The agony was over which but late Had shook to death Northumbrian realm new-raised By Edwin, dear to God. The agony At last was over; but the tear flowed on: The Faith of Christ had fallen once more to dust, That Faith which spoused with golden marriage ring The land to God, when Coiffi, horsed and mailed, Chief Priest himself, hurled at the Temple's wall His lance, and quivering left it lodged therein. The agony had ceased; yet Rachael's cry Still pierced the childless region. Penda's sword Had swept it, Mercia's Christian-hating King; Fiercelier Cadwallon's, Cambria's Christian Prince, Christian in vain. The British wrong like fire Burned in his heart. Well-nigh two hundred years That British race, they only of the tribes By Rome subdued, sustained unceasing war 'Gainst those barbaric hordes that, nursed long since 'Mid Teuton woods, when Rome her death-wound felt, And '_Habet_' shrilled from every trampled realm, Rushed forth in ruin o'er her old domain:-- That race against the Saxon still made head; Large remnant yet survived. The Western coast Was theirs; old sea-beat Cornwall's granite cliffs, And purple hills of Cambria; northward thence Strathclyde, from towered Carnegia's winding Dee To Morecombe's shining sands, and those fair vales, Since loved by every muse, where silver meres Slept in the embrace of yew-clad mountain walls; With tracts of midland Britain and the East. Remained the memory of the greatness lost; The Druid circles of the olden age; The ash-strewn cities radiant late with arts Extinct this day; bath, circus, theatre Mosaic-paved; the Roman halls defaced; The Christian altars crushed. That last of wrongs The vanquished punished with malign revenge: Never had British priest to Saxon preached; And when that cry was heard, 'The Saxon King Edwin hath bowed to Christ,' on Cambrian hills Nor man nor woman smiled. They had not lacked The timely warning. From his Kentish shores Augustine stretched to them paternal hands: Later, he sought them out in synod met, Their custom, under open roof of heaven. 'The Mother of the Churches,' thus he spake, 'Commands--implores you! Seek from her, and win The Sacrament of Unity Divine! Thus strengthened, be her strength! With her conjoined, Subdue your foe to Christ!' He sued in vain. The British bishops hurled defiance stern Against his head, while Cambrian peaks far off Darkened, and thunder muttered. From his seat, Slowly and sadly as the sun declined At last, though late, that Roman rose and stretched A lean hand t'ward that circle, speaking thus: 'Hear then the sentence of your God on sin! Because ye willed not peace, behold the sword! Because ye grudged your foe the Faith of Christ,