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

Now is that morrow, and the evening hour.
And, lo, a stranger dead, Adminius' corse,
Through Roman street, on purple bier, borne forth.
Black-gowned, the public lictors go before.
Shrill funeral pipes, then, slow and mournful note.

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Few Britons follow, to that burning place;
And of those few, few loved Adminius.

Now be they come, without the city's port:
And halt before walled court; behold, where is
The builded pyre. There, taking up the herse,
The public servants bear it on the wood;
Which Caradoc fires, then, with averted face;
As custom is! Hostilius, lastly, cast
In parfumes; whilst the raging flames upmount.

Few linger, till consumed the stranger's corse.
Sprinkles, with olive-branch and water pure,
The Roman priest, already, them that part.
Sole, rests Caratacus; who then the same night,
Upgathered, hastily, in a Roman urn,
Adminius' yet warm ashes, did bear home.
He, Briton prince, a cypress-bough set up,
Then, sign of Roman mourning, at his gate.