The Bard
I.
1.
"Ruin
seize
thee,
ruthless
King!
Confusion
on
thy
banners
wait,
Tho'
fanned
by
Conquest's
crimson
wing
They
mock
the
air
with
idle
state.
Helm,
nor
Hauberk's
twisted
mail,
Nor
even
thy
virtues,
Tyrant,
shall
avail
To
save
thy
secret
soul
from
nightly
fears,
From
Cambrian's
curse,
from
Cambria's
tears!"
Such
were
the
sounds,
that
o'er
the
crested
pride
Of
the
first
Edward
scatter'd
wild
dismay,
As
down
the
steep
of
Snowdon's
shaggy
side
He
wound
with
toilsome
march
his
long
array.
Stout
Glo'ster
stood
aghast
in
speechless
trance:
"To
arms!"
cried
Mortimer,
and
couch'd
his
quiv'ring
lance.
I.
2.
On
a
rock,
whose
haughty
brow
Frowns
o'er
old
Conway's
foaming
flood,
Robed
in
the
sable
garb
of
woe,
With
haggard
eyes
the
Poet
stood;
(Loose
his
beard,
and
hoary
hair
Stream'd,
like
a
meteor,
to
the
troubled
air)
And
with
a
Master's
hand,
and
Prophet's
fire,
Struck
the
deep
sorrows
of
his
lyre.
"Hark,
how
each
giant-oak,
and
desert
cave,
Sighs
to
the
torrent's
aweful
voice
beneath!
O'er
thee,
oh
King!
their
hundred
arms
they
wave,
Revenge
on
thee
in
hoarser
murmurs
breath;
Vocal
no
more,
since
Cambria's
fatal
day,
To
high-born
Hoel's
harp,
or
soft
Llewellyn's
lay.
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (born Dec. 26, 1716, London—died July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) English poet whose “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” is one of the best known of English lyric poems. Although his literary output was slight, he was the dominant poetic figure in the mid-18th century and a precursor of the Romantic movement.