 Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown. 3 Henry the Fifth. 4 Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown. 5 The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster. 6 The silver boar was the badge of Richard the Third; whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of the boar. 7 Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well known. The monuments of his regret and sorrow for the loss of her, are still to be seen at Northampton, Gaddington, Waltham, and other places. 8 It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and would return again to reign over Britain. 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. In the midst a form divine! Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line; What strings symphonious tremble in the air! III. 3. "The verse adorn again Pale grief, and pleasing pain, With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.3 A voice, as of the cherub choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; 4 And distant warblings lessen on my ear,5 That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, 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 1 Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, "And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, that with the tartnesse of her princelle checkes." 2 Taliessin, chief of the Bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory is held in high veneration among his countrymen. 8 Shakspeare. 5 The succession of poets after Milton's time. 4 Milton. 6 The original argument of this capital Ode, as its author had set it down in one of the pages of his common-place book, is as follows: "The army of Edward I., as they march through a deep valley, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the misery and desolation which he had brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares, that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardor of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valor in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its foot." |