Our fathers bowed and worshipped there;

As blaze through smoke the conquering fires,
The soul is thus made pure by prayer,
And still ascends, and still aspires.

DRUIDS.

We go, as our fathers went before,
The Father of All to bless and adore,
On the first of May, to the hill-top hoar:
Away-away- to the hills away –

'Tis the holy time -'tis the night of May.

ONE OF THE PEOPLE.

Have you lost all sense of fear?
Know you not the danger here?
Know you not our conquerors
Hatred and revenge are breathing?
Laws alike and lawless force
Persecute and plague the heathen;
The pass's mountain walls are warded,
'Gainst our midnight worship guarded;
Alas, alas a heavy day

Hath come: our wives, our babes they slay,

Our old religion fades away.

CHORUS OF WOMEN.

Alas, alas! a heavy day;

For fallen are we, and proud are they.

Our roofs they burn, our babes they slay,
And, perishing in sad decay,

Our old religion dies away.

Bring wood for the torches secretly:

We will lie unseen

In the copse-wood green,

And steal along by its shadowy skreen-
At every threshold plant a guard,

Our children and our wives to ward,

While we move by night to the hill-top hoar,
To kneel where our fathers knelt before,
The Father of All to bless and adore.

CHORUS OF WATCHERS.

Through the tangled forest here

Watch with wakeful

eye

and ear;

Watch in silence through the night,

While afar, on yon lone height,
They observe the ancient rite.

WATCHER.

Let us mock the mock-believers,
And deceive we the deceivers:
With their own inventions cheated,
With their own device defeated,
Let us seem the devils they feign,

Act the legends we disdain ;

With stake, and rake, and torch, and clamour,

All will seem the work of glamour.

'Mid the shout, and rout, and revelry,

While they dream of their hell and its devilry,

Through the mountain pass neglected,
Hastes the Druid unsuspected.

Night-crows hoarse and echoes hollow,
Screaming fear and discord follow-

Wings and noises of the night
Mix your bodings with the flight!

CHORUS OF WATCHERS.

From the brushwood and the brake,
Come with staff and come with stake,
Mimicking their devilry,

With laugh, and scream, and revelry,

With stake, and rake, and torch uplift',
Hurry through the mountain rift!
Owls, and ev'ry wing of night,

And ev'ry sound of fear and fright,
Join the clamour aid the flight!

DRUID.

FATHER OF ALL, to Thee we pray,,

By night in secret

insecure

But the darkness is like day,

If the heart within be pure;

What they do thou dost permit,
We endure and pardon it :-

As glows through smoke the bursting light,
Bid faith thus strengthen, day by day,

And then, though dimmed each ancient rite, Oh who can take thy light away?

A CHRISTIAN.

Help, oh help, the hill's enchanted,
With all hell the place is haunted!

Look! what features and what frames!

Through them shining see! - the flames!

Swift and swifter, upward streaming,

Men half wolves, and dragon women!

What a scream! - what a shout.

From the devilish rout!

And see where the devil spits fire from above,
And below his hell-spawn creatures move!
Away-away! let us flee-let us flee,
This is no place for such as we!

CHORUS OF THE CHRISTIAN GUARD.
Hear them screaming - see them streaming-
Men half wolves, and dragon women,

And the devil spitting fire from above,

And the hell-spawn fry below that move,

Through smoke the conquering flame burns bright,
Bid Faith thus strengthen day by day,

And then- though dimmed each ancient rite,
Oh, who can take thy light away?