Like rearèd stones around a grave41
They stand around the King;
Then suddenly each seiz'd his spear,
And clashing steel does ring.
The husbandman does leave his plow 45
To wade thro' fields of gore;
The merchant binds his brows in steel,
And leaves the trading shore;
The shepherd leaves his mellow pipe, 49
And sounds the trumpet shrill;
The workman throws his hammer down
To heave the bloody bill.
Like the tall ghost of Barraton 53
Who sports in stormy sky,
Gwin leads his host, as black as night
When pestilence does fly,
With horses and with chariots—57
And all his spearmen bold
March to the sound of mournful song,
Like clouds around him roll'd.
Gwin lifts his hand—the nations halt; 61
'Prepare for war!' he cries—
Gordred appears!—his frowning brow
Troubles our northern skies.
The armies stand, like balances 65
Held in th' Almighty's hand;—
'Gwin, thou hast fill'd thy measure up:
Thou'rt swept from out the land.'
53 Barraton] Probably a reminiscence of 'Berrathon' in Macpherson's Ossian, a piece from which Blake would also seem to have borrowed the name 'Leutha' in the Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793).
C 2
