And evening falls, and from the Minster height
They see the wan Ouse stream
Blood-dark with slaughter gleam,
And hear the demon-struggle shrieking through the night.

Love, o'er palms in triumph strown
Passing, through the crowd alone,--
Silent 'mid the exulting cry,--
At Jerusalem to die:
Thou, foreknowing all, didst know
How Thy blood in vain would flow!
How our madness oft would prove
Recreant to the law of love:
Wrongs that men from men endure
Doing Thee to death once more!

'On the 29th of March 1461 the two armies encountered one another at
Towton Field, near Tadcaster. In the numbers engaged, as well as in the
terrible obstinacy of the struggle, no such battle had been seen in
England since the field of Senlac. The two armies together numbered
nearly 120,000 men': (_Green_, B. IV: ch. vi).

_Saronian sea_; Scene of the battle of Salamis, B.C. 480.

_They see the wan Ouse stream_; Mr. R. Wilton, of Londesborough, has
kindly pointed out to me that _Wharfe_, which from a brook received the
bloodshed of Towton, does not discharge into _Ouse_ until about ten miles
south of York. The _gleam_ is, therefore, visionary: (1889).