The Poetry of Wales

by Unknown

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