Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century
Selected and Translated by Edmund O. Jones
[First Series]
LONDON: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., Limited
BANGOR: Javis & Foster, Lorne House
MDCCCXCVI
CONTENTS.
DEDICATION
PREFACE
ALUN
i. The Fisherman’s Wife
ii. Dolly
iii. Tintern Abbey
iv. The Nightingale
IEUAN GLAN GEIRIONYDD
i. Morfa Rhuddlan
ii. The Shepherd of Cwmdyli
iii. Why should we weep
GLASYNYS
Blodeuwedd and Hywel
IOAN EMLYN
The Pauper’s Grave
TREBOR MAI
i. The Shepherd’s Love
ii. Baby
CALEDFRYN
The Cuckoo
GWILYM MARLES
i. New Year Thoughts
ii. Who in this new God’s acre
IEUAN GWYNEDD
i. The Cottages of Wales
ii. Go and dig a grave
CEIRIOG
i. Songs of Wales
ii. Myfanwy
iii. Liberty
iv. Climb the hillside
v. Change and Permanence
vi. Homewards
vii. Daybreak
viii. The White Stone
ix. The Traitors of Wales
x. A Mother’s Message
xi. Mountain Rill
xii. Llewelyn’s Grave
xiii. Rhuddlan Strand
xiv. The Steed of Dapple Grey
xv. A Lullaby
ISLWYN
i. Night
ii. The Vision and the Faculty Divine
iii. Thought
iv. The Variety of Wales
v. The Sick Minister
vi. Life like the Heavens
vii. The Poets of Wales
viii. The Lighthouse
MYNYDDOG
i. When comes my Gwen
ii. A Nocturne
iii. Come to the Boat, Love
iv. At the foot of the Stairs
OSSIAN GWENT
i. The Lark
ii. The Bible
iii. The Lake
iv. A Morning Greeting
ROBERT OWEN
i. De profundis
ii. A Prayer
TO MY MOTHER.
They flout me as half-English—a disgrace
For which scarce all your virtues can atone,
Mother, in whom I find no flaw but one,
That you are Saxon!—but this fault of race
Fell not on me nor yet, I fear, your grace
Of English speech, else had more smoothly run
These echoes of Welsh Lyrics, and your son
Need not have flinched before the critic’s face.
Such as they are, from your far Yorkshire home
Perchance they may in fancy bid you come,
Pondering past memories, to my native land,
Once more to see fair Mawddach from the bridge,
To mark how Cader rises, ridge on ridge,
Or, where Llanaber guards our dead, to stand.
July, 1896.
PREFACE.
The words “First Series” which appear on the Title Pageare intended to show, firstly, that I do not at all consider the presentcollection in any sense a representative anthology of the Welsh Lyricsof the Century, and secondly, that if this effort meets with approval,I hope to bring out two or three further instalments, one of them, ifpossible, being from poems written in the “mesurau caethion.” My aim, in fact, is to publish by degrees a collection of translationswhich might eventually be gathered together in a single volume (witha general introduction and critical notices on each author) so as toform a more or less adequate anthology of our nineteenth century poets. “So runs my dream”: whether it can ever be realized dependsof course in a great measure on the reception this first series meetswith. That it has many serious defects I well know, nor can Iattempt to disarm criticism by pointing out the immense difficultieswhich confront the man who tries to put Welsh poetry into English rhyme,especially when that man has never written a line of English verse before. But I should be most grateful to readers for any hints or suggestions,by which the faults and imperfections of the present volume may be avoidedin a second series. I have retained the metres of the originalswith but trifling variations, except in those