Felicia Dorothea Hemans (Фелиция Доротея Хеманз)

Burial of William the Conqueror

At Caen, in Normandy, 1087

LOWLY upon his bier
  The royal conqueror lay;
Baron and chief stood near,
  Silent in war array.
Down the long minster’s aisle
  Crowds mutely gazing streamed;
Altar and tomb the while
  Through mists of incense gleamed.

And, by the torches’ blaze,
  The stately priest had said
High words of power and praise
  To the glory of the dead.
They lowered him, with the sound
  Of requiems, to repose;
When from the throngs around
  A solemn voice arose:—

“Forbear! forbear!” it cried;
  “In the holiest Name, forbear!
He hath conquered regions wide,
  But he shall not slumber there!
By the violated hearth
  Which made way for yon proud shrine;
By the harvests which this earth
  Hath borne for me and mine;

“By the house e’en here o’erthrown
  On my brethren’s native spot,—
Hence! with his dark renown
  Cumber our birthplace not!
Will my sire’s unransomed field,
  O’er which your censers wave,
To the buried spoiler yield
  Soft slumber in the grave?

“The tree before him fell
  Which we cherished many a year,
But its deep root yet shall swell
  And heave against his bier.
The land that I have tilled
  Hath yet its brooding breast
With my home’s white ashes filled,
  And it shall not give him rest.

“Here each proud columns’ bed
  Hath been wet by weeping eyes,—
Hence! and bestow your dead
  Where no wrong against him cries!”
Shame glowed on each dark face
  Of those proud and steel-girt men,
And they bought with gold a place
  For their leader’s dust, e’en then.

A little earth for him
  Whose banner flew so far!
And a peasant’s tale could dim
  The name, a nation’s star!
One deep voice thus arose
  From a heart which wrongs had riven,—
O, who shall number those
  That were but heard in heaven?

1. Joan of Arc in Rheims
2. The Music of St. Patrick’s
3. The Grave of a Poetess
4. Cœur de Lion at the Bier of His Father
5. Eryri Wen

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