NUGGETS IN NORTH WALES.
There is legends, and traditions told, and narratives, and tales,
Of wealth in mountain crannies, caves, and cells of ancient Wales.
The dens of dwarves and fairies, sprites and goblins, imps and elves,
Where they, like misers, look you, kept their treasures to themselves.
A cockatrice, a griffin, or a wivern watched the hoard,
In the coffers of the crystal rocks, and stone-strong chambers stored,
Breathed fire and flames, and ramped and raved in form to tear and rend,
And scratch and bite, and sting with tail, barbed arrow-like on end.
The lions and the eagles and the snakes together linked,
The cockatrices, wiverns, and their tribes is all extinct.
No dragons could Pendragon, if alive yet, find to slay,
And the dwarves, and fays, and fairies all alike have gone away.
Now Griffiths is the Safe Man, and a griffin guards no more
The secret riches of the rocks—they lie concealed in ore;
The lodes and veins, and minerals, there's quantities untold
In the quarries and the crystals, and the quartzes, full of gold.
It is an El Dorado, found in Mawddach's happy vale;
It is Mr. Pritchard Morgan's, look you, no romancer's tale.
And mines besides Gwmfynydd mine 'tis like there's them that owns;
Peradventure Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Evans, Mr. Jones.
North Wales will be a Golden Chersonesus, though the phrase
Is a little solecisms, indeed, suppose quartz-crushing pays.
And, moreover, in Welsh diggings what if nuggets there be found,
As large as leeks, and weighing from a scruple to a pound?
A Golden Age in Wales, look you, there's goodly ground to hope,
And a theme of song besides to give the Bards unbounded scope,
And prizes at Eistedfoddau for poetry and odes,
On the find of gold in the quartzes and the metal-veins and lodes.