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

Caratacus beholds, of his caterfs,
The countenance; how not many old in war!
Much part were children; when, to Britain, Claudius
O'erpassed. And cries the hero, with main voice;
For avarice, Romans, fight; we for our gods,
This foster soil, our cattle, our sacred hearths.
If we be vanquished, what shall rest to us,
In our own Land, but the ignominy of stripes;
And, captives, to be sold to servitude!
And ye, O wives, and shamefast maids, be thralls!
Of your chaste bodies, to luxurious Romans.
Help Gods! And, brothers, lifting now our hands,
Vow we all preys! He ceased, and groan blue Britons.

Dire shrieks, of frantic women, smite men's ears!
Are ancient wives, bereaved of warlike sons;

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And spouses whose long hairs loost to the wind,
Yet in young age, made widows, in these wars.
Their shrill cry is, for vengeance, to high gods!
They dance then, with joined hands, in furious choirs.
To magic chant, kindling all hearts! of druids.
Whereafter, caught brands, from the altar-hearths;
They, madding, mongst that glast-stained people ran!

Druids, which yet gaze, on the panting bowels,
Of sacrifices, send then to king Caradoc,
Word, saying; So Britons go not from their walls,
To-day, the gods should this blue people save.

Certain uplandish vaunting warlike warriors,
Demetans, heard not, on Britons' further part,
The druids' ban. Of them, leap down, anon,
The foremost; gainst who, enemies, on left wing,
Ascend, Batavians, from the forded stream;
And thousand, with vast clamour, glittering spears,
Approach! Then Publius, son of duke Ostorius,
(Who emulates, in proud arms, young worthy Titus;
That late repaired, with Aulus, is to Rome,)
Leading four cohorts, strenuous, lo, upmounts;

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And, made strong effort, beats back those blue Britons;
Whose trumps, above, sound hoarse and dreadful note!

Defend, within their works, their glast-stained warriors,
The Britons' gods: snatch, (thick as buzzing flies,)
Their divine hands, the Romans' shot, aloft,
And turn aside; or cause fall shortly spent.
But Britons' javelins, cast from higher ground,
As they come on, pierce many harnessed Romans.

Not long then might Cunobelin's glorious son
Contain his glast-stained warriors. Shielded swarms,
Whom those strife-hags incite, leap from all walls.
This seen, proceeds, unto the middest strife,
Britons' strong arm, the sire Caratacus!
Like as, who walks in forest, falcon sees,
And now not sees, which chaceth an hare forth;
(His glimpsing flight is midst thick boughs and oaks!)
So in battle, fares the warsire amongst his,
And Romans. Champions, that tall Cerix leads
On whom his father had imposed, to ward,
With his own life, and lives of his strong warriors,
King Caradoc's life, him fence, with hasty spears.

New vigour then and pulse, in the strong limbs,
Infused their battle-gods, of the blue Britons.

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Yet once more, they, in view of both the armies,
Would give war-glory to king Caradoc!
With Serpiol, (Togodumnos' burning glaive,)
He, mongst them running, bloody breaches hews.
The people of Romulus hear, bove battle-noise,
Caradoc's great voice, heartening his woad-stained warriors!

This hour, must forge, of Rome, eternal chains,
He cries; or else them loose, from off our necks.
And bound, with fatal holly-oak leaves, mark
Men, is the warsire's helm, to-day, to death!
War-girt, he rusheth, in strong battle-press.