A Warning to Conquerors
A Warning to Conquerors
This is the country of the Norman towerThe graceless keep, the bleak and slitted eyeWhere fear drove comfort out; straw on the floorWas price of conquering security. They came and won, and then for centuriesStood to their arms; the face grew bleak and lengthenedIn the night vigil, while their foes at easeSang of the strangers and the towers they strengthened. Ragweed and thistle hold the Norman fieldAnd cows the hall where Gaelic never rangMelodiously to harp or spinning-wheel.Their songs are spent now with the voice that sang; And lost their conquest. This soft land quietlyEngulfed them like the Saxon and the DaneBut kept the jutted brow, the slitted eye-Only the faces and the names remain.
