Watch, and be firm! for, soul-subduing vice, Heart-killing luxury, on your steps await. Fair houses, baths, and banquets delicate, And temples flashing, bright as polar ice, Their radiance through the woods--may yet suffice 5 To sap your hardy virtue, and abate Your love of Him upon whose forehead sate The crown of thorns; whose life-blood flowed, the price Of your redemption. Shun the insidious arts That Rome provides, less dreading from her frown 10 Than from her wily praise, her peaceful gown, Language, and letters;--these, though fondly viewed As humanising graces, are but parts And instruments of deadliest servitude! IX DISSENSIONS That heresies should strike (if truth be scanned Presumptuously) their roots both wide and deep, Is natural as dreams to feverish sleep. Lo! Discord at the altar dares to stand[28] Uplifting toward[29] high Heaven her fiery brand, 5 A cherished Priestess of the new-baptized! But chastisement shall follow peace despised. The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land By Rome abandoned; vain are suppliant cries, And prayers that would undo her forced farewell; 10 For she returns not.--Awed by her own knell, She casts the Britons upon strange Allies, Soon to become more dreaded enemies Than heartless misery called them to repel. FOOTNOTES: [28] Arianism had spread into Britain, and British Bishops were summoned to councils held concerning it, at Sardica, A.D. 347, and at Ariminum, A.D. 360. See Fuller's _Church History_, p. 25; and Churton's _Early English Church_, p. 9.--ED. [29] 1827. Lifting towards ... 1822. X STRUGGLE OF THE BRITONS AGAINST THE BARBARIANS Rise!--they _have_ risen: of brave Aneurin ask[30] How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends: The Spirit of Caractacus descends Upon the Patriots, animates their task;[31] Amazement runs before the towering casque 5 Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field The Virgin sculptured on his Christian shield:-- Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask The Host that followed Urien[32] as he strode O'er heaps of slain;--from Cambrian wood and moss 10 Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross; Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode,[33] Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords, And everlasting deeds to burning words! FOOTNOTES: [30] Aneurin was the bard who--in the poem named the _Gododin_--celebrated the struggle between the Cymri and the Teutons in the middle of the sixth century, which ended in the great battle of Catterick, or Cattreath, in Yorkshire. Aneurin was himself chieftain as well as bard.--ED. [31] 1837. The spirit of Caractacus defends The Patriots, animates their glorious task;-- 1822.