Welsh Melodies/The Chant of the Bards

by Felicia Hemans

For other versions of this work, see Chant of the Bards before their Massacre by Edward I..

19

CHANT OF THE BARDS BEFORE THEIR MASSACRE BY EDWARD I.^4[1]

Raise ye the sword! let the death-stroke be given;
Oh! swift may it fall as the lightning of heaven!
So shall our spirits be free as our strains—
The children of song may not languish in chains!

Have ye not trampled our country's bright crest;
Are heroes reposing in death on her breast?
Red with their blood do her mountain-streams flow,
And think ye that still we would linger below?

Rest, ye brave dead! midst the hills of your sires,
Oh! who would not slumber when freedom expires?
Lonely and voiceless your halls must remain—
The children of song may not breathe in the chain!

1. ⁴ This sanguinary deed is not attested by any historian of credit. And it deserves to be also noticed, that none of the bardic productions since the time of Edward make any allusion to such an event.—Cambro-Briton, vol. i., p. 195.