Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail

To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,

From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears I "
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride

Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side

He wound with toilsome march his long array.
"Robed in the sable gai-Yj oi'voe.
^ntil liaggai'd ej'es the poet stood.
The Bard. 23

Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance :
"To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiv-
'ring lance.
On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood.
Robed in the sable garb of woe.
With haggard eyes the poet stood ;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air ;)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
' ' Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave.
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath !
O'er thee, O King ! their hundred arms they wave.
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe ;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
" Cold is CadWallo's tongue,
That hush'd the stormy main :
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed :
Mountains, ye mourn in vain



24 Gray's Poems.
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlunmon bow his doud-topt head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,
Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale :
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail ;

The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my timefiil art.
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes.
