The Dawn in Britain by Charles M. Doughty |
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 | The Dawn in Britain |  |
Is fame, erst laid strong hands, Batavian aids;
Calling on Woden god, lord of the slain,
On Britons' bulwark; and gan it disrock:
But bare the immane spears of Briton gods,
Batavians back, with loss of half their men!
Calling on Woden god, lord of the slain,
On Britons' bulwark; and gan it disrock:
But bare the immane spears of Briton gods,
Batavians back, with loss of half their men!
More terrible grows then strife, under the wall.
Issue blue Britons, like to angry swarms
Of stinging flies: an infinite warlike din
Wide sounds, like rattling hail, on a king's hall.
Wade forth, in battle-press, the barbare ensigns.
Fight bands of naked wattle-shielded Britons,
Gainst stedfast bronze-clad ranks of legionaries;
That, having overcome the world before,
Would win even this cold soil of Utmost Britain!
Issue blue Britons, like to angry swarms
Of stinging flies: an infinite warlike din
Wide sounds, like rattling hail, on a king's hall.
Wade forth, in battle-press, the barbare ensigns.
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Gainst stedfast bronze-clad ranks of legionaries;
That, having overcome the world before,
Would win even this cold soil of Utmost Britain!
The seventh year now is running of this war,
Gainst might of Rome; nor Britain yet subdued:
Such virtue found is, in her warlike sons.
Whereas, in Summers few, had Julius' arms
Vanquisht Main Gaul. Stalks, mongst them which contend,
Death, from hell-pit, uprisen, beneath the earth!
In each of his ten-thousand violent hands,
A dart. In skies, his face the mounting Sun,
Shrouds, and above this battle, seems to mourn.
Lie fallen, as wind-cast shocks, in harvest field,
Men's carcases; whose new disbodied spirits
Flit, without memory of their former being;
Seeking, in the wild airs, now starry paths:
And gods all valiant souls receive to rest!
Gainst might of Rome; nor Britain yet subdued:
Such virtue found is, in her warlike sons.
Whereas, in Summers few, had Julius' arms
Vanquisht Main Gaul. Stalks, mongst them which contend,
Death, from hell-pit, uprisen, beneath the earth!
In each of his ten-thousand violent hands,
A dart. In skies, his face the mounting Sun,
Shrouds, and above this battle, seems to mourn.
Lie fallen, as wind-cast shocks, in harvest field,
Men's carcases; whose new disbodied spirits
Flit, without memory of their former being;
Seeking, in the wild airs, now starry paths:
And gods all valiant souls receive to rest!
| The Dawn in Britain | |