Where his glowing eye-balls turn, 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, p. 71 and 73. HAD I but the torrent's might, With headlong rage and wild affright To rush, and sweep them from the world! Too, too secure in youthful pride, He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold; * 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 Deira's squadrons hurl'd] The kingdom of Deïra included the counties of Yorkshire, Durham, Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. Alone in nature's wealth array'd, He ask'd and had the lovely maid. To Cattraeth's vale in glitt'ring row, HAVE ye seen the tusky boar,* CONAN'S name, my lay, rehearse, * Have ye seen, &c.] This and the following short fragment ought to have appeared among the Posthumous Pieces of Gray; but it was thought preferable to insert them in this place with the preceding fragment from the Gododin. 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, She felt the wound she left behind. Sits smiling on a father's woe: Whom what awaits, while yet he strays |