The Visions of England | Page 9

carried his followers by way of Sicily and Cyprus:
making a transient conquest of the latter. In the Holy Land the siege of
Acre consumed the time and strength of the Crusaders. They suffered
terribly in the wilderness of Mount Carmel, and when at last preparing
to march on Jerusalem (1192) were recalled to Ascalon. Richard now
advanced to Bethany, but was unable to reach the Holy City. The tale is
that while riding with a party of knights one of them called out, 'This
way, my lord, and you will see Jerusalem.' But Richard hid his face and
said, 'Alas!--they who are not worthy to win the Holy City are not
worthy to behold it.'
The vast Imperial dome; The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built

by the Emperor Constantine; A.D. 326-335.
The hidden Grail; This vision forms the subject of one of Tennyson's
noblest Idylls.
A BALLAD OF EVESHAM
August 4: 1265
Earl Simon on the Abbey tower
In summer sunshine stood,
While
helm and lance o'er Greenhill heights
Come glinting through the
wood.
'My son!' he cried, 'I know his flag
Amongst a thousand
glancing':--
Fond father! no!--'tis Edward stern
In royal strength
advancing.
The Prince fell on him like a hawk
At Al'ster yester-eve,
And
flaunts his captured banner now
And flaunts but to deceive:--

--Look round! for Mortimer is by,
And guards the rearward river:--

The hour that parted sire and son
Has parted them for ever!
'Young Simon's dead,' he thinks, and look'd
Upon his living son:

'Now God have mercy on our souls,
Our bodies are undone!
But,
Hugh and Henry, ye can fly
Before their bowmen smite us--
They
come on well! But 'tis from me
They learn'd the skill to fight us.'
--'For England's cause, and England's laws,
With you we fight and
fall!'
--'Together, then, and die like men,
And Heaven has room for
all!'
--Then, face to face, and limb to limb,
And sword with sword
inwoven,
That stubborn courage of the race
On Evesham field was
proven
O happy hills! O summer sky
Above the valley bent!
Your
peacefulness rebukes the rage
Of blood on blood intent!
No thought
was then for death or life
Through that long dreadful hour,
While
Simon 'mid his faithful few
Stood like an iron tower,

'Gainst which the winds and waves are hurl'd
In vain, unmoved,
foursquare;
And round him raged the insatiate swords
Of Edward
and De Clare:
And round him in the narrow combe
His white-cross
comrades rally,
While ghastly gashings, cloud the beck
And
crimson all the valley,
And triple sword-thrusts meet his sword,
And thrice the charge he
foils,
Though now in threefold flood the foe
Round those devoted
boils:
And still the light of England's cause
And England's love was
o'er him,
Until he saw his gallant boy
Go down in blood before
him:--
He hove his huge two-handed blade,
He cried ''Tis time to die!'
And
smote around him like a flail,
And clear'd a space to lie:--
'Thank
God!'--no more;--nor now could life
From loved and lost divide
him:--
And night fell o'er De Montfort dead,
And England wept
beside him.
In the words given here to Simon (and, indeed, in the bulk of my
narrative) I have almost literally followed Prothero's Life. The struggle,
like other critical conflicts in the days of unprofessional war, was very
brief.
THE DIRGE OF LLYWELYN
December 10: 1282
Llanyis on Irfon, thine oaks in the drear
Red eve of December are
wind-swept and sere,
Where a king by the stream in his agony lies,

And the life of a land ebbs away as he dies.
Caradoc, thy sceptre for centuries kept,
Shall it pass like the ripple,
unhonour'd, unwept:
Unknowing the lance, and the victim unknown,

Far from Aberffraw's halls and Eryri the lone!
O dark day of winter and Cambria's shame,
To the treason of Builth

when from Gwynedd he came,
And Walwyn and Frankton and
Mortimer fell
Closed round unawares by the fold in the dell!
--As who, where the shadow beneath him is thrown,
By some well in
Saharan high noontide alone
Sits under the palm-tree, nor hears the
low breath
Of the russet-maned foe panting hot for his death;
So Llywelyn,--unarm'd, unaware:--Is it she,
Bright star of his
morning, when Gwynedd was free,
Fair bride, the long sought, taken
early, goes by?
In the heart of the breeze the lost Eleanor's sigh?
Or the one little daughter's sweet face with a gleam
Of glamour looks
out, as the dream in a dream?
Or for childhood's first sunshine and
calm does he yearn,
As the days of Maesmynan in memory return?
Or,--dear to the heart's-blood as first-love or wife,--
The mountains
whose freedom was one with his life,
Gray farms and green vales of
that ancient domain,
The thousand-years' kingdom, he dreams of
again?
Or is it the rage of stark Edward; the base
Unkingly revenge on a
kinglier race;
The wrong idly wrought on the patriot dead;
The dark
castle of doom; the scorn-diadem'd head?
--Lo, where Rhodri and Owain await thee!--The foe
Slips nearing in
silence: one flash--and one blow!
And the ripple that passes wafts
down to the Wye
The last prayer of Llywelyn, the nation's last sigh.
But Llanynis yet sees the white rivulet gleam,
And the