The Dawn in Britain :: :: University of Virginia Library

When gone, sith that king's death, were certain years,
Wasted the isle a grievous pestilence.
Perish unnumbered Britons' multitude.
And who survived, so feeble were and low,
They might uneath their garments' weight sustain:
Whence custom grew, that Island Britain's Gauls,
Muchwhat their valiant members leave unclad;
And stain, in war, which counted healing was,

Their flesh with woad. Cause of this death, deemed druids,
Some unappeased ire of the blue sea-gods.
Wherefore, when Britons gathered were to cliff
Of Kent, in the moot-month, each lord his steed
Cast to sea waves. Which done, divining druids,
At new day-spring, beheld three high-necked steeds,
Before the precinct of their sacred grove,
Divine of semblant. Whilst they marvelling stood,
Those steeds brake, with loud neighing, to sea shore;
Whence seemed they to draw forth, in full career,
Swart chariot running o'er the hoary billows:
And ceased, even from that hour, the island plagues.

Twain only rest of all those royal spouses,
Cingorix, who deaf, oblivious now with age,
Cedes to King Peredur, his brother peer,
(Yet fresh, like one of the long-living gods,)
His monthly sovereignty: in whose day, erst was
A maintenance assigned to Britain's druids;
And public seats, where might the ingenuous youth,
Learn Sarron's discipline, lifting up men's souls,
From dust of that rude age. Oft were their schools,
Then, cowslip lawns and glades of leafy woods,
And banks of bubbling streams. Then first set bornes;
And common ways were measured of league stones.

In this king's time, erst Belges from the Main,
By German arms oppressed, sought Britain's Isle.
Those lately arrived, from a vast region,
Beyond the mighty currents of the Rhine,
Led by their god of war. And Peredur,
Divided land, to all, by equal lot.

And to that Brittany, which The Less or Erinn,
Is named, wherein stand altars of the sun,
And priests a daily-dying god adore;
Iberian stranger nation, the same year,
In wicker keels came, fugitive, from afar;
Whereof part, in waves wilderness, had perished;
Part driven were, peradventure, to those coasts;
Of whom the sons, to Britain, called the More,
Excelling all that shoot in crooked bows,
Silures named, o'erfared in the next age.

The people of Samoth, now to nation grown,
Were in their borders, tumults. Ploughmen strive,
With ploughmen; herdfolk for hill-pastures wild:
Then kings gan threaten arms. Sith king Dunwallon
Arose, one surnamed the Just Lord; whom all
In the truce-month, Britons' assembled tribes,
Choose warden of the nation, as ere was
Sarron the Star. Before the people then
Sate down on the doom-hill, he redressed wrongs;

And in the next year, published equal laws.
But as good thing, even when at best it is,
Wont fail; so by await of wicked men,
Was midst his days, great king Dunwallon slain.