To Morvyth
The bard supposes himself to have died of love, and describes his funeral.
Maid with the glowing form, and lily brow
Beneath a woof of golden tresses! now
(As oft before, through years of grief and shame,
And love intense as hopeless)—I exclaim
“Sancta Maria! canst thou not redress
The torments wrought by tyrant loveliness;”
To thee I’ve paid the honours of a bride,
But thy stern kinsmen’s unrelenting pride
To me the nuptial presents has denied!
Thou gem of maids—inexorable fair,
By all the sacred relics I protest
That when I die, the victim of despair,
On thee the guilt of poet’s death will rest!
To-morrow shall I in my grave be laid,
Amid the leaves and floating forest shade,
In yon ash grove—my verdant birchen trees
Shall be the mourners of my obsequies!
My spotless shroud shall be of summer flowers,
My coffin hewn from out the woodland bowers;
The flowers of wood and wild shall be my pall,
My bier eight forest branches green and tall;
And thou shalt see the white gulls of the main
In thousands gather there to bear my train;
And e’en the very woodlands will be seen
To move and join the sad funereal scene!
The thicket of the rocks my church shall be,
Two nightingales, (enchantress, chos’n by thee,)
The sacred idols of the sanctuary!
Its altars raised of brick, its verdant floor
With nature’s varied pavement chequered o’er.
Ne’er do its portals jar with angry cries,
Its leafy depths have baffled Eithig’s eyes.
Skill’d are its holy monks of orders grey,
In Latin lore and in poetic lay;
In all the metres ever writ or read,
In the green volumes through the forests spread!
There, tones of organ loud and tiny bell,
By woodland minstrels waken’d, frequent swell;
There, where the birchen boughs of Gwyneth wave,
Proud maid! to-morrow shall I find a grave!
There, organ like, the nightingale shall roll
His notes, in solemn masses for my soul;
Orisons and “Pater Nosters” shall be said
The summer through, in honour of the dead;
Until the spirit of the bard shall rise,
Freed from its sins, aloft to Paradise!
Morvyth’s Pilgrimage
In this poem the bard imagines that Morvyth’s scorn has proved fatal to him, and represents her as making a pilgrimage to St. David’s, to seek forgiveness for the guilt of having caused his death.
The following translation is extracted from the poems of Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg), a Glamorganshire bard and antiquary, and one of the most illustrious of the preservers of the ancient literature of Wales.
The charmer of sweet Mona’s isle,
With death attendant on her smile,
Intent on pilgrimage divine,
Speeds to St. David’s holy shrine;
Too conscious of a sinful mind,
Yet hopes she may forgiveness find!
What hast thou done, thrice lovely maid?
What crimes can to thy charge be laid?
Didst thou contemn the suppliant poor,
Drive helpless orphans from thy door,
Unduteous to thy parents prove,
Or yield thy charms to lawless love?
No, Morvyth, no; thy gentle breast
Was form’d to pity the distress’d;
Has ne’er one thought, one feeling known,
That virtue could not call her own;
Nor hast thou caus’d a parent’s pain
Till quitting now thy native plain.
Yet, lovely nymph, thy way pursue,
And keep repentance full in view;
Yield not thy tongue to cold restraint,
But lay thy soul before the saint.
Oh! tell him that thy lover dies;
On death’s cold bed unpitied lies;
Murder’d by thee, relentless maid,
And to th’ untimely grave convey’d!
Yet ere he’s number’d with the dead,
Ere yet his latest breath is fled,
Confess, repent, thou cruel fair,
And hear, for once, a lover’s pray’r:
So may the saint with ear benign,
Sweet penitent, attend to thine!
Thou soon must over Menai go;
May ev’ry current softly flow,
Thy little bark securely glide
Swift o’er the calm pellucid tide.
Unruffled be thy gentle breast,
Without one fear to break thy rest,
Till thou art safely wafted o’er
To bold Arvonia’s tow’ring shore.
O! could I guard thy lovely form
Safe through yon desert of the storm,
Where fiercely rage encount’ring gales,
And whirlwinds rend th’ affrighted vales:
Sons of the tempest, cease to blow,
Sleep in your cavern’d glens below;
Ye streams that, with terrific sound,
Pour from your thousand hills around,
Cease with rude clamours to dismay
A gentle pilgrim on her way!
Peace! rude Traeth Mawr; no longer urge
O’er thy wild strand the sweeping surge:
’Tis Morvyth on thy beach appears,
She dreads thy wrath—she owns her fears;
O! let the meek repentant maid
Securely through thy windings wade.
Traeth Bychan, check thy dreadful ire,
And bid thy foamy waves retire,
Till from thy threat’ning dangers freed,
My charmer trips the flow’ry mead;
Then bid again with sullen roar
Thy billows lash the sounding shore!
Abermo, from thy rocky bay
Drive each terrific surge away:
Though sunk beneath thy billows lie
Proud fanes, that once assail’d the sky,
Dash’d by thy foam, yon vestal braves
The dangers of thy bursting waves.
O! Cyric, see my lovely fair
Consign’d to thy paternal care;
Rebuke the raging seas, and land
My Morvyth on yon friendly strand.
Dyssynni, tame thy furious tide,
Fix’d at thy source in peace abide;
She comes—O! greet her with a smile!
The charmer of sweet Mona’s isle.
So may thy limpid rills around
Purl down their dells with soothing sound,
Sport on thy bosom, and display
Their crystal to the glitt’ring day;
Nor shrink from summer’s parching sun,
Nor, chain’d in ice, forget to run.
So may thy verdant marge along
Mervinia’s bards in raptur’d song
Dwell on thy bold majestic scene,
Huge hills, vast woods, and vallies green,
Where revels thy enchanting stream,
The lover’s haunt, and poet’s theme.
Thou, Dyvi, dangerous and deep,
On beds of ooze unruffled sleep;
O’er thy green wave my Morvyth sails.
Conduct her safe, ye gentle gales;
Charm’d with her beauties, waft her o’er
To fam’d Ceredig’s wond’ring shore.
Thou foamy Rhediol, rage no more
Adown thy rocks with echo’d roar!
Be silent, Ystwyth, in thy meads,
Glide softly through thy peaceful reeds;
Nor bid thy dells, rude Aeron, ring,
But halt at thy maternal spring:
Hide from the nymph, ye torrents wild,
Or wear, like her, an aspect mild;
For her light steps clear all your ways;
O, listen! ’tis a lover prays!
Now safe beneath serener skies,
Where softer beauties charm her eyes,
She Teivi’s verdant region roves,
Views flow’ry meads and pensile groves.
Ye lovely scenes, to Morvyth’s heart,
Warm thoughts of tenderness impart,
Such as in busy tumults roll,
When love’s confusion fills the soul.
Her wearied step, with awe profound,
Now treads Menevia’s honour’d ground.
At David’s shrine now, lovely maid,
Thy pious orisons are paid:
He sees the secrets of thy breast,—
One sin, one only, stands confess’d,
One heinous guilt, that, ruthless, gave
Thy hopeless lover to the grave.
Thy soften’d bosom now relents,
Of all its cruelty repents,
Gives to remorse the fervent sigh,—
Sweet pity’s tear bedews thine eye.
Now love lights up its hallow’d fire,
Melts all thy heart with chaste desire:
Whilst in thy soul new feelings burn,
O! Morvyth, to thy bard return;
One tender look will cure his pain,
Will bid him rise to life again,
A life like that of saints above,
Ecstatic joy, and endless love.
The Thunder
When she met me in the glade,
In the leaves of spring array’d,
Well did Morvyth compensate
For my dreary watchings late.
O’er our verdant couch of state
Woodland music ever hung,
By the thrush and cuckoo sung:
But in this ecstatic hour,
The hoarse thunder sudden roar’d,
And in many a furious shower
The clear rain-drops downward pour’d;
The fierce lightning frequent glared.
By the ruthless tempest scared,
In an agony of dread,
From the grove my Morvyth fled!
Beaked flame! dread living thunder,
Rending lovers’ hearts asunder;
Sound of danger and of fear
To the beauteous maiden’s ear;
Noise that all the nations hear;
Clamour that the senses mocks,
Hoarse bull raging ’mid the rocks;
Clanging armour of the heav’n,
Fire and wave in conflict driven;
Flame of wrath, and waves that tame,
By their mighty gush, the flame,
Giant echoes of dismay,
Trumpet of the whelming spray,
Like a thousand voices blending,
From the stars of heav’n descending;
Like the crash of forests hurl’d,
From the welkin to our world.
He then becomes, in his peculiar manner, very abusive against the thunder, compares it to the Rhuglgroen (an instrument used for frightening crows), and to an old hag beating her kettles about; he adds that he should not have cared for its vile noise had it not scared Morvyth from his side.
The Cuckoo’s Tale
The cuckoo brings the tidings of Morvyth’s marriage with Hunchback. The bard describes himself as waiting, at the dawn of day, under a precipice for the arrival of Morvyth. Seeing the cuckoo, he thus addresses that bird.
Hail, bird of sweet melody, heav’n is thy home;
With the tidings of summer thy bright pinions roam—
The summer that thickens with foliage the glade,
And lures to the woodland the poet and maid.
Sweet as ‘sack,’ gentle bird, is thy beautiful voice,
In thy accents the lover must ever rejoice;
Oh! tell me at once, in thy musical lay,
Where tarries the girl whose behest I obey.
“Poor bard,” said the cuckoo, “what anguish and pain
Hast thou stored for thyself! all thy cares are in vain!
All hopes of the maid thou awaitest resign,
She has wedded another, and ne’er can be thine.”
The poet angrily replies that this is impossible—that Morvyth was solemnly united to him in the presence of the bard, Madog Benfras, who united their hands under the branches of the forest; and abuses the cuckoo. The cuckoo retorts by repeating her story, and declaring that Morvyth is now the wife of Hunchback. The poem thus concludes.
“For the tale thou hast told”—to the cuckoo I cried,
“For thus singing to me of my beautiful bride
These strains of thy malice—may winter appear
And dim the sun’s light—stay the summer’s career;
With frost all the leaves of the forest boughs fill,
And wither the woods with his desolate chill,
And with cold in the midst of thy own forest spray,
Take thy life and thy song, foolish cuckoo, away!”