To spur with levell'd lance, or splintering spear,
And nobly conquer, or in honour sink!
Let cowards gaze on Death with dastard fear,
The dauntless warrior treads the dizzy brink,
And smiles on all from which the rest of mortals shrink!"
A stir of arms ran through the Norman host,
A ringing sound of warriors clad in mail,
A waving sea of plumes aloft were tost
As crested billows rise beneath the gale,
And fling their foam athwart the welkin pale!
For much stern William's words they lov'd to hear;
And as he spoke their gathering brows did veil
Their kindling glances, and each warrior near,
Breath'd thick thro' his set teeth and grasp'd his quivering spear.
At hand, an aged knight expiring lay,
The death-film gathering o'er his glazing eye,
Dabbled with gore his beard and tresses gray,
His crushed limbs quivering quick in agony—
Yet as he heard his cherished leader's cry,
His eye gleamed wildly-was it from remorse?
No-his limbs writhing in his panoply-
He hurl'd his shatter'd spear, and cried "to horse!"
Then slowly sank to earth, a stern and stiffened corse.
With "Benedicité" the Monks depart,
And long they search throughout the gory field,
The Monarch who had won the nation's heart;
That regal front,-by death first taught to yield,
Had ne'er before in battle been concealed;
But in such mangled heaps the warriors lay,
Even to a mother's eyes were unrevealed
Those features she had watched in childhood's play,
Bent o'er in boyhood's sleep, and loved in manhood's day.
Where a vast heap of warriors had been piled,
Shewing that here the fiercest strife had been,
The Monks beheld a form uncouth and wild,
Whose gray locks scatter'd loose and maniac mien
Seemed the grim Genius of the savage scene:
Her bony arms were bloody, gaunt, and bare,
And fast they plied their work the groups between,
Twining her hand in each dead warrior's hair,
And turning to her torch the eyeball's sightless stare.
'Twas the sad Mother of the murder'd king,*
Victorious Godwin's widow, lonely now!
* She had begged her son's body of William immediately after the battle, and had been refused by the stern victor.
Reft of her son and husband ;-could the sting
Of Sorrow leave its venom on her brow,
Or mild Repentance in her bosom glow
"Twould be even when she stands :-not so! she feels
All the fierce Saxon blood about her flow,
Even in her desolate mood her heart she steels, And if she bends to God,-for vengeance 'tis she kneels.
Her restless glance and quick words muttered low,
Her regal garb in wild disorder flung;
Her hands that trembling o'er the corpses go,
Then o'er her head in agony are wrung-
Betray a spirit to its centre stung
With the keen wrathful sense of injury;
Alas! the darling son to whom she clung,
His slaughter'd frame she seeks and cannot see,
To rescue it from scorn and foul indignity.
Scarce had they reached her side with soothing phrase,
Intent to calm her heart and maddening brain—
Ere, circled by a thousand torches' blaze,
Appeared the Norman Conqueror and his train,
Searching his friends unburied on the plain;
And scarce had William's image caught her eye,
Ere, rearing her tall form above the slain,
Like Pythoness in act to prophecy,
Thus to the King she spake in accents harsh and high :
"Ha! is it thee, thou bloody Robber Chief!
Girt round with all thy savage, murderous brood?
And hast thou sought me out to mock my grief,
And brave a Saxon Mother in her mood-
Robbed of her child by thee, thou Man of Blood?
God's malison and mine on all thy race!
Thy hands in gore, thy soul in guilt imbrued,
May'st thou grow old and wretched; be thy face
Hated and feared by all; defiled thy burial place!
"I feel, I feel, my prayer hath been preferr'd,
I mark, fierce Chieftain! all thy black career;
In Heaven my vows have all been register'd,
And Fate's prophetic voice peals in my ear-
Yet are her tones not those I hoped to hear :
THOU shalt be Conqueror,-thou shalt attain
To Age and Wealth and Sovereignty,—but ne'er
To Joy!—for grief shall spring from all thy gain—
Thy Conquest be thy curse, and Victory thy bane!
"Thou slay'st my child,—and thine shall slay thy peace,
Plant discord in thy household and thy heart;
Thy sword hath caused full many a line to cease
Of noble Saxons,-and thou shalt impart
Their lands to Norman Barons-thine the smart ;
For they shall clip thy wings, thou bird of pride!
Thy friends shall all prove false,-thy people start
From their abhorr'd allegiance ;—at thy side,
Not even a Monk shall stand to tell when William died.
"Rejoice, ye slaughter'd spirits of the just!
Rejoice, ye noble Saxons who remain !
The Robber who your chosen Monarch thrust
From off his throne, and did your altars stain
With blood of murder'd saints,-amid the slain
Of an unnoticed skirmish meets his death :
Vainly above a burning brow and brain
Shall twine the cool green of his laurel wreath,
Despair shall close his eyes and catch his dying breath."
With a grim smile of scorn the Conqueror stood,
When first her tones malign assailed his ear;
Muttering to those who press'd to shed her blood—
""Tis but a feeble woman, wild with fear,
Do her no wrong,"-but, as approaching near
Her solemn curse he heard, with sudden guilt
His swarthy cheek grew pale, his limbs appear
To slip and quiver in the blood he'd spilt;
Then, rallying quick, he scowled and grasped his dagger's hilt.
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