The Poetry of Wales | Page 9

Victoria, who graciously invested the young bard, with the appropriate decoration.]
Boiling and tearing was the fearful deep,?Its raging waves aroused from lengthened sleep?Together marching like huge mountains;?The swell how great--nature bursting its chains!?The bounding spray dashed 'gainst the midnight stars?In its wild flight shedding salt tears.
Again it came a sweeping mighty deluge,?Washing the firmament with breakers huge;?Ripping the ocean's bosom so madly,?Wondrous its power when roaring so wildly,?The vessel was seen immersed in the tide,?While all around threatened destruction wide.
God, ruler of the waters,?His words of might now utters,?His legions calls to battle:?No light of sun visible,?The firmament so low'ring,?With tempest strong approaching.
Loud whistling it left its recesses,?Threats worlds with wreck, so fearful it rages,?While heaven unchaining the surly billows,?Both wind and wave rush tumultuous,?Sweeping the main, the skies darkening,?While Rothsay to awful destruction is speeding.
Anon upon the wave she's seen,?Reached through struggles hard and keen:?Again she's hurled into the abyss,?While all around tornados hiss,?Through the salt seas she helpless rolls,?While o'er her still the billow falls:?Alike she was in her danger?To the frail straw dragg'd by the river.
The ocean still enraged in mountains white,?Would like a drunkard reel in sable night,?While she her paddles plies against the wave,?Yet all in vain the sweeping tide to brave:?Driven from her course afar by the loud wind,?Then back again by breezes from behind;?Headlong she falls into the fretful surge,?While weak and broken does she now emerge.
The inmates are now filled with fear,?Destruction seeming so near;?The vessel rent in awful chasms,?Waxing weaker, weaker she seems.

Anon is heard great commotion,?Roaring for spoil is the lion;?The vessel's own final struggles?Are fierce, while the crew trembles.
The hurricane increasing?Over the grim sea is driving,?Drowning loud moans, burying all?In its passage dismal.
How hard their fate, O how they wept?In that sad hour of miseries heap'd;?Some sighed, others prayed fervently,?Others mad, or in despair did cry.
Affrighted they ran to and fro,?To flee from certain death and woe;?While _he_, with visage grim and dark,?Would still surround the doomed bark.
Deep night now veiled the firmament,?While sombre clouds thicker were sent?To hide each star, the ocean's rage?No cries of grief could even assuage.
The vessel sinks beneath the might?Of wind, and wave, and blackest night,?While through the severed planks was heard?The breaker's splash, with anger stirred.
PART II. THE BEAUTIFUL.
AN ADDRESS TO THE SUMMER.
BY DAFYDD AP GWILYM.
[Dafydd ap Gwilym was the son of Gwilym Gam, of Brogynin, in the parish of Llanbadarn Fawr, Cardiganshire, and was born about the year 1340. The bard was of illustrious lineage, and of handsome person. His poetical talent and personal beauty procured him the favourable notice of the fair sex; which, however, occasioned him much misfortune. His attachments were numerous, and one to Morvydd, the daughter of Madog Lawgam, of Niwbwrch, in Anglesea, a Welsh chieftain, caused the bard to be imprisoned. This lady was the subject of a great portion of the bard's poems. Dafydd ap Gwilym has been styled the Petrarch of Wales. He composed some 260 poems, most of which are sprightly, figurative, and pathetic. The late lamented Arthur James Johnes, Esquire, translated the poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym into English. They are very beautiful, and were published by Hooper, Pall Mall, in 1834. The bard, after leading a desultory life, died in or about the year 1400.]
Thou summer! so lovely and gay,
Ah! whither so soon art thou gone??The world will attend to my lay
While thy absence I sadly bemoan:?With flow'rs hast thou cherish'd the glade,
The fair orchard with opening buds,--?The hedge-rows with darkening shade,
And with verdure the meadows and woods.
How calm in the vale by the brook--
How blithe o'er the lawn didst thou rove,?To prepare the fresh bow'r in the nook
For the damsel whose wishes were love:?When, smiling with heaven's bright beam,
Thou didst paint every hillock and field,?And reflect, in the smooth limpid stream,
All the elegance nature could yield.
Perfuming the rose on the bush,
And arching the eglantine spray,?Thou wast seen by the blackbird and thrush,
And they chanted the rapturous lay:?By yon river that bends o'er the plain,
With alders and willows o'erhung,?Each warbler perceiv'd the glad strain,
And join'd in the numerous song.
Here the nightingale perch'd on the throne,
The poet and prince of the grove,?Inviting the lingering morn,
Taught the bard the sweet descant of love:?And there, from the brake by the rill,
When night's sober steps have retir'd,?Ten thousand gay choristers thrill
Sweet confusion with rapture inspir'd.
Then the maiden, conducted by May,
Persuasive adviser of love,?With smiles that would rival the ray,
Nimbly trips to the bow'r in the grove;?Where sweetly I warble the song
Which beauty's soft glances inspire;?And, while melody flows from my tongue,
My soul is enrapt with desire.
But how sadly revers'd is the strain!
How doleful! since thou art away;?Every copse, every hillock and plain,
Has been mourning for many a day:?My bow'r, on the verge of the glade,
Where I sported in rapturous ease,?Once the haunt of the delicate maid--
She