"[The Death of Hoel]"

Go	Notes			Line	Text
	T	E	T/E		"[The Death of Hoel]"
					From Aneurin, Monarch of the Bards,
					extracted from the Gododin
				1	Had I but the torrent's might,
				2	With headlong rage and wild affright
		E		3	Upon Deira's squadrons hurled,
				4	To rush and sweep them from the world!
				5	Too, too secure in youthful pride,
				6	By them my friend, my Hoel, died,
				7	Great Cian's son: of Madoc old
				8	He asked no heaps of hoarded gold;
				9	Alone in nature's wealth arrayed,
				10	He asked and had the lovely maid.
		E		11	To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row
		E		12	Twice two hundred warriors go;
				13	Every warrior's manly neck
		E		14	Chains of regal honour deck,
				15	Wreathed in many a golden link:
		E		16	From the golden cup they drink
		E		17	Nectar, that the bees produce,
		E		18	Or the grape's ecstatic juice.
				19	Flushed with mirth and hope they burn:
				20	But none from Cattraeth's vale return,
				21	Save Aeron brave and Conan strong,
				22	(Bursting through the bloody throng)
		E		23	And I, the meanest of them all,
				24	That live to weep and sing their fall.

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• [BrJ_1891] The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891.