’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,[22]
    Attemper’d 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,[23] 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-colour’d wings.

  III.—­3.

    ’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.]