t must foresee,--
Surveying all the ills to flow
From that too-victor victory;

When 'gainst the unwisely guided King
The dark self-centred Captain stood,
And law and right and peace went down
In that red sea of brothers' blood;--

O long, long, long the years, fair Maid,
Before thy patient eye shall view
The shrine of England's law restored,
Her homes their native peace renew!

_That day_; The actual fight lay between 7 and 9 p.m.

_Too-victor victory_; At Naseby, says Hallam,--and the remark, (though
Charles was not personally present), is equally true of Marston
Moor--'Fairfax and Cromwell triumphed, not only over the king and the
monarchy, but over the parliament and the nation.'

_Unwisely guided_; 'Never would it have been wiser, in Rupert,' remarks
Ranke, 'to avoid a decisive battle than at that moment. But he held that
the king's letter not only empowered, but instructed him to fight.'

_Red sea_; 'The slaughter was deadly, for Cromwell had forbidden quarter
being given': (Ranke, ix: 3).

THE FUGITIVE KING

August 7: 1645

Cold blue cloud on the hill-tops,
Cold buffets of hill-side rain:--
As a bird that they hunt on the mountains,
The king, he turns from Rhos lane:
A writing of doom on his forehead,
His eyes wan-wistful and dim;
For his comrades seeking a shelter:
But earth has no shelter for him!

Gray silvery gleam of armour,
White ghost of a wandering king!
No sound but the iron-shod footfall
And the bridle-chains as they ring:
Save where the tears of heaven,
Shed thick o'er the loyal hills,
Rush down in the hoarse-tongued torrent,
A roar of approaching ills.

But now with a sweeping curtain,
In solid wall comes the rain,
And the troop draw bridle and hide them
In the bush by the stream-side plain.
King Charles smiled sadly and gently;
''Tis the Beggar's Bush,' said he;
'For I of England am beggar'd,
And her poorest may pity me.'

--O safe in the fadeless fir-tree
The squirrel may nestle and hide;
And in God's own dwelling the sparrow
Safe with her nestlings abide:--
But he goes homeless and friendless,
And manlike abides his doom;
For he knows a king has no refuge
Betwixt the throne and the tomb.

And the purple-robed braes of Alban,
The glory of stream and of plain,
The Holyrood halls of his birthright
Charles ne'er will look on again:--
And the land he loved well, not wisely,
Will almost grudge him a grave:
Then weep, too late, in her folly,
The dark Dictator's