ABER GLAS LLYNN,
with all its world of horrors, burst at once upon our view. I felt a tremulous sensation within me; a contraction of the muscles of my throat; an hysterical sob, and a desire to weep. I stood stone still; while my edifying companions pursued their way without making a single observation. I halted upon the centre of the bridge, and gave vent to my feelings in pencilling down the following
LINES
WRITTEN ON THE BRIDGE AT ABER GLAS LLYNN.
Thou of the stormy soul, who left behind
The love of sunny skies and smiling vales,
With thy fresh boyhood; thou upon whose brow
Stern care hath written gloom, and worldly wrongs
Made darksome; hither bend thy leaden steps,
And find a home here in this wild abyss!—
Abode congenial to thy lightless mind.
Ye black huge rocks, drear, mountainous, and stern,
First-born of chaos, everlasting piles
And monuments of the creation—hail!
Around your heads the thunder rolls in vain,
And the fierce lightnings from your summits bare
Turn harmless. Frown, frown on, ye giants stern,
Majestic emblems of eternity!
The torrents are your tongues, and with their roar
Talk of your dignity for ever. Hail!
White foaming, thundering, falls the boiling flood;
Rocks clash, and echo mocks the horrid din,
While man appalled, stands breathless, in amaze,
And, filled with awe, exalts his thoughts to Him,
Who was, who is, and aye must be supreme!
Just above the bridge is a semicircular rock, which forms a salmon-leap, over which the salmon, at spawning time, first lodge themselves at the height of five or six yards. Proceeding through the pass, at every step new wonders met the eye. The late heavy rains had swollen the mountain waterfalls, and caused a terrific torrent to roar and struggle through a narrow channel; for the mountains, forming this southern end of the vale, approach so near to each other, that they only afford a contracted flow for the river, and a narrow road, while their rocky sides rise so perpendicularly, that their summits are scarcely farther distant from each other than their foundations. The rushing river was a pure sheet of white; furious, uncontrollable; nothing but the immense blocks riven from the mountain’s craggy sides could withstand its dreadful impetuosity. A few stunted fir and larch trees at the commencement of the pass were seen starting from the dark clefts upon either side, which threw a deeper shade upon this awful valley.
Cradock calls this pass “the noblest specimen of the finely horrid the eye can possibly behold. The poet,” he continues, “has not described, nor the painter pictured so gloomy a retreat. ’Tis the last approach to the mansion of Pluto, through the regions of Despair.” I could have stopped for hours to admire this splendid example of the sublimity of Nature, but time pressed, so I pushed on to Beddgelert which is not more than a mile and a half from the bridge. A solitary mountain ash which grows about half way up the pass, is the sole bright thing in this abode of terror, and looks like Beauty in desolation. Emerging from the pass there is a stone which is called the chair of Rhys Gôch o’r’ Ryri; a famous mountain bard who lived in the time of Owen Glyndwr. He resided at the entrance into the Traeth Mawr Sands, from whence he used to walk, and sitting upon this stone compose his poems. He died in 1420, at the advanced age of 120 years; he was a gentleman of property, and was buried in the ancient priory at