"
CHILDE HAROLD.
"Oh Gwynedd, fast thy star declineth,
Thy name is gone, thy rights invaded,
And hopelessly the strong oak pineth,
Where the tall sapling faded;
The mountain eagle idly cowers
Beside his slaughtered young,
Our sons must bow to other powers,
Must learn a stranger tongue.
Pride, valour, freedom, treasures that have been,
Do they all slumber in the grave of Rhun?"
Thus sad and low the murmurs spread
Round Owain's stately walls,
While he, a mourner o'er the dead,
Sate lonely in his halls;
And not the hardiest warrior there,
Unpitying, might blame
The reckless frenzy of despair
Which shook that iron frame;
Eyes that had coldly gazed on woman's grief,
Wept o'er the anguish of their stern old chief.
Not all unheard those murmurs past,
They reached a lady's bower,
Where meekly drooped beneath the blast
Proud Gwynedd's peerless flower;
And she, the hero's widow'd bride,
Has roused her from her sorrow's spell,
And vowed one effort should be tried
For that fair land he loved so well.
There came a footstep, light and lone,
To break the Chieftain's solitude,
And, bending o'er a harp's low tone,
A form of fragile beauty stood;
More like the maid, in fairy lay, {97}
Whose very being was of flowers,
Than creature, moulded from the clay,
To dwell in this cold sphere of ours.
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