DAFYDD AP GWILYM’S INVOCATION TO THE SUMMER TO VISIT GLAMORGANSHIRE,
Where he spent many happy years at the hospitable mansion of Ivor Hael. The bard, speaking from the land of Wild Gwynedd, or North Wales, thus invokes the summer to visit the sweet pastoral county of Glamorgan with all its blessings:
“And wilt thou, at the bard’s desire,
Thus in thy godlike robes of fire,
His envoy deign to be?
Hence from Wild Gwynedd’s mountain land,
To fair Morganwg Druid strand,
Sweet margin of the sea.
Oh! may for me thy burning feet
With peace, and wealth, and glory greet,
My own dear southern home;
Land of the baron’s, halls of snow!
Land of the harp! the vineyards glow,
Green bulwark of the foam.
She is the refuge of distress;
Her never-failing stores
Have cheer’d the famish’d wilderness,
Have gladden’d distant shores.
Oh! leave no little plot of sod
’Mid all her clust’ring vales untrod;
But all thy varying gifts unfold
In one mad embassy of gold:
O’er all the land of beauty fling
Bright records of thy elfin wing.”
From this scene of ecstacy, he makes a beautiful transition to the memory of Ivor, his early benefactor: still addressing the summer, he says,
“Then will I, too, thy steps pursuing,
From wood and cave,
And flowers the mountain-mists are dewing,
The loveliest save;
From all thy wild rejoicings borrow
One utterance from a heart of sorrow;
The beauties of thy court shall grace
My own lost Ivor’s dwelling-place.”
A BRIDAL SONG.
By a Welsh Harper.
Wilt thou not waken, bride of May,
While the flowers are fresh, and the sweet bells chime?
Listen, and learn from my roundelay,
How all life’s pilot-boats sailed one day,
A match with time.
Love sat on a lotus leaf afloat,
And saw old time in his loaded boat;
Slowly he crossed life’s narrow tide,
While love sat clapping his wings and cried,
“Who will pass time?”
Patience came first, but soon was gone
With helm and sail to help time on;
Care and grief could not lend an oar,
And prudence said while he staid on shore,
“I will wait for time.”
Hope filled with flowers her cork tree bark,
And lighted its helm with a glow worm spark;
Then love, when he saw her bark fly fast,
Said, “Lingering time will soon be passed,
Hope outspeeds time.”
Wit, next nearest old time to pass,
With his diamond oar, and his boat of glass;
A feathery dart from his store he drew,
And shouted, while far and swift it flew,
“O mirth kills time.”
But time sent the feathery arrow back,
Hope’s boat of amaranths missed its track;
Then love made his butterfly pilots move,
And, laughing, said, “They shall see how love
Can conquer time.”
His gossamer sails he spread with speed,
But time has wings when time has need;
Swiftly he crossed life’s sparkling tide,
And only memory stayed to chide
Unpitying time.
Wake, and listen then bride of May,
Listen and heed thy minstrel’s rhyme;
Still for thee some bright hours stay,
For it was a hand like thine, they say,
Gave wings to time.