A, OR THE BRITON'S REVENGE._

Northumbria having been subdued by Pagan Mercia, Oswald raises
there again the Christian standard. Penda wages war against him, in
alliance with Cadwallon, a Cambrian prince who hates the Saxon
conquerors the more bitterly when become Christians. Encouraged by
St. Columba in a vision, Oswald with a small force vanquishes the
hosts of Cadwallon, who is slain. He sends to Iona for monks of St.
Columba's order, converts his country to the Faith, and dies for
her. The earlier British race expiates its evil revenge.

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 ha