Or pining Love, shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart, Ambition this shall tempt to rise, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye, That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; And keen Remorse, with blood defil'd, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe. Lo, in the vale of years beneath A grisly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, Lo, Poverty, to fill the band, To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, The unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? And happiness too swiftly flies. THE BARD. A PINDARIC ODE. I. "RUIN seize thee, ruthless king! Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail * The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming à coat of mail, that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion. Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance: To arms! cried Mortimer †, and couch'd his quivering lance. On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Rob'd in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood; Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air,) "Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave, "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hush'd the stormy main; Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-top'd head. On dreary Arvon's shore they lie, Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale: * Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. + Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. The shores of Caernarvonshire opposite to the Isle of Anglesea. Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail : No more I weep. They do not sleep. I see them sit, they linger yet, Avengers of their native land: With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line. II. "Weave the warp, and weave the woof, Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall re-echo with affright [ring The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roofs that Shrieks of an agonizing king; She-wolf of France †, with unrelenting fangs, That tears the bowels of thy mangled mate, From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs What terrours round The scourge of Heaven. him wait! Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley castle. + Isabel of France, Edward the Second's adulterous queen. Triumphs of Edward the Third in France. Amazement in his van, with Flight combin'd; "Mighty Victor, mighty Lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! * No pitying heart, no eye, afford Is the sable warrior † fled? Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. The swarm, that in the noon-tide beam were born; Gone to salute the rising Morn. Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the Zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; "Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare: Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. * Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress. + Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster. |