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

Archers of Andred, nigh five hundred bows,
Keep Camulus' walls; else weak were their defence,
Which hold the dune, wives, striplings, and old men.
Each eve, they watch, to dawn; come day, till even,
For the returning armies of blue Britons.

When that first rampire, which girds-in their town,
Have Romans won, part-razed, and choked the dyke;
(Wherein sharp tree-trunks, which so bound, beneath;
And wreathed their boughs, and that in rows, above;
They, by the soldiers, could not be removed;)
The inner bank, their miners under-delve;
Bank of heaped earth, it is; that, Gaulish wise,
Bonded with pillared beams, and rammed with stones;
Gainst which prevail, not lightly, battery of engines.
Moreo'er, by day and night-time, have relays,
Of cohorts, digged wide trenches, in the plain;
To lead away the currents of the Colne,
That naught might, to the sieged, but brine, remain;
Which daily infloweth, twice, of the salt tide.

Wherefore, when whelmed is now, on the low world,
Night's hollow shadow, without gleam of stars;
The queen, all who unapt, by kind or age;
(Wives, little ones, old wights,) to fight on walls,
Gathered about her, in the market-place;
Sends weeping forth, with three-score Andred bows;
Where path, o'er fenny strand, lies, at low ebb:
And thence, by privy ford, unwatcht of Romans,
(Through favour of some god,) those silent wade.
Seemed Camulus go before them, in a cloud;
That, unmarked, they pass sentinels; and beyond,
Come safely o'er Colne fen, soon those take wood!

Is Cartismandua sitting, sad in bower!
She, though the dune be shut in, by assiege;
And Caradoc lies at point of death, she hear,
Comes no more forth; she wakes, by Vellocatus.
Though wood her heart be, for her squadrons lost;
Would not she reck of loss, would but crude heavens
Her, ah! restore this deadly Vellocatus!
Whose wan lips seems already, to have kissed,
Goddess, abhorred, of death! would but her save,
Her gods, from this last loss of hoped-for love!

On Morrigu, she, great queen of witches all,
Loud frantic calls; and on false Arianrod,

For succour, goddess of the silver wheel.
By spells, sith, summoned her familiar spirits;
She enquires, how fatal stars, might from their courses,
Be wrested, and compelled the very gods?