Being sad will not avail;
Better to trust in God than to forbode ill;
Weak and small as I am,
On the foaming beach of the ocean,
In the day of trouble I shall be
Of more service to thee than three hundred salmon.”
This was the first poem that Taliesin ever sung, being to console Elphin in his grief for that the produce of the weir was lost, and what was worse, that all the world would consider that it was through his fault and ill-luck. Then Elphin asked him what he was, whether man or spirit. And he sung thus:
“I have been formed a comely person;
Although I am but little, I am highly gifted;
Into a dark leathern bag I was thrown,