f time.
Youth, thou hast known
Adversity; even in thy morn of life,
The springtide rainbow fades, and many days, 260
And many years, perchance, of weal or woe
Hang o'er thee! happy, if through every change
Thy constant heart, thy steadfast view, be fixed
Upon that better kingdom, where the crown
Immortal is held out to holy hope,
Beyond the clouds that rest upon the grave.
Oh! I remember when King Harold stood
Blooming in youth like thee; I saw him crowned--
I heard the loud voice of a nation hail
His rising star; then, flaming in mid-heaven 270
The red portentous comet,[97] like the hand
Upon the wall, came forth: its fatal course
All marked, and gazed in terror, as it looked
With lurid light upon this land. It passed;
Old men had many bodings; but I saw,
Reckless, King Harold, in his plumed helm,
Ride foremost of the mailed chivalry,
That, when the fierce Norwegian passed the seas,
Met his host man to man; I saw the sword,
Advanced and glittering, in the victor's hand, 280
That smote the Hardrada[98] to the earth! To-day
King Harold rose, like an avenging God;
To-morrow (so it seemed, so short the space), 283
To-morrow, through the field of blood, we sought
His mangled corse amid the heaps of slain:
Shall I recount the event more faithfully?
Its spectred memory never since that hour
Has left my heart.
William was in his tent,
Spread on the battle-plain, on that same night 290
When seventy thousand dead lay at his feet;
They who, at sunrise, with bent bows and spears,
Confronted and defied him, at his feet
Lay dead! Alone he watches in his tent,
At midnight; 'midst a sight so terrible
We came; we stood before him, where he sat,
I and my brother Osgood. Who are ye?
Sternly he asked; and Osgood thus replied:
Conqueror, and lord, and soon to be a king,
We, two poor monks of Waltham Abbey, kneel 300
Before thee, sorrowing! He who is slain
To us was bountiful. He raised those walls
Where we devote our life to prayer and praise.
Oh! by the mercies which the God of all
Hath shewn to thee this day, grant our request;
To search for his dead body, through this field
Of terror, that his bones may rest wi