Classic Poem

ROWENA .

IV. i.

The mourner Night stalks up the East apace
And flings her black weeds o'er the fear-full skies:
But list! what hollow ghostly groans arise;
And see! what ominous portents glare
Athro' the lurid Air!
Fires following fires in boding chase,
All bloody-red the sorrowing Queen o'the skies,
Dim all the stars, and sad the brow of night.
And see! in troops the wolves around
Rush thro' the wolds, the hills, and scour along the ground;
Aheight the screamling owlets fly
(From Night and Hell the ravening brood)
Lichfowl, and hafocs, all that joy
To gnaw the mangled corse, and lap th' agoten blood;
Out from each open eye a meteor gleam,
Piercing the night with straight-shot beam,
Flashes new horrors o'er the dismal scene —
What may these dread fore-beacums mean?
Is Horsa captive? Hengest slain?
Does Britain's King too bite th' ensanguin'd plain?
Methinks I see my bleeding Father die —
Methinks I hear his last expiring sigh —
His Royal Head expos'd on the cold ground
While gapes his brave old breast with many a ghastly wound:
— Look up, my Lord, thy Child, Rowena, calls. —
— He hears me not — but groans, and falls, —
Die then, Rowena, for thy Father slain!
Ye Bards, ye Bards, in solemn strains and slow
Tune your sad Rotes to all the depths of woe.