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Now calm as strong, and clear as summer air,
Blessing and blest of earth and sky, he glides:
Now on some rock-ridge rends his bosom fair,
And foams with cloudy wrath and hissing tides:
Then with full flood of level-gliding force,
His discord-blended melody murmurs low
Down the long seaward course:--
So through Time's mead, great River, greatly glide:
Whither, thou may'st not know:--but He, who knows, will guide.
St. 3 Sketches Prehistoric England. St. 4 _Mile-paths_; old English name
for Roman roads. St. 5 _Tree and flower_; such are reported to have been
naturalized in England by the Romans.--_Northern ramparts_; that of
Agricola and Lollius Urbicus from Forth to Clyde, and the greater work of
Hadrian and Severus between Tyne and Solway. St. 6, 7 The Arthurian
legends,--now revivified for us by Tennyson's magnificent _Idylls of the
King_,--form the visionary links in our history between the decline of
the Roman power and the earlier days of the Saxon conquest. St. 9
_Villagedom_; Angles and Saxons seem at first to have burned the larger
towns of the Romanized Britons and left them deserted, in favour of
village-life. St. 11 _Village-moot_: Held on a little hill or round a
sacred tree: 'the ealdermen spoke, groups of freemen stood round,
clashing shields in applause, settling matters by loud shouts of _Aye_ or
_Nay_.
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