Marston Moor

July 2: 1644

O, summer-high that day the sun His chariot drove o'er Marston wold: A rippling sea of amber wheat That floods the moorland vale with gold.

With harvest light the valley laughs, The sheaves in mellow sunshine sleep; --Too rathe the crop, too red the swathes Ere night the scythe of Death shall reap!

Then thick and fast o'er all the moor The crimson'd sabre-lightnings fly; And thick and fast the death-bolts dash, And thunder-peals to peals reply.

Where Evening arched her fiery dome Went up the roar of mortal foes:-- Then o'er a deathly peace the moon In silver silence sailing rose.

Sweet hour, when heaven is nearest home, And children's kisses close the day! O disaccord with nature's calm, Unholy requiem of the fray!

White maiden Queen that sail'st above, Thy dew-tears on the fallen fling,-- The blighted wreaths of civil strife, The war that can no triumph bring!

--O pale with that deep pain of those Who cannot save, yet must foresee,-- Surveying all the ills to flow From that too-victor victory;

When 'gainst the unwisely guided King The dark self-centred Captain stood, And law and right and peace went down In that red sea of brothers' blood;--

O long, long, long the years, fair Maid, Before thy patient eye shall view The shrine of England's law restored, Her homes their native peace renew!

That day; The actual fight lay between 7 and 9 p.m.

Too-victor victory; At Naseby, says Hallam,--and the remark, (though Charles was not personally present), is equally true of Marston Moor--'Fairfax and Cromwell triumphed, not only over the king and the monarchy, but over the parliament and the nation.'

Unwisely guided; 'Never would it have been wiser, in Rupert,' remarks Ranke, 'to avoid a decisive battle than at that moment. But he held that the king's letter not only empowered, but instructed him to fight.'

Red sea; 'The slaughter was deadly, for Cromwell had forbidden quarter being given': (Ranke, ix: 3).