The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 534, February 18, 1832Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 534, February 18, 1832
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
Silent is his hall of shields
In Rath-col's dim and woody fields,
Night-winds round his lone hearth sing
The fall of Prythian's warlike king!--
Now his home of happy rest
Is in the bright isles of the west;
There, in stately halls of gold,
He with the mighty chiefs of old,
Quaffs the horn of hydromel
To the harp's melodious swell;
And on hills of living green,
With airy bow of lightning sheen,
Hunts the shadowy deer-herd fleet
In their dim-embowered retreat.
He is free to roam at will
O'er sea and sky, o'er heath and hill,
When our fathers' spirits rush
On the blast and crimson gush
Of the cloud-fire, through the storms,
Like the meteor's brilliant forms,
He shall come to the heroes' shout
In the battle's gory rout;
He shall stand by the stone of death,
When the captive yields his breath;
And in halls of revelry
His dim spirit oft shall be.
GRAND CHORUS.
Shout, and fill the hirlass horn,
Round the dirge-feast quaff till morn;
Songs and joy sound o'er the heath,
For he died the warrior's death!
Garlands fling upon the fire,
His shall be a noble pyre!
And his tomb befit a king,
Encircled with a regal ring
Which shall to latest time declare,
That a princely chief lies there,
Who died to set his country free,
Who fell for British liberty;
His renown the harp shall sing
To mail clad chief and battle-king,
And fire the mighty warrior's soul
Long as eternal ages roll!
The Notes to each Tragedy are very abundant. Indeed, they are of the most
laborious research. We quote an extract relative to "grinning skulls" as
terrifically interesting:
"The British warriors preserved the bones of their enemies whom they slew;
and Strabo says of the Gauls (who were, as he informs us, far less
uncivilized than the Britons, but still nearly resembled them in their
manners and customs,) that when they return from the field of battle they
bring with them the heads of their enemies fastened to the necks of their
horses, and afterwards place them before the gates of their cities. Many
of them, after being anointed with pitch or turpentine, they preserve in
baskets or chests, and ostentatiously show them to strangers, as a proof
of their valour; not suffering them to be redeemed, even though offered
for them their weight in gold. This account is also confirmed by Diodorus.
Strabo says that Posidonius declared he saw several of their heads near
the gates of some of their towns,--a horrid barbarism, continued at
Temple-bar almost down to the present period."
Lastly, _Speaking and Moving Stones_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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