The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 85

Faul is indeed the name of one of the malignant Powers peculiarly dreaded by the Saxons.

9.--Page 431, stanza cx.x.xvi.

_From the paled ranks, that evil Bode dismay'd._

"Bode," Saxon word for Messenger.

10.--Page 433, stanza clv.

_The wings of Muspell to consume the world._

Muspell, Fire; the final destroyer.

11.--Page 439, stanza cxcii.

_All save the Cymrian's Ararat--Wild Wales!_

"Their Lord they shall praise, And their language they shall preserve; Their land they shall lose, Except Wild Wales!"

PROPHECY OF TALIESSIN.

12.--Page 439, stanza cxciv.

_Thy dauntless blood through Gwynedd's chiefs shall roll._

This prediction refers to the marriage of the daughter of Griffith ap Llewellyn (Prince of Gwynedd, or North Wales, whose name and fate are not unfamiliar to those who have read the romance of "Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings") with Fleance. From that marriage descended the Stuarts, and indeed the reigning family of Great Britain.

13.--Page 440, stanza cxcix.

_From Cymri's Dragon England's power shall date, And peace be born to Cymri from the Dove._

According to Welch genealogists, Arthur left no son: and I must therefore invite the believer in Merlin's prophecy to suppose that it was by a daughter that Arthur's line was continued, and the royalty of Britain restored to the Cymrian kings, through the House of Tudor; from the accession of which House may indeed be dated both the final and cordial amalgamation of the Welch with the English, and the rise of that power over the destinies of the civilized world, which England has since established. The reader will pardon me, by the way, if I have somewhat perplexed him, now and then, by a similarity between the names of "Genevieve" and "Genevra." Both are used by the writers of the French Fabliaux as synonymous with Guenever; and the more shrewd will perhaps perceive that the reason why the name of Lancelot's mistress has been made almost identical with that of Arthur's, is to vindicate the fidelity of the Cymrian Queen Guenever from that scandal which the levity of French romance has most improperly cast upon it, in connection with Lancelot. It is to be presumed that those ancient slanderers were misled by the confusion of names, and that it was his own Genevra, and not Arthur's Genevieve, who received Lancelot's homage.--But indeed my Lancelot is altogether a different personage from the Lancelot represented in the Fabliaux as Arthur's nephew.

CORN-FLOWERS.

A COLLECTION OF POEMS.

"The Corn-flower opens as the sheaves are rife; Song is the twin of golden Contemplation, The Harvest-flower of life."

NOTE.

Most of the Poems in this First Book have been recently composed, and hitherto unpublished; and those which have appeared before, have been, some materially altered, all carefully revised.

In the Second Book some Poems were written in early life, and have been but little altered; others--chiefly of a more thoughtful character--are of later date, and are now printed for the first time.

CORN-FLOWERS.

BOOK I.

THE FIRST VIOLETS.

Who that has loved knows not the tender tale Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell?

Whose youth has paused not, dreaming, in the vale Where the rath violets dwell?

Lo, where they shrink along the lonely brake, Under the leafless melancholy tree; Not yet the cuckoo sings, nor glides the snake, Nor wild thyme lures the bee;

Yet at their sight and scent entranced and thrall'd, All June seems golden in the April skies; How sweet the days we yearn for,--_till fulfill'd_: O distant Paradise,

Dear Land to which Desire for ever flees; Time doth no present to our grasp allow, Say in the fix'd Eternal shall we seize At last the fleeting Now?

Dream not of days to come--of that Unknown Whither Hope wanders--maze without a clue; Give their true witchery to the flowers;--thine own Youth in their youth renew.

Avarice, remember when the cowslip's gold Lured and yet lost its glitter in thy grasp.

Do thy h.o.a.rds glad thee more than those of old?

_Those_ wither'd in thy clasp,

From _these_ thy clasp falls palsied.--It was then That thou wert rich--thy coffers are a lie; Alas, poor fool, Joy is the wealth of men, And Care their penury.

Come, foil'd Ambition, what hast thou desired?

Empire and power?--O, wanderer, tempest-tost!

These once were thine, when life's gay spring inspired Thy soul with glories lost.

Let the flowers charm thee back to that rich time When golden Dreamland lay within thy chart, When Love bestow'd a realm indeed sublime-- The boundless human heart.

Hark, hark again, the tread of bashful feet!

Hark the boughs rustling round the trysting-place!

Let air again with one dear breath be sweet, Earth fair with one dear face.

Brief-lived first flowers--first love! The hours steal on To prank the world in summer's pomp of hue, But what can flaunt beneath a fiercer sun Worth what we lose in you?

Oft by a flower, a leaf, in some loved book We mark the lines that charm us most;--Retrace Thy life;--recall its loveliest pa.s.sage;--Look, Dead violets keep the place!

THE IMAGE ON THE TIDE.