Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Undaunted at the purple flood,
Brigantium [York], honoured with a race divine,
Gave birth to the victorious Constantine,
Whose colony, whilst planted there,
With blooming glories still renewed the year.
The bashful Thames, for beauty so renowned,
In haste ran by her puny town,
And poor Augusta [London] was ashamed to own.
Augusta then did drooping lie,
Though now she rears her towering front so high.

Comment

Comment

The ode is a lovely little thing, and lines like “Of old, when heroes thought it base/ To be confined to native air” might even cause a twitterstorm. A recording. W.H. Cummings’ edition strikes me as an excellent point of departure (Purcell 1878).

The prophecies of Nixon, the Cheshire Merlin, give hope:

London streets shall run with blood,
And at last shall sink,
So that it shall be fulfill’d
That Lincoln was, London is, and York shall be
The finest city of the three.
(Northall 1892)

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

Of Old, when Heroes thought it base
To be confin’d to Native Air,
And Glory brought a Martial Race
To breath their towring Eagles here,
The Sons of Fam’d Brigantium stood
Disputing Freedom with their blood;
Undaunted at the Purple flood,
Brigantium honour’d with a Race Divine;
Gave Birth to the Victorious Constantine.
Whose Colony whilst Planted there,
With blooming Glories still renew’d the Year,
The bashful Thames for Beauty so Renown’d,
In hast ran by her Puny Town;
And poor Augusta was asham’d to own.
Augusta then did drooping lye,
Though now she rears her towring front so high.

The Pale and Purple Rose,
That after cost so many Blows
When English Barons fought;
A Prize too dearly bought:
By the fam’d Worthies of that Shire,
Still best by Sword and Shield defended were.
And in each Tract of Glory since,
For their Lov’d Country and their Prince;
Princes that hate Rome’s Slavery,
And join the Nations Right with their own Royalty,
None were more ready in distress to save,
None were more Loyal, none more Brave.

And now when the Renown’d Nassau
Came to restore our Liberty and Law,
The work so well perform’d and done,
They were the first begun;
They did no storms or threatnings fear,
Of Thunder in the grumbling Air,
Or any Revolutions near:
The Noble work large hopes of freedom told,
Freedom Inspir’d their minds and made ’em bold,
And gave them English Hearts like those of Old,
To welcome their Redeemer when he came,
Whose Vertue and whose Fame,
Made our long smother’d Joys burst into brighter flame,
So when the Glittering Queen of Night,
With black Eclipse is shadow’d o’re,
The Globe that swells with sullen Pride,
Her dazling Charms to hide,
Does but a little time abide,
And then each Ray is brighter than before,
CHORUS of all.
Let Musick joyn in a Chorus Divine,
In praise of all, of all, of all,
That Celebrate, that Celebrate,
This Glorious Festival.
Sound Trumpets sound, beat every Drum,
Till it be known through Christendom;
This is the knell of falling Rome,
To him that our mighty Defender has been,
Sound all,
And to all the Heroes invited him in,
Sound all,
And as the chief Agents of this Royal Work,
Long flourish the City and County of York.

465 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Brigantes (1) ·
• Brigantia (ancient region) (1) ·
• Catholic Church (57) ·
• Constantine the Great (1) ·
• Eboracum (2) ·
• Glorious Revolution (7) ·
• Great Fire of London (3) ·
• Humour (26) ·
• James II (20) ·
• Londinium (1) ·
• London (74) ·
• Mary II of England (2) ·
• Music (25) ·
• Ode (1) ·
• Poetry (70) ·
• Protestantism (25) ·
• Purcell, Henry (1659-95) (2), one of England's finest composers ·
• River Thames (2) ·
• Robert Nixon (prophet) (1) ·
• Roman Britain (occupation AD 43-410) (8) ·
• Thomas d’Urfey (1) ·
• Wars of the Roses (4) ·
• William Hayman Cummings (1) ·
• William III (9) ·
• 📌York (164) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 11 June 1682: Let your charity be as great as your county, Yorkshiremen are told by one of their own at a Yorkshire Feast sermon in London
• 13 May 1851: The Flying Dutchman runs the Great Match against Voltigeur at the York races
• 7 January 1397: On the longest of the 42 days of his carnivalesque reign, boy-bishop John de Cave of York goes on a 200-mile begging spree
• 17 December 1688: Mass mobilisation in Leeds on rumours of an imminent Celtic counteroffensive against the Glorious Revolution
• 8 May 1154: The wooden bridge over the Ouse collapses under the crowd welcoming Archbishop William of York back from Rome
• 22 October 1674: Barbara Lee dies and – says her epitaph – is then buried upright under the fireplace of St James’ church, Norton, Sheffield
• 21 February 1688: On Shrove-Tuesday, cock-throwing York apprentices break a Catholic window, and the militia intervenes, torturing citizens and violating their civic rights
• 25 September 1880: Thomas Harper reveals to the Leeds Mercury’s young readers a mnemonic song of monarchs (except Oliver) used in the village school at Weldrake (York) in the 1770s
• 22 August 1572: The head of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland and leader of the Catholic Rising of the North, is impaled on Micklegate Bar, York, where it stays for two years
• 29 May 1405: On Shipton Moor, the Earl of Westmorland, acting for Henry IV, tricks the Archbishop of York and the Duke of Norfolk, rebellious defenders of York’s rights and purses