The Poetry of Wales

by Unknown

SNOWDON.

King of the mighty hills! thy crown of snow
Thou rearest in the clouds, as if to mock
The littleness of human things below;
The tempest cannot harm thee, and the shock
Of the deep thunder falls upon thy head
As the light footfalls of an infant’s tread.

The livid lightning’s all destroying flame
Has flashed upon thee harmlessly, the rage
Of savage storms have left thee still the same;
Thou art imperishable! Age after age
Thou hast endured; aye, and for evermore
Thy form shall be as changeless as before.

The works of man shall perish and decay,
Cities shall crumble down to dust, and all
Their “gorgeous palaces” shall pass away;
Even their lofty monuments shall fall;
And a few scattered stones be all to tell
The place where once they stood,—where since they fell!

Yet, even time has not the power to shiver
One single fragment from thee; thou shalt be
A monument that shall exist for ever!
While the vast world endures in its immensity,
The eternal snows that gather on thy brow
Shall diadem thy crest, as they do now.

Thy head is wrapt in mists, yet still thou gleam’st,
At intervals, from out the clouds, that are
A glorious canopy, in which thou seem’st
To shroud thy many beauties; now afar
Thou glitterest in the sun, and dost unfold
Thy giant form, in robes of burning gold.

And, when the red day dawned upon thee, oh! how bright
Thy mighty form appeared! a thousand dies
Shed o’er thee all the brilliance of their light,
Catching their hues from the o’er-arching skies,
That seemed to play around thee, like a dress
Sporting around some form of loveliness.

And when the silver moonbeams on thee threw
Their calm and tranquil light, thou seem’st to be
A thing so wildly beautiful to view,
So wrapt in strange unearthly mystery,
That the mind feels an awful sense of fear
When gazing on thy form, so wild and drear.

The poet loves to gaze upon thee when
No living soul is near, and all are gone
Wooing their couches for soft sleep; for then
The poet feels that he is least alone,—
Holding communion with the mighty dead,
Whose viewless shadows flit around thy head.

Say, does the spirit of some warrior bard,
With unseen form, float on the misty air,
As if intent thy sacred heights to guard?
Or does he breathe his mournful murmurs there,
As if returned to earth, once more to dwell
On the dear spot he ever lov’d so well.

Perhaps some Druid form, in awful guise,
With words of wond’rous import, there may range,
Making aloud mysterious sacrifice,
With gestures incommunicably strange,
Praying to the gods he worshipped, to restore
His dear lov’d Cymru to her days of yore.

Or does thy harp, oh, Hoel! sound its strings,
With chords of fire proclaim thy country’s praise;
And he of “Flowing Song’s” wild murmurings
Breathe forth the music of his warrior lays;
And Davydd, Caradoc—a glorious band—
Tune their wild harps to praise their mountain land?

Thou stand’st immovable, and firmly fixed
As Cambria’s sons in battle, when they met
The Roman legions, and their weapons mixed,
And clash’d as bravely as they can do yet.
The Saxon, Dane, and Norman, knew them well,
And found them—as they are—invincible!

Majestic Snowdon! proudly dost thou stand,
Like a tall giant ready for the fray,
The guardian bulwark of thy mountain land;
Old as the world thou art! As I survey
Thy lofty altitude, strange feelings rise,
Of the unutterable mind’s wild sympathies.

Thou hast seen many changes, yet hast stood
Unaltered to the last, remained the same
Even in the wildness of thy solitude,
Even in thy savage grandeur; and thy name
Acts as a spell on Cambria’s sons, that brings
Their heart’s best blood to flow in rapid springs.

And must I be the only one to sing
Thy dear loved name? and must the task be mine,
To the insensate mind thy name to bring?
Oh! how I grieve to think, when songs divine
Have echoed to thy praises night and day,
I can but offer thee so poor a lay.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

By Goronwy Owain.

[This poet, who was born in 1722, obtained great celebrity in Wales; he was a native of Anglesea, and entered the Welsh Church, but removed to Donington in Shropshire, where he officiated as Curate for several years. There the following poem was composed and afterwards translated by the poet. The poem has been copied from a MS of the poet, and is now, it is believed, published for the first time.]

Almighty God thy heavenly aid bestow,
O’er my rapt soul bid inspiration flow;
Let voice seraphic, mighty Lord, be mine,
Whilst I unfold this awful bold design.
No less a theme my lab’ring breast inspires,
Than earth’s last throes and overwhelming fires,
Than man arising from his dark abode
To meet the final sentence of his God!
The voice of ages, yea of every clime,
The hoary records of primeval time;
The saints of Christ in glowing words display,
The dread appearance of that fateful day!
Oh! may the world for that great day prepare
With ceaseless diligence and solemn care,
No human wisdom knows, no human power
Can tell the coming of that fatal hour.
No warning sign shall point out nature’s doom;
Resistless, noiseless it shall surely come,
Like a fierce giant rushing to the fight,
Or silent robber in the shades of night.
What heart unblenched can dare to meet this day,
A day of darkness and of dire dismay?
What sinner’s eye can fearless then—behold
The day of horrors on his sight unfold,
But to the good a day of glorious light,
A day for chasing all the glooms of night.
For then shall burst on man’s astonished eyes
The Christian banner waving in the skies,

Borne by angelic bands supremely fair,
By countless seraphs through the pathless air.
The heavenly sky shall Christ’s proud banner form,
A sky unruffled by a cloud or storm;
The bloody cross aloft in awful pride
Shall float triumphant o’er the airy tide.
Then shall the King with splendour cloth’d on high
Ride through the glories of the golden sky,
With power resistless guide his awful course,
And curb the whirlwinds in their wildest force.
The white robed angels shall resound the praise,
Ten thousand saints their choral songs shall raise
Now through the void a louder shout shall roar
Than surges dashing on a rocky shore.
An awful silence reigns!—the angels sound
The final sentence to the worlds around;
Loud through the heavens the echoing blast shall roll,
And nature, startled, shake from Pole to Pole.
All flesh shall tremble at the fearful sign,
And dread to approach the judgment seat divine;
The loftiest hills, which ’mid the tempest reign,
Shall sink and totter, levelled with the plain.
The hideous din of rushing torrents far
Augment the horrors of this final war;
The glorious sun, the gorgeous eye of day,
Shall faint and sicken in this vast decay.
From our struck view his golden beams shall hide,
As when the Saviour on Calvaria died;
The lovely moon no more in beauty gleam,
Or tinge the ocean with her silv’ry beam;
Ten thousand stars shall from their orbits roll,
In dread confusion through the empty pole.
At the loud blasts hell’s barriers fall around,
Even Satan trembles at the awful sound!
Far down he sinks, deep in the realms of night,
And strives to shun the glorious Son of Light.
“Rise from your tomb,” the mighty angel cries,
“Ye sleeping mortals, and approach the skies,
For Christ is thron’d upon his Judgment Seat,
And for his mercy may ye all be meet!”
The roaring ocean from its inmost caves

Shall send forth thousands o’er the foaming waves;
From earth the countless myriads shall arise,
Like corn-land springing ’neath benignant skies;
For all must then appear—we all shall meet
In dread array before Christ’s Judgment Seat!
All flesh shall stand full in its Maker’s view—
The past, the present, and the future too;
Not one shall fail, for rise with one accord
Shall saint and sinner, vassal and his lord.
Then Mary’s Son, in heavenly pomp’s array,
Shall all his glory to the world display;
The faithful twelve with saintly vesture graced,
Friends of his cross around his throne are placed;
The impartial judge the book of fate shall scan,
The unerring records of the deeds of man.

The book is opened! mark the anxious fear
That calls the sigh and starts the bitter tear;
The good shall hear a blessed sentence read,
All mourning passes—all their griefs are fled.
No more their souls with racking pains are riven,
Their Lord admits them to the peace of heaven;
The sinner there, with guilty crime oppressed,
Bears on his brow the fears of hell confess’d.
Behold him now—his guilty looks—I see
His God condemns, and mercy’s God is He;
No joy for him, for him no heaven appears
To bid him welcome from a vale of tears.
Hark! Jesu’s voice with awful terrors swell,
It shakes even heaven, it shakes the nether hell:
“Away ye cursed from my sight, retire
Down to the depths of hell’s eternal fire,
Down to the realms of endless pain and night,
Ye fiends accursed, from my angry sight
Depart! for heaven with saintly inmates pure
No crime can harbour or can sin endure,
Away! away where fiends infernal dwell,
Down to your home and taste the pains of hell.

Behold his servants—Lo, the virtuous bands
Await the sentence which the life demands;

All blameless they their course in virtue run
Have for their brows a crown of glory won.
Their Saviour’s voice, a sound of heavenly love,
Admits them smiling to the realms above:
“Approach, ye faithful, to the heaven of peace,
Where worldly sorrows shall for ever cease.
Come, blessed children, share my bright abode,
Rest in the bosom of your King and God,
Where thousand saints in grateful concert sing
Loud hymns of glory to th’ Eternal King.”
For you, beloved, I hung upon the tree,
That where I am there also ye might be;
The infernal god (ye trembling sinners quake)
Shall hurl you headlong on the burning lake,
There shall ye die, nor dying shall expire,
Rolled on the waves of everlasting fire,
Whilst Christ shall bid his own lov’d flock rejoice,
And lead them upward with approving voice,
Where countless hosts their heavenly Lord obey,
And sing Hosannas in the courts of day.
O gracious God! each trembling suppliant spare—
Grant each the glory of that song to share;
May Christ, my God, a kind physician be,
And may He grant me bless’d Eternity!