n human annals.

"Let his corpse," said William the Norman, "let his corpse guard the
coasts, which his life madly defended. Let the seas wail his dirge, and
girdle his grave; and his spirit protect the land which hath passed to
the Norman's sway."

And Mallet de Graville assented to the word of his chief, for his
knightly heart turned into honour the latent taunt; and well he knew,
that Harold could have chosen no burial spot so worthy his English spirit
and his Roman end.

The tomb at Waltham would have excluded the faithful ashes of the
betrothed, whose heart had broken on the bosom she had found; more gentle
was the grave in the temple of heaven, and hallowed by the bridal
death-dirge of the everlasting sea.

So, in that sentiment of poetry and love, which made half the religion of
a Norman knight, Mallet de Graville suffered death to unite those whom
life had divided. In the holy burial-ground that encircled a small Saxon
chapel, on the shore, and near the spot on which William had leapt to
land, one grave received the betrothed; and the tomb of Waltham only
honoured an empty name. [278]

Eight centuries have rolled away, and where is the Norman now? or where
is not the Saxon? The little urn that sufficed for the mighty lord [279]
is despoiled of his very dust; but the tombless shade of the kingly
freeman still guards the coasts, and rests upon the seas. In many a
noiseless field, with Thoughts for Armies, your relics, O Saxon Heroes,
have won back the victory from the bones of the Norman saints; and
whenever, with fairer fates, Freedom opposes Force, and Justice,
redeeming the old defeat, smites down the armed Frauds that would
consecrate the wrong,--smile, O soul of our Saxon Harold, smile,
appeased, on the Saxon's land!

NOTES

NOTE (A)

There are various accounts in the Chroniclers as to the stature of
William the First; some represent him as a giant, others as of just or
middle height. Considering the vulgar inclination to attribute to a
hero's stature the qualities of the mind (and putting out of all question
the arguments that rest on the pretended size of the disburied bones--for
which the authorities are really less respectable than those on which we
are called upon to believe that the skeleton of the mythical Gawaine
measured eight feet), we prefer that supposition, as to the physical
proportions, which is most in harmony with the usual laws of Nature. It
is rare, indeed, that a gr