Kenelm, the son of Kenulph, Mercia's king, 360 Whose holy life the legends loudly sing, Warn'd in a dream, his murder did foretell From point to point as after it befell: All circumstances to his nurse he told, (A wonder from a child of seven years old): The dream with horror heard, the good old wife From treason counsell'd him to guard his life; But close to keep the secret in his mind, For a boy's vision small belief would find. The pious child, by promise bound, obey'd, 370 Nor was the fatal murder long delay'd: By Quenda slain, he fell before his time, Made a young martyr by his sister's crime. The tale is told by venerable Bede, Which, at your better leisure, you may read. Macrobius, too, relates the vision sent To the great Scipio, with the famed event: Objections makes, but after makes replies, And adds, that dreams are often prophecies. Of Daniel you may read in holy writ, 380 Who, when the king his vision did forget, Could word for word the wondrous dream repeat. Nor less of patriarch Joseph understand, Who by a dream enslaved the Egyptian land, The years of plenty and of dearth foretold, When, for their bread, their liberty they sold. Nor must the exalted butler be forgot, Nor he whose dream presaged his hanging lot. And did not Croesus the same death foresee, Raised in his vision on a lofty tree? 390 The wife of Hector, in his utmost pride, Dream'd of his death the night before he died; Well was he warn'd from battle to refrain, But men to death decreed are warn'd in vain: He dared the dream, and by his fatal foe was slain.