3 5 Is mocked but by a mimic majesty ; And northern insult is a just reward For perjur'd perfidy, and fair domains, But soon the brave adventurers fiery souls Were tamed to rest in smiling Normandy, And custom smooth'd away the rougher edge Of savage life, and the fast ice-bound night Of northern superstition fairly dawned With heaven's own light, and warriors learnt to look Yet the wild courage bred in Norway's hills And 'William's iron arm, and trembling hosts And that brave warrior band which Robert led— Robert, far-famed for lofty form, and limbs Of giant strength and fiery flashing eyes- But all the records writ on Hist'ry's page Are but the names of individual men, 3 Charles the Foolish, purchased peace and homage from the Normans with the lands of Bretagne, to which he had no claim. at the ceremony of paying homage is well known. 4 William de Hauteville. The humiliation of the king 5 Robert Guiscard who founded the Norman kingdom of Naples. Whose lives have passed away like shaken sands Names carved but higher than their fellows are, O! his fame was writ In bloody lustre in the scroll of fame, When in their sports his playmates crowned him king. And in such proud ambition curl'd his lip, 6 O! for the spell of numbers breathing war Was thick with hail of arrows; then might flash Ah no! not now such strains! They best befit Falls on my spirit, like the night of death Upon the field of Hastings; and my ears Can hear but Freedom's death shriek, and the wail Of a lone woman-sacred-beautiful, Mourning above the body of her lord. Yea, fair-haired king, a glorious death was thine! True Saxon heart-good, kind, and brave, how oft My soul has traced the spirit-teeming Past To fight with thee that battle o'er again! How, through the bloody day, thy single arm Wrought more than mortal deeds, and thy great soul, One man a host; and oh what grief and love Which dropt, thy last gift, on thy native soil. But sleep in peace! for o'er thy sacred head, 6 Harold was buried on the sea shore. Nobler than Norway's sagas; every wave And every foam drop sparkling in the sun Hath dash'd thy sepulchre with Heav'n's own psalm 'By foot of foreign foe; and paid to thee To Not mine to turn me from so bright a scene weep the miseries of England's sons, And lift the veil from hidden graves of wrong, And turbulence of wanton cruelty. Nor mine to tell how Heav'n's dread thunder-bolt Of retribution fell, and God's own hand Wrote in the Conqueror's house the burning words And not with woeful cries and shrieks of death, The Norman sun set in the sea of Time. But as when evening fades into the night, Some passing breeze wafts through the fading air, Of thanks for light, and heat, and bounteous day. Of blushing love, and all the joyous noise Of lightsome dance and tourney, glimmered through 1 Of rosy light across the golden Seine, Of gallant Tancred, and an answering wind Thus mingling soft With the deep song of ages, died away That hurtled on the world from Norway's hills. |