THE DEATH OF HOEL.

Selected from the Gododin of Aneurin*, styled the monarch of the Bards. He flourished about the time of Taliessin, A. D. 570. See Mr. Evans's Specimens, pp. 71 and 73.

HAD I but the torrent's might,
With headlong rage and wild affright
Upon Deïra's squadrons hurl'd

To rush, and sweep them from the world!

Too, too secure in youthful pride,

By them, my friend, my Hoel died,

*"Aneurin with the flowing Muse, King of Bards, brother to Gildas Albanius the historian, lived under Mynyddawg of Edinburgh, a prince of the North, whose Eurdorchogion, or warriors wearing the golden torques, three hundred and sixty-three in number, were all slain, except Aneurin and two others, in a battle with the Saxons at Cattraeth, on the eastern coast of Yorkshire. His Gododin, an heroic poem written on that event, is perhaps the oldest and noblest production of that age." Jones's Relics, vol. i. p. 17.

Ver. 3. Upon Deïra's squadrons hurl'd] The kingdom of Deïra included the counties of Yorkshire, Durham, Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland.

Great Cian's son: of Madoc old
He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold;
Alone in nature's wealth array'd,
He ask'd and had the lovely maid.
To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row,
Thrice two hundred warriors go :
Every warrior's manly neck
Chains of regal honour deck,
Wreathed in many a golden link:
From the golden cup they drink
Nectar that the bees produce,
Or the grape's ecstatic juice.
Flush'd with mirth and hope they burn:
But none from Cattraeth's vale return,
Save Aeron brave, and Conan strong,
(Bursting through the bloody throng)
And I, the meanest of them all,
That live to weep and sing their fall.

HAVE ye seen the tusky boar
Or the bull, with sullen roar,
On surrounding foes advance?
So Caradoc bore his lance.

CONAN's name, my lay, rehearse,
Build to him the lefty verse,

* Have ye seen, &c.] This and the following short. fragment ought to have appeared among the Posthumous Pieces of Gray; but it was thought prefer

E

Sacred tribute of the bard,
Verse, the hero's sole reward.
As the flame's devouring force;
As the whirlwind in its course;
As the thunder's fiery stroke,
Glancing on the shiver'd oak;
Did the sword of Conan mow
The crimson harvest of the foe.

EPITAPH

ON MRS. CLARKE.

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,
A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps:
A heart within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues loved to dwell.
Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death resign'd,

She felt the wound she left behind.

Her infant image here below,

Sits smiling on a father's woe :

Whom what awaits, while yet he strays

Along the lonely vale of days?

able to insert them in this place with the preceding fragment from the Gododin.

A pang, to secret sorrow dear;
A sigh; an unavailing tear;

Till time shall every grief remove,
With life, with memory, and with love.

ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS.

Written at the request of Mr. Frederick Montagu, who intended to have inscribed it on a monument at Belleisle, at the siege of which Sir W. Williams was killed, 1761.

HERE, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame, Young Williams fought for England's fair

renown;

His Mind each Muse, each Grace adorn'd his frame,

Nor envy dared to view him with a frown. At Aix, his voluntary sword he drew,

There first in blood his infant honour seal'd; From fortune, pleasure, science, love he flew, And scorn'd repose when Britain took the

field.

With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast, Victor he stood on Belleisle's rocky steepsAh, gallant youth! this marble tells the rest, Where melancholy friendship bends, and

weeps.

ELEGY,

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds :

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around,

Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease: In still small accents whispering from the ground,

A grateful earnest of eternal peace.