1864.
'Twere wise, O Queen, to let thy features shine
Upon thy faithful people once again;
As Summer comes to light the paths of men,
So would thy presence round our hearts entwine.
It is not meet our Queen of Queens should stay
Lifelong and tearful in the sombre glade,
Whither, to hide the wound which Heaven made,
She shrank, as shrinks the stricken deer away.
We do not ask thy heart to let us in
With all the freeness of an early day:
Nor hope to bear thy greatest grief away,
As though, with thee, that grief had never been.
But, as the silent chancel leaves the sun
To shine through mellowing windows on the floor,
So would we enter thy great heart once more,
Subdued, in reverence of the sainted one.
We wept with thee when throbbed the passing-bell,
And felt thy great affliction from afar:
We mourned that such a grief thy life should mar,
And loved thee more for loving him so well.
One pearly thought surrounds that sombre time;
One golden hope enframes the past regret:
We thank our Father thou art with us yet,
The more majestic for thy grief sublime.
BEAUTIFUL WALES.
There is a little history attached to the following lines. Twenty years ago, my friend, Mr. Arthur J. Morris, at that time an accountant at the Llwydcoed Ironworks, Aberdare, and subsequently manager at the Plymouth Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil, but now deceased, asked me to write a song in praise of Wales. I did so, and wrote and sent him the words of "Beautiful Wales," a Welsh translation of which was made and forwarded to me by Mr. Daniel Morgan (Daniel ap Gwilym), of Aberaman, Aberdare. A short time afterwards I received a request from Mr. R. Andrews, of Manchester (whom I never saw and do not know) for permission to set the words to music, which permission I gave, and the song (English version) was published by Robert Cocks and Co., London. It has long since been out of print. I found, on receiving some copies of the music, that the tune was merely an adaptation of a well-known dance tune, and some years ago I wrote to Mr. Brinley Richards on the subject, who regretted that the words had not been wedded to more suitable music. The matter, however, was lost sight of by myself, and I was under the impression that the song had been forgotten. To my surprise it suddenly cropped up as a great favourite of the Sunday schools, and I have myself heard it sung at school anniversaries to various tunes. It would seem, therefore, that after playing the vagrant for goodness knows how long, it became a reformed character, was taken in hand by school children, and by them adopted as a pet and made a favourite of.