![Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XI - Saxon Conquest, By: William Wordsworth](https://i0.wp.com/poetrycatalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Ecclesiastical-Sonnets-Part-I-XI-Saxon-Conquest-By-William-Wordsworth.png?resize=750%2C420&ssl=1)
Nor wants the cause the panic-striking aid
Of hallelujahs tost from hill to hill
For instant victory. But Heaven’s high will
Permits a second and a darker shade
Of Pagan night. Afflicted and dismayed,
The Relics of the sword flee to the mountains:
O wretched Land! whose tears have flowed like fountains;
Whose arts and honours in the dust are laid
By men yet scarcely conscious of a care
For other monuments than those of Earth;
Who, as the fields and woods have given them birth,
Will build their savage fortunes only there;
Content, if foss, and barrow, and the girth
Of long-drawn rampart, witness what they were.