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

Caratacus continues in that forest,
Yet other days. Forbade divining druids,
Which signs read, in the bowels of sacrifices;
He issue, with caterfs, against the legions.

Lo, weary, at morrow, fugitives be come in,
To Britons' camps! Are men with ghastful looks;
As who have seen some gods! whose tunics rent,
Stained, (wounded they,) with war-blood. Erst found booth,
In green-wood camp, of king Segontorix,
Those cry out; Taken was, lord, by sudden assault,

Calleva; they only escaped, when slaughter, made,
There, legion-soldiers. Cometh then Guledig forth!
With immense dool, his mighty heart oppressed:
As when some king returned, from foreign wars,
Beholds his hall burned! and his fair fields wasted,
Are reft his cattle; and led away, for thralls,
Hears, sons and daughters, wives and little ones.

In cart the warlord mounts; whose trumpet note,
Doth signify, Take arms, and, from the forest,
March forth! Journey, come down into the plain,
Caterfs, where he them leads. By Caradoc, drives
Bodvocos, silent; seen how burned have Romans,
His marches! wherein whilom multitude was,
Of sheep-flocks, beves and steeds and happy wights.
Drives on, before him, swart Segontorix;
Who mourns Calleva: and he bears loosely in hand,
His whip and reins; nor cheers his stumbling steeds.

And, with his captains, which their long-maned teams
Guide, nigh to his, communing, Caradoc quoth;
Our fathers' fathers overthrew old Romans;
And their eldfathers' sires had burned proud Rome!

So we, helped of strong gods, shall drive from Britain,
As Cassiobellan, Rome's invading legions.

Is hardly a man, in our days, in great Rome,
Of stature seen: but full of wicked life,
Be all their marble city's stinking streets:
Wherein go thronging flatterers, ill-faced routs,
Like to that sallow flood, which parts Rome town,
And few of honest mind. And who great lords,
In strange lascivious banquetings, wont to pass,
Flower-crowned, on beds, with women's softness, laid,
Mongst curious meats and wine, in precious cups,
And vomitings, which should renew their lust,
And pipes and dance, the watches of the night.

That shallow glebe, which lies beyond walled Rome,

Of thralls, is tilled; for wars have nigh consumed,
Through all Italia, their ingenuous youth.
And their most soil, (which shelves, of hoarded earth,
On builded walls,) with only vines they plant.
Whose hot earth-blood, the cruel Romans drink,
And thirst then gore. And this doth make them mad,
To wars, wherein they hope spoil all the world.