A TRANSLATION OF THE preceding POEM BY GWALCHMAỊ.
A PRINCE I sing, whose teeming boards contain
Rich horns of gold, who lives the foeman's bane,
In skill supremely bright,
His people's shield and might,
The age's proud delight,
With steel of furious flame!
Yes, Britain owns thy sway,
Friend of the bardic lay,
And blended e'er be they-
Thy country and thy fame!
To farthest climes hath flown
Thy worth, thy high renown;
Thy might, as Arthur's grown,
With Medrawd's skill arrayed!
Madawg, of mind so fair,
Maredudd's splendid heir,
Let cowards, with despair,
Crouch to thy matchless blade.
Never shone fitter charms than grace thyself,
Thou, who as dross e'er deem'st the hoarded pelf!
Madawg, of eagle-course,
Who of thy ample lands
Ne'er gavest aught to force,
Nor fear of hostile bands!
Sooner thy foes a sandless shore may see
Than from thy chast'ning arm and vengeance flee :
Nor rival e'er may claim
To match thy generous fame,
'Mong those of Christian name,
With faith and fortune bless'd.
This poem by Gwalchmai, of whom notices have appeared in the former pages of this work, was addressed to Madawg ab Maredudd ab Bleddyn, Frince of Powys from 1133 to 1159. It evidently wants the fire, that pervades the poet's other productions, but is not without its merit as an encomiastic ode.-ED.
Such may not now be seen,
Nor, haply, e'er hath been,
Nor in time's round, I ween,
Shall one be so caressed;
Till Cynan come, in fairest virtue bright,
And great Cadwaladr, of every tribe the might*.
WRITTEN FOR RECITAL AT THE LATE
ANNIVERSARY OF THE CAMBRIAN INSTITUTION †.
Redeunt Saturnia regna.-VIRG
WHO, that hath strayed near Tyber's ancient stream,
Rapt into visions of some classic dream,
Musing, perchance, on some long-vanished age,
Bright with the fame of hero and of sage,
Haply on that, when Genius, all refin'd,
Triumph'd in Cæsar's sword or Tully's mind;
'Till now the wanderer, waking from his trance,
Throws o'er the altered scene his rapid glance,
And eyes each mouldering fane, each prostrate dome,
The
wreck of all that once was Rome :-
gorgeous
Who, that hath lost himself in dreams like this,
Hath never long'd to realize the bliss,
Hath never wish'd, that some enchanter's pow'r
Might from the past redeem the splendid hour,
When Roman arts and Roman genius gave
Their mingled triumph, Tyber, to thy wave?
Yet lives not Rome, as in her mightiest day,
Still in th' historian's page and poet's lay?
Lives not, as ever lived, th' Horatian lyre,
And all its strings e'er caught of Grecian fire:-
Blooms not the Mantuan muse in all her charms,
Chaunting her rural themes or feats of arms,
The two concluding lines contain the substance of repeated predictions by Merddin and other ancient bards. See p. 262 of the present volume, where an instance occurs of their use by Merddin. Their adoption here appears somewhat strange, as both Cynan and Cadwaladr must have been long anterior to Gwalchmai's time.-ED.
+ These lines, which were intended to be read at the late Anniversary of the Cymmrodorion, are inserted here, not on account of any particular merit they possess, but because they seem applicable to the occasion, for which they were written.
As now she revels 'mong the pastoral train,
Or now sublimely sings of Latium's ancient reign:—
Teems not the page with Sallust's pregnant sense,
Ovid's soft musings, Tully's elequence?
And thus, as erst, we find all-conquering Rome
Rear in each clime her empire and her home.
Hear this, ye sons of CYMRU's ancient race,
Hear it and ask, if none for you may trace,
With magic skill, some vestige of the past,
And bid your country's genius live and last.
Though, CYMRU, not in arts or arms thy name
May vie with Roman or with Grecian fame,
Yet hath the Muse, with an unsparing hand,
Her bounty scattered o'er thy mountain land.
From earliest time thy AwEN gave its bloom,
To cheer thy freedom, or to deck its tomb;
From earliest time, thy woods and rocks among,
Thy gifted bard hath weaved his varied song,
To chaunt of Druid lore, or tune his lays
To themes of love, or peerless Arthur's praise.
Methinks, e'en now, as o'er the waste of time
I throw my ravished eye, a band sublime
Starts from the mist of ages, to display
The glories, CYMRU, of thy prouder day.
Methinks, I see, first in the glowing dream,
Him, Chief of Bards, who sang near Tywy's stream,
Who tuned to mystic lore his 'raptured string,
Or, haply, gave his muse a loftier wing,
To tell of Uthyr's or of Urien's fame,
And wed to their's his own immortal name *.
But who is he, with pace so sad and slow,
That seems to bend beneath a nation's woe?
"Tis he, who sang of Cattraeth's bloody field,
And wept that Britons should so basely yield;
Tis he, who saw Gododin's deed of shame,
Mourn'd o'er the sickening sight, and made it fame,
Sigh'd o'er his country's fall 'mong floods of gore,
And gave the world one deathless epic moret.
Taliesin, of whom see a short Memoir in the former volume, p. 10. Aneurir, he author of the Gododin, which, although here called an epic, is, more properly, an heroic, poem.-See CAMBRO-BRITON, vol. i. pp. 91 389 for some notices of Aneurin and his poem.
Now, hark! a deeper strain, a holier sound,
In sorrowing numbers, trembles all around,
As to the winds yon aged minstrel throws
The plaintive record of his matchless woes :
His plunder'd home,-his friends, his patrons slain,
His twenty sons, stretch'd on the battle-plain,
And, ah! himself an exile, doomed to stay,
Through sadly lingering years, for life's decay,
Friendless and childless sinking to the grave,
None but his muse to cheer him or to save *.
But lo! another comes-with eye of fire
I see him seize old Pindar's long-lost lyre,
And Grecian spirit glows in CYMRU's lay,
As Gwalchmai sings of Owain's glorious day,
When routed armies owned the hero's might,
And CYMRU's banner waved o'er Moelvre's height †.
But cease!-of arms no more:-a softer strain
In Lydian measures floats along the plain,
While sweetest inusic fills the ravish'd strings,
As CYMRU'S Petrarch of his Laura sings,
And all his soul melts into fond desire,
As now his Dyddgu's charms, his Morvudd's now inspire
Much still of CYMRU'S bards could I rehearse,
Might all, that crowd my vision, fill my verse;
But who shall count that long and splendid line,
By AwEN nurtured with her flame divine?
Who, in that brilliant galaxy of fame,
Shall tell each star, that bears an honour'd name?
Yet, one remains, of all the gifted race,
Whom most the Muse's charms conspired to grace,
Latest and mightiest of the Bardic throng,
Who gave to varied themes his varying song;
Now tuned his moral strain to Happiness,
That richest, rarest GEM, supreme to bless;
* Llywarch Hen,-of whose life, sorrows, and writings an account was given in the former volume, p. 287. He is recorded to have lived to the extraor dinary age of 150 years.
↑ For some specimens of Gwalchmai's muse see vol. i. p. 229 and the present volume, pp. 183 and 459.
Davydd ab Gwilym,-one of the most eminent poets of the fourteenth century. A considerable portion of his effusions, now extant, are devoted to Morvudd and Dyddgu, but much the greater proportion to the former of these fair ones, who may therefore be considered his Laura. An edition of the poet's works, with an excellent preface by Mr. Owen Pughe, was published in
Now raised to Heaven the soul-ennobling lay,
And sang sublime of Judgment's awful Day.
Ill-fated seer! whom wrongs condemned to roam
Far from his much-loved plains and early home,
Forbidden there a resting-place, a grave,
And doomed to perish o'er th' Atlantic wave.
Yet lives not still Goronw's magic name,
CYMRU, at once thy glory and thy shame*?
But happier scenes approach:-I see the ray
Relume our land, that shone in Gruffydd's dayt;
A brighter æra o'er our hills ascends,
And in one orb the scatter'd fragments blends
Of all, that 'raptur'd bard or studious sage
Had mused of yore, to gild a deathless page;
Of all, that now, perchance, may lend its beam,
To shed new light o'er learning's sacred stream,
As song and science mingling flow around,
And all is life on CYMRU's classic ground.
Then hail, auspicious hour! and welcome thou,
Queen of the heavenly smile and sparkling brow; .
Welcome, sweet Hope, to Genius ever dear,
Friend of the AWEN, when no friends are near!
And, with thee, welcome CYMRU's earlier fame,
When patrons loved and felt the bardic flame!
New Ivors now, new Owains § shall arise,
To foster Genius, drooping as she lies,
And point the path to yonder kindred skies;
While CYMRU's name shall triumph as of yore,
And her bright halo beam more widely than before.
Geronw Owain, who was born in the early part of the last century, was a native of Anglesea and a minister of the Church of England. After a series of misfortunes, among which the neglect of his countrymen was not the least, he emigrated in 1757 to America, where he died. His works have been printed in the Diddanwch Teuluaidd, now become very scarce: there are also two of his letters in the second volume of the Cambrian Register, and one in the Cambri in Biography, in which he gives an interesting account of his life. The cffusions of his muse have never been surpassed by any child of the Awen.
↑ Gruffydd ab Cynan,-Prince of North Wales during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and a distinguished patron of the bards.
Ivor Hael,-patron of Davydd ab Gwilym.
Owain Cyveiliog,-Prince of Powys in the twelfth century, a friend of the bards, and himself a successful votary of the muse.
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