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II. 3.

No, my Britons! battle-flain,
Rapture gilds your parting hour!
I, that all-defpotic reign,

Claim but there a moment's power!
Swiftly the foul of British flame
Animates fome kindred frame ;
Swiftly to life and light triumphant flies,
Exults again in martial ecftacies,

Again for Freedom fights, again for Freedom dies.

THE

BAR D.

A

PINDARIC ODE.

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BRITISH

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that EDWARD the First, when he completed the conqueft of of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.

THE

BAR D.

PINDARIC ODE.

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RUIN feize thee, ruthless king

Confufion on thy banners wait,

Tho' fann'd by Conqueft's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle ftate*.
Helm, nor Hauberk's twisted mail †,
Nor even thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail

* Mocking the air with colours idly spread. Shakespeare's King John. + The Hauberk was a texture of feel ringlets,

To fave thy fecret foul from nightly fears From Cambria's curfe, from Cambria's tears!'

Such were the founds, that o'er the crefted pride *

Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowden's + fhaggy fide

He wound, with toilfome march, his long

array.

ar rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that fat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion.

*The crefted adder's pride.

Dryd. Ind. Qu.

+ Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welch themselves call Craigian-eryri; it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway, R. Higden, Speaking of the caftle of Conway built by King Edward the First, fays, Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum "montis Erery ;" and Matthew of Weftminfter, (ad ann. 1283) Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi caftrum forte."

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