Though the loud cannon plane Death's lightning-riven lane, Levelling that unskill'd valour, rude, unled: --Yet happier in their fate Than whom the war-fiends wait To rend them limb from limb, the gibbet-withering dead! --_Yet weep not, my child, though the dead be dead_, _And the wounded rise not again_! _For they are with God who for England fought_, _And they bore them as Englishmen_. Stout hearts, and sorely tried! --But he, for whom they died, Skulk'd like the wolf in Cranborne, torn and gaunt:-- Till, dragg'd and bound, he knelt To one no prayers could melt, Nor bond of blood, nor fear of fate, from vengeance daunt. --O hill of death and gore, Fast by the tower'd shore, What wealth of precious blood is thine, what tears! What calmly fronted scorn; What pangs, not vainly borne! For heart beats hot with heart, and human grief endears! --_Then weep not, my child, though the days be dark_; _Fear not; He will come again_, _With Arthur and Harold and good Saint George_, _King Monmouth and all his men_! Monmouth's invasion forms one of the most brilliant,--perhaps the most brilliant,--of Lord Macaulay's narratives. But many curious details are added in the _History_ by Mr. G Roberts (1844). The belief, which this poem represents, that 'King Monmouth,' as he was called in the West, would return, lasted long. He landed in Lyme Bay, June 11, 1685, between the Cobb (Harbour-pier) and the beginning of the Ware cliffs: marching north, after a few days, by the road which left the ruins of Colway House on the right and led over Uplyme to Axminster. _Soho_; the watch-word on Monmouth's side at Sedgemoor; his London house was in the Fields, (now Square), bearing that name. _Faithful Taunton_; here the Puritan spirit was strong; and here Monmouth was persuaded to take the title of king (June 20), symbolized by the flag which the young girls of Taunton presented to him. It bore a crown with the cypher J B.--Monmouth's own name being James. _Dour deep trench_; Sedgemoor lies in a marshy district near Bridgewater, much intersected by trenches or 'Rhines.' One, the Busses Rhine, lay between the two armies as they fought, July 6. Monmouth was caught hiding in Cranborne Chase, July 8; executed, after a vain attempt to move the heart of his uncle the king, July 15, on Tower Hill. _Afric's tiger-bands_; Kirke savage troops from Tangier. WILLELMUS VAN NASSAU Yes! we confess it! 'mong the sons of Fate, Earth's great ones, thou art great! As that tall peak which from her silver cone Of maiden snow unstain'd All but the bravest scares, and reigns alone In glacier isolation: Thus wert thou, With that pale steadfast brow, Gaunt aquiline: Thy whole life one labouring breath, Yet the strong soul untamed; France bridled, England saved, thy task ere death!