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

Loud blasts of warhorns rouse men's panting hearts!
With shrilling merry note of hundred pipes,
The hosts fare forth. And quakes the foster earth,
Neath thick tread of warfaring multitude.
Riding apart, the forward hold the dukes:
Each to be known, both by his goodly steed,
His garments sheen and noble personage.
Three men, with them, be seen, of stranger nation;
Whose foreheads girt with guirlands of field flowers,
To horse; but bounden backward be their hands:
Ausonians those, which from far Summer Land,
Came to king Correus. Now they captives ride;
And should those be the Gauls' interpreters.

But forasmuch as were in Gaul, all strangers
Accounted guests, much doubted noble Correus
Attach the men, though many them accused;

Till, in a drunken fray, those Tuscans slew
Some of his Gauls; then he them judged to bonds.
Nathless the princes, freedom both and gold
Them promise; and those well in their war-voyage,
Them serve. With the forthfaring army, outride
King Correus, lo, and Sénones lords. But risen,
When fourth sun is in heaven, the Belges' king,
With father's hands, on those three princes' heads,
Did warlike morions of hard bronze impose,
Labour of cunning smith; is each helm's crest
A raven and a star. Sith Correus kissed
His sister's sons; and takes, in both of his,
Their valiant hands and Almain Heremod's.
So wisheth them, that fare to war, godspeed.

This mighty host, through Belges Gaul, descends,
From camp to camp. But when the winter gods,
Now rain incessantly, upon earth's large face,
The armies halt, under wide-sheltering woods;
Where build the Gauls them bowers, for many a league.

Ride the three princes thence, before the hosts,
Forth; and to river dune, of the Sun's face,
(Lug's-town, ) arrive; where altars of that god,
Twixt meeting of great Rhone and Sargon floods.
Those royal germains, with duke Heremod,

There, after the day's sun, do vigil keep;
Slumbering on fleeces of their sacrifices.
The princes, of the sun-god, would enquire,
Concerning their great warlike enterprise:
Whose wont is answer in prophetic vision.

They leave, without the holy precinct, there,
Shields, hauberks, brazen helms and shining arms.
Those captives also, which they hither led,
They therein now have loosed. Sith offering made
Three wethers; when they of the victim's flesh,
Have supped, the princes laid them down to rest;
Expecting should rise on their dreaming sense,
Some heavenly vision of the time to come.

But soon those captives, whispering in the dark,
From temple brake; and they, even where most swift
Run eddies deep, in the cold waves of Rhone;
On Gauls, invoking dreadful curse, all leap
Did down, from cliff; and drench for country's health!
Lifting his head, smooth-streaming Sargon rose;
Then, with great tumult, headlong Rhodanus:
And soon their whirling floods that field invade;
Yet raught not the degrees, where the dukes sleep,
Before the altar of their sacrifices.

Now is the hour, when deepest sound the streams,
Before the dawn; and sleep weighs on men's sense.

Unto each alike then of her dreaming sons.
Corwenna, in heavenly radiance, lo, appears!
Full pale she is; and spake, even now, from earth,
I passed and borne is, towards the stars, my spirit;
But love to you me, yet, detains a moment.
For nothing, be, my sons, dismaied, the heavens
Favour your arms. You, conquerors from far wars,
Shall bring again, Gaul's high safe-guarding gods.
Ah! I may not you embosom, in these arms,
Once more! so sadly faded she. Each starts,
From sleep; each, to the other, tells his vision.
Each germain takes his brother's hands, and weeps.

Now Lyons.