Britain ... - Blue-Lite

Scene III.] THE DEVOTED ONE. 133
To save my wretched mother's life, he sank
Mangled and gashed,
sank at her feet and died !
I heard that mother's wild distracted cries,
As on the marble floor the Saxon foe
Dashed out my brothers' brains ! O
God !
Her last, her agonized embrace, as thou,
I felt
By pity urged, didst feld me in thine arms,
And from th' assassins' fiercely-gleaming swords
Bear me in safety, far beyond the gates
Of Dunmarn's blood-drenched palace : nor canst thou
The close of that terrific scene forget,
When the ferocious Duke of Mercia dragged
My frantic mother to the fatal block,
A princess born of Denmark's royal line,
On whose fair brows the font's ethereal dews
Had been devoutly sprinkled.
WULFNOTH.
'Twas a night
That filled the land with wailing ! Dreadful since
Hath been the retribution of just Heaven
For that foul deed, by hated Edric planned,
Who friend nor foeman spares.
EDITH.
Child as I was,
That night hath images of horror stamped
For ever on my brain ! Oft, in my dreams,
I stand amid those gory halls of death,
Where on me wildly glare fierce fiendish eyes,
And flash the knives of slaughter, till with shrieks
I break my troubled slumbers. Oft I see
My mother's spirit bending o'er my couch,
All palely beautiful in
light, and hear
Her mournful voice soft on the evening winds,