Where now the flocks repose?—Did the scyth'd car
Here reap its harvest in the ranks of war?
And rise these piles in memory of the slain,
And the red combat of the mountain-plain?
It may be thus:—the vestiges of strife,
Around yet lingering, mark the steps of life,
And the rude arrow's barb remains to tell
How by its stroke perchance the mighty fell,
To be forgotten. Vain the warrior's pride,
The chieftain's power—they had no bard, and died*[1]
But other scenes, from their untroubled sphere,
Th' eternal stars of night have witness'd here.
There stands an altar of unsculptur'd stone,
Far on the Moor, a thing of ages gone,
Propp'd on its granite pillars, whence the rains,
And pure bright dews, have lav'd the crimson stains
Left by dark rites of blood: for here of yore,
When the bleak Waste a robe of Forests wore,
And many a crested oak, which now lies low,
Wav’d its wild wreath of sacred misletoe;
Here, at dead midnight, through the haunted shade,
On Druid harps the quivering moonbeam play'd,
And spells were breath'd, that fill'd the deepening gloom
With the pale shadowy people of the Tomb.
Or, haply, torches waving through the night,
Bade the red cairn-fires blaze from every height †[2].
Like battle-signals, whose unearthly gleams
Threw o'er the Desart's hundred hills and streams
- ↑ *Vixère fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi: sed omnes illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longà
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.Hor.
They had no poet, and they died.
Pope's Imitat.. - ↑ † In some of the Druidical festivals, fires were lighted on all the cairns and eminences around, by priests carrying sacred torches. All the household fires were previously extinguished, and those who were thought worthy of such a privilege were allowed to re-light them with a brand kindled at the consecrated cairn-fire.
