II.

3. No, my Britons! battle-slain, Rapture gilds your parting hour! I, that all-despotic reign, Claim but there a moment's power! Swiftly the soul of British flame Animates some kindred frame; Swiftly to life and light triumphant flies, Exults again in martial ecstacies, Again for Freedom fights, again for Free

The following Ode is founded on a tradi

tion current in Wales, that EDWARD the First, when he completed the conquest of of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death,

: RUIN feize thee, ruthless king

Confusion on thy banners wait, Tho' fann'd by Conqueft's crimson wing,

They mock the air with idle state*. • 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 steel ringlets, • To save thy fecret soul from nightly fears • From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's

tears!' Such were the sounds, that o'er the crested

pride *

every motion,

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

fide He wound, with toilsome march, his long

array. or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that

fat close to the body, and adapted itself to * The crested 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 castle of Conway built by King Edward the Firft, says, “ Ad ortum amnis Conway ad.clivum “montis Enery ;" and Matthew of Weftminster, (ad ann. 1283) “ Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi caftrum forte,"