The head of a warrior, a ruler of highest celebrity, The head was that of a dragon, and on his crest a dragon's head. Head of Llywelyn the fair, profoundly feared, O that there should be an iron spear through it! Having nine hundred feasts; Head of sovereigns, from whose hand the spear swiftly flew, Head of proud princes, of the blunted sword, Head of wolf-like rulers loving the battle's front, Head of Christian sovereigns-may heaven be his lot. A blessed host conquering as far as Brittany, True and rightful king of Aberffraw, May he inherit the blessed land of Heaven! This bard was the ablest of his day, and this elegy is a fine specimen of his ability. He was strongly inspired with the true spirit of poetry, and seems to have been greatly affected by the fate of his beloved prince. The figures are beautiful, and unusually bold; and were they not justified by the bard's Hebrew models, and by the subsequent examples of the greatest names in modern poetry, an ample defence would be furnished in their own intrinsic force and sublimity. I wish such flights of fancy were more frequent among other bards; their poems would then have taken a firmer hold than they have upon the public mind. This poem is worthy of the occasion which called it forth, and forms a fitting wail on a hero's fall. Pen milwr pen moliant rhagllaw Pen Llewelyn deg dygn o fraw-i'r byd Pen Arglwydd poen dygngwydd amdaw Pen fenaid heb fanag arnaw Pen a fu berchen ar barch naw Canwlad A naw canwledd iddo Pen teyrn heyrn heid o'i law Penteyrnwalch balch bwlch ei ddeifniaw Penteyrnaidd flaidd flaengar ganthaw Penteyrnef nef ei nawdd arnaw Gwyndeyrn ortheyrn wrthaw Gwendorf gorf gorfynt hynt hyd Lydaw Gwenwlad nef boed addef iddaw. Myv. Arch. Vol. p. 397. SECTION III. THE RELIGIOUS POETRY OF THE BARDS. Ir is a fact now satisfactorily established by the concurrent researches of Blount, Hughes, Rees, and Stebbing, that there was a British church in these Islands prior to the arrival of Augustine. This church then had, and continued among the Kymry for many centuries to have, a separate and independent existence. Wide differences of opinion on matters pertaining to doctrine and church goverment, existed between the two churches, and until members of the church of Rome, in the course of time, insinuated themselves into the British churches, these differences continued. And even then the fusion was not complete; for the Kymry ever looked with a jealous eye upon foreign ecclesiastics. This fact will go far to account for the appearance during the middle ages, of a mass of religious poetry in the Cambrian language. I was not a little surprised in perusing these, to find the bards, almost to a man, exerciisng their talents in the composition of a species of literature which seemed so inconsistent with their practices and professions; but on examination, it soon appeared that they had been judged both harshly and unfairly. The Kymry have ever been a religious people; and the profession of Christianity seems now to be a necessary part of their constitution. It will have been observed that scarcely one of their poems begins without an invocation to the Deity, and none end without aspirations for eternal joy hereafter; and it is both interesting and instructive, to mark the effect of the principles of Christianity, upon men who were by no means favourably disposed towards its teachers. The bards had the discrimination to distinguish between the truth of religion, and the mixture of truth and error then usually presented under that name. In the bardic poems, we frequently meet with wholesale denunciations of the clergy, but in the whole range of Kymric poetry, there is not, I confidently venture to assert, a line of impiety. The professors of a religion, whose precepts they did not practise, were satirized, and justly too; but that censure was never indiscriminate, and co-existed with sincere and unaffected belief. In the lapse of centuries, the independence of the Kymry became greatly compromised; but the people kept to themselves the right of private judgment, and a disposition to put that right in practice. We have already quoted Meilyr's Ode upon his death bed. Kynddelw has a long poem in ten parts, addressed to the Deity, a part of which has been already given; and he has another, supposed to have been his last literary effort, of much greater merit, in which he endeavours, with much success, to show that the bardic profession was not inconsistent with piety. Prydydd y Moch has an address to the Deity, as has Davydd Benvras; Meilyr ab Gwalchmai has eight small poems on devotional subjects, without much merit; and Einion his brother is not more fortunate in the three long addresses to God, which bear his name. Elidir Sais has several religious poems of much more than ordinary merit. One of them has excellence enough to justify quotation.1 A DIVINE ODE. Consider thy errors, for it is written, But truth, and mild tranquillity, And true mercy," as he has said. Examine thy conduct ere thou goest to the grave! 1 Ystyr di enuir heruyd a treithir If thou hast done wrong, be not surprised, The deception will not be mercifully passed away, Who have done well will be esteemed, And honoured at the feast of the blessed. I have seen Llywelyn with armies numerous as Mervyn's, Pillars of battle, sitting on their thrones ; I have seen men in battle upon prancing warsteeds, I have seen wine flowing, hosts of men, and play-places ; I have seen numbers perpetually drinking, And the world increasing in good men ; All these passed away like contracting shadows, And yet men dream of never ending days! The rich shall not have longer life Than the disturbed, or the contentious. Let man consider ere he is overtaken by death and the grave, What he will ask, what he will hate; Let him ask every virtue, and the feast will never end,— And the joyfulness and peace of faith will be perpetual; But let him not ask to cheat, and falsely charge O gunaethost gamued na ryveda Ac ny meddylio a rwy dirpero Cyt boed gyvanned bydaul gymmyrred Guelais uyr yn trin a meirch mysterin Ni cheiff cyvoethauc vot yn hir hoedlauc With injustice, Heaven in its beauty. When attentively considered, penance becomes a serious duty, On account of the triumph over Eva ; It was not for sins of his own that the Lord of Heaven, Symmetrical sacrifice! suffered on the tree; Woe be to him whose original sin is unforgiven, Sad will it be to see him, when with downcast look, Showing the gashes, and all his wounds, The nailmarks, the blood, and the cross, Christ the mysterious, king of kings, shall say, "This did I, what hast thou done?" For the good, holiness is prepared in the presence of the Deity, For the sinful, there will be total destruction. Woe to the miserly, and the cheat, And those who from false notions do not worship; They will be seen atoning for their sins, And repenting, in the pains of hell; And there will be seen in the glory of heaven, And the free and open feast will last for ever. Llywelyn Vardd has also several poems of considerable merit, addressed to the Cambrian princes, and particularly one to Owain Gwynedd; but considering that the repetition of the same topics, and ideas, was likely to weary the reader, I thought it imprudent to give another of the same Nef yn y thecket kan ny thycka Nat oe gammoed ef yd aeth Arglwyd nef Gwae nyt mat anet bechodaul ueithret Hynn a wnaethum i beth a wuaethost di Bod gleindyt puraud yn erbyn Duydaut Gwae wynt y kebydyon ar hocket dynion Ac camvedylyon ynt adola Gweled en madeu dros eu camwedeu Yn uffern boeneu benyt gudva A guelet mynet i nef ogonet Y saul a gaffet ar gyffurfda Y gan leuenyd y uled ni dervyt Yn dragywyd ryd rat gymanva. |