To horse! to horse the sabres gleam; High sounds our bugle call;

Combined by honour's sacred tie,

Our word is, Laws and Liberty!

March forward, one and all!

NOTE

ON

THE WAR SONG.

O had they marked the avenging call,

Their brethren's murder gave.-P. 168. v. 2.

The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th August 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorised the progressive injustice, by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the continent, have, at length, been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved.

THE

NORMAN HORSE-SHOE.

AIR-The War-song of the Men of Glamorgan.

The Welsh, inhabiting a mountainous country, and possessing only an inferior breed of horses, were usually unable to encounter the shock of the Anglo-Norman cavalry. Occasionally, however, they were successful in repelling the invaders ; and the following verses are supposed to celebrate a defeat of CLARE, Earl of Striguil and Pembroke, and of NEVILLE, Baron of Chepstow, Lords-Marchers of Monmouthshire. Rymny is a stream which divides the counties of Monmouth and Glamorgan: Caerphili, the scene of the supposed battle, is a vale upon its banks, dignified by the ruins of a very ancient castle.

I.

RED glows the forge in Striguil's bounds,

And hammers din, and anvil sounds,

And armourers, with iron toil,

Barb many a steed for battle's broil.

Foul fall the hand which bends the steel

Around the courser's thundering heel,

That e'er shall dint a sable wound

On fair Glamorgan's velvet ground!

II.

From Chepstow's towers, ere dawn of morn,

Was heard afar the bugle horn;

And forth, in banded pomp and pride,

Stout Clare and fiery Neville ride.

They swore, their banners broad should gleam,
In crimson light, on Rymny's stream ;
They vowed, Caerphili's sod should feel

The Norman charger's spurning heel.

III.

And sooth they swore-the sun arose,
And Rymny's wave with crimson glows;
For Clare's red banner, floating wide,

Roll'd down the stream to Severn's tide!

And sooth they vow'd-the trampled green

Shew'd where hot Neville's charge had been : In every sable hoof-tramp stood

A Norman horseman's curdling blood!

IV.

Old Chepstow's brides may curse the toil,
That arm'd stout Clare for Cambrian broil
Their orphans long the art may rue,
For Neville's war-horse forged the shoe.
No more the stamp of armed steed
Shall dint Glamorgan's velvet mead ;
Nor trace be there, in early spring,
Save of the Fairies' emerald ring.

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