Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable, Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the car cass a skeleton, Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wil derness, wallow in it, Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be pro pitiated. Cámulodúne! barous adversary ous emperor-idiot. Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cássivëlaún! · Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Ice nian, O Coritanian! Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuch lanian, Trinobant. These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances, Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aërially, Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred, Phantom wail of women and children, multitudi nous agonies. Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men; Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary; Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily totter ing There was one who watch'd and told me down their statue of Victory fell. Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Cámulodúne. VOL. I. 25 Shall we teach it a Roman lesson ? shall we care to be pitiful ? Shall we deal with it as an infant ? shall we dan dle it amorously? Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating, There I heard them in the darkness, at the mysti cal ceremony, Loosely-robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses. “ Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets! Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gather ing enemy narrow thee, Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet! Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated, Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable, Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises, Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God.” So they chanted : how shall Britain light upon auguries happier ? So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now. • Hear Icenian, Catieachlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant ! Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty, Me they seized and me they tortured, me they
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian lash'd and humiliated, violators! ignominy! be satiated. lodúne ! flourishing territory, Britoness inexorable. Trinobant, cipitously in a hurricane whirl'd. nobeline! of ebony lay, effeminacy. there they dwell no more. works of the statuary, it abominable, tuousness, humiliated, brains of the little one out, Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.' So the Queen Boadicéa, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yelld and shrieked between her daughters in her fierce volubility. Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated, Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments, Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January, Roard as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices, Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory: So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adver saries Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice, Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously, Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away. Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds. Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies. Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Cámulodune, IN QUANTITY. MILTON. Alcaics. O MIGHTY-MOUTH'd inventor of harmonies, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Rings to the roar of an angel onset Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods Whisper in odorous heights of even. Hendecasyllabics. O you chorus of indolent reviewers, |