Poems (Southey)/Volume 1/Inscription 04 - For a Monument at Silbury-Hill

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Inscription III.

Poems
by Robert Southey

Inscription IV: For a Monument at Silbury-Hill

Inscription V.

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4197340Poems — Inscription IV: For a Monument at Silbury-HillRobert Southey

INSCRIPTION IV.

For a MONUMENT at SILBURY-HILL.

This mound in some remote and dateless dayRear'd o'er a Cheiftain of the Age^[1] of Hills,May here detain thee Traveller! from thy roadNot idly lingering. In his narrow houseSome Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deedsHaply at many a solemn festivalThe Bard has harp'd, but perish'd is the songOf praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downsThe wind that passes and is heard no more.Go Traveller, and remember when the pompOf earthly Glory fades, that one good deed,Unseen, unheard, unnoted by mankind,Lives in the eternal register of Heaven.

↑ The Northern Nations distinguished the two periods when the bodies of the dead were consumed by fire, and when they were buried beneath the tumuli so common in this country, by the Age of Fire and the Age of Hills.

[1] The Northern Nations distinguished the two periods when the bodies of the dead were consumed by fire, and when they were buried beneath the tumuli so common in this country, by the Age of Fire and the Age of Hills.

[1]