56 WILD FLOWERS OF JANUAET. 



A blaze of proud honour might once have been thine 

 Arch-Druids proclaiming thy nurseling divine, 

 Advancing their celts to the God-belov'd tree, 

 Proclaiming thy lineage, and honouring thee. 



And now thou art nothing! the clouds from the hill 

 Roll o'er thee and leave thee regardlessly still ; 

 And the deep mound above thee* no longer displays 

 To the blue-painted Briton the beacon's red blaze. 



Remembrance may hallow the thought of thy pride, 

 And a dream of the past round thy branches may glide, 

 As the armour hung up in the dusty old hall, 

 A thought of the tumults of old may recall. 



But a still deeper feeling arises from thee, 

 As I gaze, forest king, on thy charm-cover'd tree ; 

 If Caractacus's offspring now linger'd before 

 Thy trunk, upward gazing, I could not feel more ! 



His glories are past ! the same fatal decree 



Leaves now undistingnish'd thy once divine tree : 



A spirit hurries o'er us and ancestry yields 



To the blast that must scatter its crests and its shields ! 



What boots it the name that our ancestor bore ? 

 His spirit alone gain'd the wreath that he tore ; 

 And all bye-gone honours with time cease to be; 

 As futile as Mistletoe on the Oak tree ! 



The fortress on the Herefordshire Beacon, Malvern Hills, which is 

 supposed by the late Dr. CARD, Vicar of Great Malvern, in a learned 

 treatise on this camp hill, to have been once occupied by Caractacus. 



