IV.

DRUIDICAL EXCOMMUNICATION.
MERCY and Love have met thee on thy road,
Thou wretched Outcast, from the gift of fire
And food cut off by sacerdotal ire,

From every sympathy that Man bestowed!
Yet shall it claim our reverence, that to God,
Ancient of days! that to the eternal Sire,
These jealous Ministers of law aspire,

As to the one sole fount whence wisdom flowed,
Justice, and order. Tremblingly escaped
As if with prescience of the coming storm,
That intimation when the stars were shaped;
And still, 'mid yon thick woods, the primal truth
Glimmers through many a superstitious form1
That fills the Soul with unavailing ruth.

V.

UNCERTAINTY.

DARKNESS surrounds us: seeking, we are lost
On Snowdon's wilds, amid Brigantian coves,*
Or where the solitary shepherd roves
Along the plain of Sarum, by the ghost
Of Time and shadows of Tradition, crost; 2
And where the boatman of the Western Isles
Slackens his course-to mark those holy piles

1 1827.

And yon thick woods maintain the primal truth,
Debased by many a superstitious form,

1822.

2

1827.

Of silently departed ages crossed;

1822.

The reference is to Yorkshire. The Brigantes inhabited England from sea to sea, from Cumberland to Durham, but more especially Yorkshire. See Tacitus, Annals, Book xii. 32; Ptolemy, Geog., 27, 1; Camden, Brit., 556-648.-ED.

PERSECUTION.

Which yet survive on bleak Iona's coast.*
Nor these, nor monuments of eldest name,1
Nor Taliesin's unforgotten lays,†

Nor characters of Greek or Roman fame,

To an unquestionable Source have led:
Enough—if eyes, that sought the fountain-head
In vain, upon the growing Rill may gaze.

7

VL

PERSECUTION.

LAMENT! for Diocletian's fiery sword
Works busy as the lightning; but instinct
With malice ne'er to deadliest weapon linked,
Which God's ethereal store-houses afford:
Against the Followers of the incarnate Lord

It rages; some are smitten in the field—

Some pierced to the heart through the ineffectual shield2 Of sacred home ;-with pomp are others gored

And dreadful respite. Thus was Alban tried,‡

Some pierced beneath the unavailing shield
Some pierced beneath the ineffectual shield

1822.

1827.

Compare the four sonnets on Iona, in the 'Poems composed or suggested during a Tour in the Summer of 1833.'-ED.

+ See note +, p. 12.—Ed.

...

"The first man who laid down his life in Britain for the Christian faith was Saint Alban. . . . During the tenth, and most rigorous of the persecutions, a Christian priest, flying from his persecutors, came to the City of Verulamium, and took shelter in Alban's house: he, not being of the faith himself, concealed him for pure compassion; but when he observed the devotion of his guest, how fervent it was, and how firm, his heart was touched. ... When the persecutors came to search the house, Alban, putting on the hair-cassock of his teacher, delivered himself into their hands, as if he had been the fugitive, and was carried before the heathen governor. Because he refused to betray his guest or offer sacrifices to the Roman gods, he was scourged, and then led to execution upon the spot where the abbey now stands, which in after times was erected to his memory, and still bears his

England's first Martyr, whom no threats could shake;
Self-offered victim, for his friend he died,

And for the faith; nor shall his name forsake
That Hill, whose flowery platform seems to rise
By Nature decked for holiest sacrifice.*

VII.

RECOVERY.

As, when a storm hath ceased, the birds regain
Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim

Their nests, or chant a gratulating hymn
To the blue ether and bespangled plain;
Even so, in many a re-constructed fane,
Have the survivors of this Storm renewed
Their holy rites with vocal gratitude:
And solemn ceremonials they ordain
To celebrate their great deliverance;
Most feelingly instructed 'mid their fear—

That persecution, blind with rage extreme,

May not the less, through Heaven's mild countenance, Even in her own despite, both feed and cheer;

For all things are less dreadful than they seem.

VIII.

TEMPTATIONS FROM ROMAN REFINEMENTS.

WATCH, and be firm! for soul-subduing vice,
Heart-killing luxury, on your steps await.

name.

That spot was then a beautiful meadow upon a little rising ground, 'seeming,' says the venerable Bede, ‘a fit theatre for the martyr's triumph.'"-Southey's Book of the Church, Vol. I., p. 14.-ED.

The hill at St Alban's must have been an object of great interest to the imagination of the venerable Bede, who thus describes it, with a delicate feeling, delightful to meet with in that rude age, traces of which are frequent in his works:-"Variis herbarum floribus depictus, imò usquequaque vestitus, in quo nihil repentè arduum, nihil præceps, nihil

DISSENSIONS.

Fair houses, baths, and banquets delicate,

And temples flashing, bright as polar ice,

Their radiance through the woods-may yet suffice
To sap your hardy virtue, and abate

Your love of Him upon whose forehead sate

The crown of thorns; whose life-blood flowed, the price
Of your redemption. Shun the insidious arts

That Rome provides, less dreading from her frown
Than from her wily praise, her peaceful gown,
Language, and letters;-these, though fondly viewed
As humanising graces, are but parts
And instruments of deadliest servitude!

IX.

DISSENSIONS.

THAT heresies should strike (if truth be scanned
Presumptuously) their roots both wide and deep,
Is natural as dreams to feverish sleep.
Lo! Discord at the altar dares to stand *
Uplifting toward 1 high Heaven her fiery brand,
A cherished Priestess of the new-baptized!
But chastisement shall follow peace despised.
The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land
By Rome abandoned; vain are suppliant cries,
And prayers that would undo her forced farewell;
For she returns not.-Awed by her own knell,

1 1827.

Lifting towards

1822.

9

abruptum, quem lateribus longè latèque deductum in modum æquoris natura complanat, dignum videlicet eum, pro insitâ sibi specie venustatis, jam olim reddens qui beati martyris cruore dicaretur."-W. W., 1822.

* Arianism had spread into Britain, and British Bishops were summoned to councils held concerning it, at Sardica, A.D. 347, and at Ariminum, A.D. 360. See Fuller's Church History, p. 25; and Churton's Early English Church, p. 9.-ED.

She casts the Britons upon strange Allies,
Soon to become more dreadful enemies
Than heartless misery called them to repel.

X.

STRUGGLE OF THE BRITONS AGAINST THE
BARBARIANS.

RISE!-they have risen: of brave Aneurin ask *
How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends :
The Spirit of Caractacus descends

Upon the Patriots, animates their task;1
Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The Virgin sculptured on his Christian shield :-
Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask
The Host 2 that followed Urien † as he strode
O'er heaps of slain;-from Cambrian wood and moss
Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross;

Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode,‡
Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!

* Aneurin was the bard who-in the poem named the Gododin-celebrated the struggle between the Cymri and the Teutons in the middle of the sixth century, which ended in the great battle of Catterick, or Cattreath, in Yorkshire. Aneurin was himself chieftain as well as bard.-ED.

+ Urien was chief of the Cymri, and led them in the great conflict of the sixth century against the Angles.-ED.

Such as Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merlin. -ED.