Its stores by TEWKESBURY'S deadly field,
And feels whatever can inspire,
From history's page or poet's fire.

Bright vale of Severn! shall the song
That wildly devious roves along,
The charms of nature to explore,
On history rest, or themes of yore?
More joy the thoughts of home supply,
Short be the glance at days gone by,
Though gallant TEWKESBURY, clean and gay,
Hath much to tempt the traveller's stay,
Her noble abbey, with its dead,
A powerful claim; a silent dread,
Sacred as holy virtue springs
Where rests the dust of chiefs and kings;
With his who by foul murder died,
The fierce Lancastrian's hope and pride,
When brothers brothers could destroy
Heroic Margaret's _red-rose_ boy.[A]
[Footnote A: Prince Edward, son of Henry the Sixth, taken prisoner with
his mother, Margaret of Anjou, at the battle of Tewkesbury, and murdered
by the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard the Third.]
Muse, turn thee from the field of blood,
Rest to the brave, peace to the good;
_Avon_, with all thy charms, adieu!
For CHELTENHAM mocks thy pilgrim crew;
And like a girl in beauty's power,
Flirts in the fairings of an hour.