This is the day, when, in a foreign grave,
King Owen's relics shall be laid to rest.
No bright emblazonries bedeck'd his bier,
No tapers blazed, no prelate sung the mass,
No choristers the funeral dirge intoned,
No mitred abbots, and no tonsured train,
Lengthen'd the pomp of ceremonious woe.
His decent bier was with white linen spread
And canopied; two elks and bisons yoked
Drew on the car; foremost Cadwallon bore
The Crucifix; with single voice distinct,
The good priest Llorien chanted loud and deep
The solemn sevice; Madoc next the bier
Follow'd his father's corpse; bareheaded then
Came all the people, silently and slow.

The burial-place was in a grassy plat,
A little level glade of sunny green,
Between the river and a rocky bank,
Which, like a buttress, from the precipice
Of naked rock sloped out. On either side
'Twas skirted by the woodlands. A stone cross
Stood on Cynetha's grave, sole monument,
Beneath a single cocoa, whose straight trunk
Rose like an obelisk, and waved on high
Its palmy plumage, green and never sere.
Here by Cynetha's side, with Christian prayers
All wrongs forgotten now, was Owen laid.
Rest, King of Gwyneth, in a foreign grave!
From foul indignity of Romish pride
And bigot priesthood, from a falling land
Thus timely snatch'd, and from the impending yoke, —
Best in the kingdom of thy noble son!

Ambassadors from Aztlan in the vale
Awaited their return, — Yuhidthiton,
Chief of the Chiefs, and Helhua the Priest;
With these came Malinal. They met the Prince,
And with a sullen stateliness return'd
His salutation; then the Chief began:
Lord of the Strangers, hear me! by my voice
The People, and the Pabas, and the King
Of Aztlan speak. Our injured Gods have claim'd
Their wonted worship, and made manifest
Their wrath; we dare not impiouly provoke
The Dreadful. Worship ye in your own way;
But we must keep the path our fathers kept.

We parted, O Yuhidthiton! as friends
And brethren, said the Christian Prince; — alas,
That this should be our meeting! When we pledged,
In the broad daylight and the eye of Heaven,
Our hands in peace, ye heard the will of God,
And felt, and understood. This calm assent
Ye would belie, by midnight miracles
Scared, and such signs of darkness as beseem
The Demons whom ye dread; or, likelier,
Duped by the craft of those accursed men,
Whose trade is blood. Ask thou of thine own heart,
Yuhidthiton, —
But Helhua broke his speech:
Our bidding is to tell thee, quoth the Priest,
That Aztlan hath restored, and will maintain,
Her ancient faith. If it offendeth thee,
Move thou thy dwelling-place!
Madoc replied,
This day have I deposited in earth
My father's bones; and where his bones are laid,
There mine shall moulder.
Malinal at that
Advanced; — Prince Madoc, said the youth, I come,
True to thy faith and thee, and to the weal
Of Aztlan true, and bearing, for that truth,
Reproach and shame, and scorn and obloquy.
In sorrow come I here, a banish'd man;
Here take, in sorrow, my abiding-place,
Cut off from all my kin, from all old ties
Divorced; all dear familiar countenances
No longer to be present to my sight;
The very mother-language which I learn'd,
A lisping baby on my mother's knees,
No more with its sweet sounds to comfort me.
So be it! — To his brother then he turn'd;
Yuhidthiton, said he, when thou shalt find —
As find thou wilt — that those accursed men
Have played the juggler with thee, and deceived
Thine honest heart, — when Aztlan groans in blood, —
Bid her remember then, that Malinal
Is in the dwellings of her enemy;
Where all his hope in banishment hath been
To intercede for her, and heal her wounds,
And mitigate her righteous punishment.

Sternly and sullenly his brother heard;
Yet hearken'd he as one whose heart perforce
Suppress'd its instinct; and there might be seen
A sorrow in his silent stubbornness.
And now his ministers on either hand
A water-vessel fill, and heap dry sedge
And straw before his face, and fire the pile.
He, looking upward, spread his arms and cried,
Hear me, ye Gods of Aztlan, as we were,
And are, and will be yours! Behold your foes!
He stoop'd, and lifted up one ample urn, —
Thus let their blood be shed! — and far away
He whirl'd the scattering water. Then again
Raised the full vase, — Thus let their lives be quench'd!
And out he pour'd it on the flaming pile.
The steam-cloud, hissing from the extinguish'd heap,
Spread like a mist, and ere it melted off,
Homeward the heralds of the war had turn'd.