Alain the Fox.
The bearded fox is yelping, yelp, yelping through the glades;
Woe to the foreign rabbits! His eyes are two keen blades.
His teeth are keen; his feet are swift; his nails are red with blood.
Alain the fox is yelping war: yelp, yelping in the wood.
The Bretons making sharp their arms of terror I did see,
It was on cuirasses of Gaul, not stones of Brittany.
The Bretons reaping did I see, upon the fields of war;
It was not notched reaping-hooks, but swords of steel they bore.
They reapt no wheat of our own land, they reaped not our rye;
But the beardless ears, the beardless ears of Gaul and Saxony.
I saw upon the threshing-floor the Bretons threshing corn:
I saw the beaten chaff fly out from beardless ears off-torn.
It was not with their wooden flails the Bretons thresht the wheat;
But with their iron boar-spears and with their horses’ feet.
I heard the cry when threshing’s done, the joy-cry onward borne
Far, far from Mont-Saint-Michel to the valleys of Elorn:
From the abbey of Saint Gildas far on to the Land’s-End rocks.
In Brittany’s four corners give a glory to the Fox!
From age to age give glory to the Fox a thousand times!
But weep ye for the rhymer, though he recollect his rhymes!
For he that sang this song the first since then hath never sung:
Ah me, alas! Unhappy man! The Gauls cut out his tongue.
But though no more he hath a tongue, a heart is always his:
He has both hand and heart to shoot his arrowy melodies.
Bran.
(The Crow.)
Wounded full sore is Bran the knight;
For he was at Kerloan fight;
At Kerloan fight, by wild seashore
Was Bran-Vor’s grandson wounded sore;
And, though we gained the victory,
Was captive borne beyond the sea.
He when he came beyond the sea,
In the close keep wept bitterly.
“They leap at home with joyous cry
While, woe is me, in bed I lie.
Could I but find a messenger,
Who to my mother news would bear!”
They quickly found a messenger;
His best thus gave the warrior:
“Heed thou to dress in other guise,
My messenger, dress beggar-wise!
Take thou my ring, my ring of gold,
That she thy news as truth may hold!
Unto my country straightway go,
It to my lady mother show!
Should she come free her son from hold,
A flag of white do thou unfold!
But if with thee she come not back,
Unfurl, ah me, a pennon black!”
So, when to Leon-land he came,
At supper table sat the dame,
At table with her family,
The harpers playing as should be.
“Dame of the castle, hail! I bring
From Bran your son this golden ring,
His golden ring and letter too;
Read it, oh read it, straightway through!”
“Ye harpers, cease ye, play no more,
For with great grief my heart is sore!
My son (cease harpers, play no more!)
In prison, and I did not know!
Prepare to-night a ship for me!
To-morrow I go across the sea.”
The morning of the next, next day
The Lord Bran question’d, as he lay:
“Sentinel, sentinel, soothly say!
Seest thou no vessel on its way?”
“My lord the knight, I nought espy
Except the great sea and the sky.”
The Lord Bran askt him yet once more,
Whenas the day’s course half was o’er;
“Sentinel, sentinel, soothly say!
Seest thou no vessel on its way?”
“I can see nothing, my lord the knight,
Except the sea-birds i’ their flight.”
The Lord Bran askt him yet again,
Whenas the day was on the wane;
“Sentinel, sentinel, soothly say!
Seest thou no vessel on its way?”
Then that false sentinel, the while
Smiling a mischief-working smile;
“I see afar a misty form—
A ship sore beaten by the storm.”
“The flag? Quick give the answer back!
The banner? Is it white or black?”
“Far as I see, ’tis black, Sir knight,
I swear it by the coal’s red light.”
When this the sorrowing knight had heard
Again he never spoke a word;
But turn’d aside his visage wan;
And then the fever fit began.
Now of the townsmen askt the dame,
When at the last to shore she came,
“What is the news here, townsmen, tell!
That thus I hear them toll the bell?”
An aged man the lady heard,
And thus he answer’d to her word:
“We in the prison held a knight;
And he hath died here in the night.”
Scarcely to end his words were brought,
When the high tower that lady sought;
Shedding salt tears and running fast,
Her white hair scatter’d in the blast,
So that the townsmen wonderingly
Full sorely marvell’d her to see;
Whenas they saw a lady strange,
Through their streets so sadly range
Each one in thought did musing stand;
“Who is the lady, from what land?”
Soon as the donjon’s foot she reacht,
The porter that poor dame beseecht;
“Ope, quickly ope, the gate for me!
My son! My son! Him would I see!”
Slowly the great gate open drew;
Herself upon her son she threw,
Close in her arms his corpse to strain,
The lady never rose again.
There is a tree, that doth look o’er
From Kerloan’s battle-field to th’ shore;
An oak. Before great Evan’s face
The Saxons fled in that same place.
Upon that oak in clear moonlight,
Together come the birds at night;
Black birds and white, but sea birds all;
On each one’s brow a blood-stain small,
With them a raven gray and old;
With her a crow comes young and bold.
Both with soil’d wings, both wearied are;
They come beyond the seas from far:
And the birds sing so lovelily
That silence comes on the great sea.
All sing in concert sweet and low
Except the raven and the crow.
Once was the crow heard murmuring:
“Sing, little birds, ye well may sing!
Sing, for this is your own countrie!
Ye died not far from Brittany!”
IV
EARLY CYMRIC AND MEDIÆVAL WELSH
The Soul.
(From “The Black Book of Caermarthen.”)
EARLY CYMRIC
Soul, since I was made in necessity blameless
True it is, woe is me that thou shouldst have come to my design,
Neither for my own sake, nor for death, nor for end, nor for beginning.
It was with seven faculties that I was thus blessed,
With seven created beings I was placed for purification;
I was gleaming fire when I was caused to exist;
I was dust of the earth, and grief could not reach me;
I was a high wind, being less evil than good;
I was a mist on a mountain seeking supplies of stags;
I was blossoms of trees on the face of the earth.
If the Lord had blessed me, He would have placed me on matter.
Soul, since I was made——
LLYWARC’H HEN