University of Virginia Library

THE LAST OF THE BRITONS, OR THE LEGEND OF DUNMAIL RAISE.

Hard by Helvellyn's mountain-steep,
Where Leathes' mere begins to peep,
Rises a knoll, in later days
Call'd in the dale King Dunmail's Raise.
Here 'neath the mountain's shoulders sheer
The road that runs from Windermere
Is one long hill from Grasmere shore
To Wy'burn town, six miles or more.
In such a pass three hundred men
Might drive ten thousand back again:
Upon this rise did Dunmail post
His faithful, but too scanty, host.
But what avails devotion high,
Or chivalrous fidelity,
When tenfold is the foeman's rank,
And pouring in on front and flank.
'Twas thus that royal Dunmail's might
Was shattered in that fatal fight;
For while ten times ten-thousand men,
The Saxon host, charged up the glen,
Down huge Helvellyn's rugged side
Pour'd the fierce Scot as pours the tide
Of some long-prisoned mountain stream
When broken is th' opposing beam
That damm'd its flood and turn'd its flow
To drive the miller's wheel below;
Or like the Cyclon blasts that sweep
Over the face of India's deep.
The Briton bravely met the charge
With levell'd spear and sturdy targe:
But vain—for, hemm'd on every hand,
Nought could avail the gallant band:
Not all the valour and the might
Of Arthur and each boasted knight
Nam'd of the Table Round;
Not all King Charlemagne's array
Of Paladins that on a day
A grave with Roland found.
A fiercer charge—his host gives way,
And Scot and Saxon fierce to slay
Cut down the Britons man by man,
Till scarce a tithe of all the clan
Fight their way through to tell the tale
And save the crown of King Dunmail.
For he has lost his faithful brand,
And now is in the foeman's hand,
With both his sons, ill-fated three,
Doom'd to a conqueror's cruelty,
Their only crime that they did fight
To keep the realm that was their right.
Bound hand and foot with cords they lay
Until the ending of the fray
Should give their conqueror liberty
To revel in his cruel glee.
Then—such the custom of his day—
With his own hand does Edmond slay
The sire before the children's eyes
And blinds them soon as e'er he dies.
The Britons who escap'd the fray
Hid on the hills till close of day,
Then dug a grave twelve fathoms deep
And laid their monarch down to sleep,
And rais'd a cairn of boulders high
In homage to his memory:
Then wended in procession drear
To hide his crown in Grisedale mere.
With weapons fiercely clench'd they strode
Three miles along the Grasmere road,
Until they came to Grisedale burn,
And up the Faery glen did turn:
Awhile upon Seat-Sandal pause,
Then slowly wind through Grisedale Hause
Down to the mere and through the crown
Where Dollywaggon Pike sheers down.
Fierce was the wave and fierce the storm,
And mist-besieg'd the mountain's form;
The Spirits of the Lake and hills
Were anger'd at their country's ills,
Anger'd that stranger-hands had ta'en
The Briton's last, best loved domain.
That night o'er forest, lake, and fell
Resounded many a ghostly yell;
Around Helvellyn's giant man
With threat'ning glare the marsh-fire ran.
In becks, that yester summer's night
Scarce trickled down in shallows bright,
By deep and furious floods were borne
Great rifted rocks and trees uptorn:
The wind that scarce was heard at noon
Roared like an Indian typhoon,
And westward over Langdale Pikes
The breakers fell on Furness Dykes,
And with one wild tremendous sweep
Encompass'd in their greedy deep
Tree, corn and cot, and grassy down
From Lancaster to Barrow town.
And by the forked fire from heaven
The oldest Druid oak was riven.
The oak-tree gods might reign no more
Upon their native Britain's shore,
But now must fly, to stay awhile
In mother Mona's magic isle,
And thence be driven in wild unrest
For ever further, further west.
Till, when five hundred years were gone,
The land that tombs the setting sun
Should feel the conquering foot of Spain;
Then, ousted from their home again
With other byegone godheads lie
In Limbo to eternity.
The Britons ere the day was light
Scal'd the o'erhanging mountain-height,
And climbing, just as dawn began,
Held council on Helvellyn Man.
Full little did they deem that night
That ev'ry eve, ere dawn was bright,
Their souls must go to Dunmail's cairn
And through the glen to Grisedale tarn;
Then over Dollywaggon seek
The high Helvellyn's highest peak.
Yet so it is—for there are souls
Whom some almighty hand controls
To haunt some too-eventful scene,
Where in their lifetime they have been;
Nor ever rest within their tomb
Until they have fulfill'd their doom:
The souls of all who've follow'd Cain,
The souls of all by murder slain,
Until the murderer pay the due
For him that fell and him that slew;
The soul of him whose life was ill,
Who perish'd unrepentant still,
And him who treasure has conceal'd,
Until his treasure be reveal'd.
And so it is that Dunmail's host
Still haunt the battle-field in ghost.
Did they but deign betray their trust
Their souls might rest in hallow'd dust,
But while they guard their monarch's crown
May never to their tomb go down.
And so each day from fall of night
Until the morrow-morn is bright,
Through Grisedale-pass that ghostly clan
March grimly to Helvellyn Man.
And ev'ry night from Grisedale tarn
They bring a stone to Dunmail's cairn,
To show their sovereign that still
They're faithful to his royal will:
And when the cairn doth reach as high
As Dunmail 'neath the earth doth lie,
Once more shall be his flag unfurl'd
For the great Battle of the World,
For that great battle that must be
Before the day of Equity
When ev'ry man shall have his own
Each proud usurper overthrown,
When Israel shall reign once more
Upon the promised country's shore,
And Cossack, Georgian, and Pole
Be freed from Muscovite control.
Then Dunmail with his British spears
Again shall sally from the meres,
And free his own, his native land
From Saxon, Dane, and Norman hand.
From southmost Cornwall to Carlisle,
From Mona to the Kentish Isle
The Cymri, as in days of yore,
Shall rule our land from shore to shore;
And all the Cymri clans bow down
Before the might of Dunmail's crown;
The crown that erst in Grisedale's deep
His trusty host did nightly keep,
Now, after many a hundred years,
Again upon his head appears.
But never shall appear again
The gods that ruled our island then;
Their day is past, their oaks are fell'd
In which their ritual was held.
No other gods shall be adored
Through all the earth but Judah's Lord,
And they be in that lifeless spot
For ever and for aye forgot.
But though that British army range
Each midnight on that journey strange,
No eye can see their forms, no ear
Their footfall or their voices hear,
Save on one night—upon that night
When dies away the waning light
Of the last moon of all the year:
Then if thou stand by Grisedale mere,
Betwixt the midnight hour and dawn,
When spirits move and graveyards yawn,
Through Grisedale Hause to Grisedale tide
Thou'lt see a ghostly army glide
In Keltic harness—such a host
Fought the first Roman on our coast.
See thou provoke them not to strife,
'Twere likeliest to cost thy life.
But should'st thou venture to accost
By Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
And bid them show thee where the crown
In Grisedale mere lies low a-down,
They needs must show thee; and if then
Thou take the crown, they ne'er again
Shall leave their grave for Grisedale tarn,
Nor Dunmail ever leave his cairn;
But other king shall free the land
From Saxon, Dane, and Norman hand.
So, if thou see that spirit host,
In pity do not thou accost,
Nor to indulge an idle whim
Or caitiff greed do harm to him;
But gaze with awe and tell the tale
Of that weird army of Dunmail.