To the Stars
In one of his excursions to meet his lady love at Llanddwyn, in Anglesea (Mon), the poet was benighted and entangled in a thicket; when suddenly the stars burst forth with great splendour, and guided him safely home. In this poem he expresses his gratitude by extolling the beauty of the friendly luminaries.
Oh, I must have the wheels of May,
To guide me safely on my way,
Before I dare again to climb
The mountain precipice sublime—
Or rove amid the mountain rocks—
Or seek to quaff on yonder hill,
The mead, with her of glossy locks;
Oh, love to danger leads us still!
Last night, by reckless love betrayed,
I wandered through the midnight shade,
O’er long-ridged hills with many a moor,
And tangled thicket studded o’er;
And oft with stumbling feet I fell
O’er many a castle’s ruins bare:
At last I reached the city, where
The airy elves of darkness dwell!
A vast green town, whose mansions drear
High o’er the mountain’s summit peer:
Chilled with an agony of fear,
In vain I strove with sudden bound
To fly the wild and haunted ground.
Yon promontory’s dusky height,
Enveloped all around in night,
Like luckless warrior whom his foes
Fiercely in hollow glen enclose,
I crossed myself and gave a cry
Of terror and of agony;
And then recalled to mind the rhyme
Of the great bard of olden time,
Who all in white and gold arrayed,
Into the stony cauldron went:
Like him by “lack of lore” betrayed,
Was I within yon thicket pent!
My way to Llanddwyn I had ta’en,
To find a cure for all my pain.
But he on whom our faith depends,
The Virgin’s Son, who watches ever,
And ever glories to deliver,
The bard in his despair befriends.
“Twelve signs” of hope, at his command,
With showers of splendour light the land;
Brightly arose upon my sight
The stars—those jewels of the night;
Majestic splendours—sparks of seven
Fires that illume the saints in heav’n;
Fruits of the dim moon’s glimm’rings cold,
Fair diadem, around her roll’d!
Omens of seasons glad and fair,
Bright signals in the heav’n displayed,
Scattered like hail-stones every where,
Like hail-stones of the sun-beams made!
Those golden treasures of the sky,
Grand coinage of the Deity;
Those chess-men clearly marked on high,
On the broad chess-board of the sky.
Tiara of heav’n’s summit blue,
Far wandering pavilions—you
Till yester eve I never knew!
Praise to the gorgeous splendours! praise
To the red flow’rs that deck heav’n’s ways!
Praise to the splendour that they gave,
(Those golden works!) the bard to save.
Those holy tapers pure and bright,
Conspicuous raised on yonder height,
The heav’ns—God’s noblest work—to light!
Beads for repentant sinner’s hand,
Brightly suspended—without band!
O’er ev’ning’s broad grey sky they blaze,
Like Camlan’s hosts in ancient days!
Studs in the welkin’s pillars driv’n—
Seeds that have floated up to heav’n.
In vain the blast of night aspires
To quench those bright aérial fires;
In vain their citadels to climb,
In all its wanderings sublime!
They freed my vision from its spell,
And led my steps o’er hill and dell,
Far from that sprite-frequented fell;
And pointed out the road to Mon,
The way my love-sick heart had flown.
(Alas, this wayward heart of mine!)
But not till morning did I gain,
By a long sleepless night of pain,
The palace of the maid divine.
Ah, maiden, miracle of Mon!
Again at midnight will I never
Thus rove for thee—thus strive to shiver
With axe of wood a rock of stone.
The Bard and the Grey Brother
Oh, could I tell the beauteous maid,
Whose palace is in yonder shade;
How fierce to-day my converse ran
With the “mouse-colour’d” holy man!
To the grey monk to-day I went,
Upon a frank confession bent;
I told him freely all: That I
Am a fantastic reckless bard,
And that a maid with coal-black eye
Possesses all my soul’s regard;
And that my love is all in vain!
And that my idol with disdain
My firm affection still repays,
And ceaseless sighs and glorious lays
That spread through Cambria’s land her praise!
The monk advises him to give up the maid of the “hue of the foam,” and to turn to more solemn thoughts. The poet, in reply, is very abusive; he says that, notwithstanding what priests may read from “old parchment,” he does not believe there is any sin in loving woman. “Three things,” he adds, “are loved throughout the world—woman, fair weather, and health.”
And “woman is the fairest flower even in heaven.”
He thus continues:—
From heaven all joy and gladness flow;
All sadness from the depths below:
My song the sorrows can assuage
Of health and sickness, youth and age;
And natural is poesy
To me, as preaching is to thee.
And justly hospitality
Is prized by me, as alms by thee.
There is, sir priest, a proper time
Alike for sermons and for rhyme;
Verse was intended to delight,
Amid the banquet, ladies bright;
In church the Pater Nosters rise
To raise the soul to paradise.
Well did the brave Ystudfach say,
Regaling with the bardic throng,
That “plenty lives with spirits gay,”
But evil dwells with faces long!
He adds that every body can say his prayers, but very few can sing sweet stanzas! This singular poem concludes with a series of maledictions, which the monk and his penitent lavish on each other; and to which a translator cannot hope to do justice.
Dialogue Between the Bard and His Shadow at Sun-Set
This poem, like the preceding, contains many sarcastic allusions to the religious orders.
As I lingered yesterday
Underneath the forest spray,
Waiting for the second Ellen,
Maid in loveliness excelling,
By the birch’s verdant cowl
Shelter’d from the passing rain,
Lo! a phantom grim and foul
(Bowing o’er and o’er again
Like a vastly courteous man)
Right across my pathway ran—
I with ague tremour faint,
With the name of ev’ry saint,
Crossed myself, and thus began
To accost the polished man:
BARD.
If thou art of mortal mould,
Tell me who thou art?
SHADOW.
Behold
In this spectre form thy shade—
Why then, gentle bard, afraid?
BARD.
By the Virgin, tell me true,
On what errand?
SHADOW.
To pursue!
Thus all nakedly to glide,
Lovely poet! by thy side,
Is my task—my heart’s desire—
I have feet that never tire;
And am bound by secret spell,
All thy wanderings to tell;
To espy each wile and art,
Fairest jewel of my heart!
BARD.
Vagrant, without home and shelter,
Man of limbs all helter skelter!
Crooked, lank-shanked, luckless shade—
Shape of rainbow, hue of mire,
Art thou then a bailiff paid,
By the wolf-tongued Eithig’s hire,
Into all my paths to pry?
Skulking mercenary spy!
SHADOW.
That, Sir Minstrel, I deny!
BARD.
Whence then art thou, giant’s child?
Shape of darkness, huge and wild,
Bald of brow as aged bear,
Bloated uncouth form of air;
More like images that scud
Through our dreams, than flesh and blood;
Shaped like stork on frozen pool,
Thin as palmer, (wand’ring fool!)
Long-shanked as a crane that feeds
Greedily among the reeds;
Like a black and shaven monk
Is thy dark and spectral trunk,
Or a corpse in winding-sheet.—
SHADOW.
I have followed sure and fleet
On thy steps—were I to tell
But one half—thou knowest well——
BARD.
Thou may’st tell, and thou may’st scan,
Pitcher-necked censorious man!
Nought of me thou can’st disclose
More than ev’ry neighbour knows;
I have never falsely sworn
In the Cwmwd court, or torn
Lambs to death—have never thrown
At the hens with pebble-stone;
Never have the spectre play’d,
To make little babes afraid;
Never yet have terrified
Stranger maid, or stranger’s bride!
SHADOW.
Gentle bard, were I to tell
Half thy tricks—thou knowest well,
Soon the dainty bard might be
Swinging from the gallows tree!
The Thrush and the Nightingale Officiate as Priests
This poem contains many beautiful and fanciful allusions to the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church. I have translated it into prose, and almost literally, as the best means of conveying the spirit of the original.
In a place of ecstasy I was to-day,
Under the mantles of the splendid green hazels,
Where I listened, at the dawn of day,
To the song of the thrush, an adept in music,
From a distant country, without delay or weariness.
On a long journey my mottled love-messenger had come,
He had travelled here from the narrow county of Chester
At the request of my golden sister, (i. e. Morvyth);
A noble bell (to those who love bells) was rung,
Its sound reached to the roof of the dingle.
His robe, from his slender waist, was
Of a thousand delicately branching flowers;
His cassock you might imagine to be
Of the wings of the ardent flapping wind.
The altar there was covered
With nothing but gold:
Morvyth had sent him,
(Metrical singer, foster-son of May!)
I heard him in brilliant language
Prophesy without ceasing,
And read to the parish
The gospel without stammering!
He raised for us on the hills there
The sacred wafer made of a fair leaf:
And the beautiful nightingale, slender and tall,
From the corner of the glen near him,
Priest of the dingle! sang to a thousand;
And the bells of the mass continually did ring,
And raised the host
To the sky, above the thicket,
And sang stanzas to our Lord and Creator,
With sylvan ecstasy and love!
I am enraptured with the song
Which was matured in the birchen grove of the woods.