To present forms awake, but even as still
He felt his harp-chords throb with dying sounds,
passion had not yet
Again he struck
Pour from the silver vase,
And brim the honourable Horn, and bear
The draught of joy to Madoc,.. he who first
Explored the desert ways of Ocean, first
Through the wide waste of sea and sky, held on
Undaunted, till upon another World,
The Lord and Conqueror of the Elements,
He set his foot triumphant? Fill for him
The Hirlas! fill the honourable Horn!
This for Mathraval is a happy hour,
When Madoc, her hereditary guest,
Appears within her honour'd walls again,
Madoc, the British Prince, the Ocean Lord,
Who, never for injustice rear'd his arm;
Whose presence fills the heart of every foe
With fear, the heart of every friend with joy ;
Give him the Hirlas Horn, fill, till the draught
Of joy shall quiver o'er the golden brim!
In happy hour the hero hath return'd!
In happy hour the friend, the brother treads
Cyveilioc's floor!
He sprung to greet his guest;
The cordial grasp of fellowship was given;
So in Mathraval there was double joy
On that illustrious day; they gave their guest
The seat of honour, and they fill'd for him
The Hirlas Horn. Cyveilioc and his Chiefs,
All eagerly, with wonder-waiting eyes,
Look to the Wanderer of the Water's tale.
Nor mean the joy which kindled Madoc's brow,
When as he told of daring enterprise
Crown'd with deserved success.
Of all the blessings of that happier clime;
And when the adventurer spake of soon return,
Each on the other gazed, as if to say,
Methinks it were a goodly lot to dwell
In that fair land in peace.
Of Powys, Madoc, at an happy time
Thou hast toward Mathraval bent thy way;
For on the morrow, in the eye of light,
Our bards will hold their congress. Seekest thou
Comrades to share success? proclaim abroad
Thine invitation there, and it will spread
Far as our fathers' ancient tongue is known.
Thus at Mathraval went the Hirlas round;
A happy day was that!
Of other years
They talk'd, of common toils, and fields of war
Where they fought side by side; of Corwen's scene
Of glory, and of comrades now no more: ..
Themes of delight, and grief which brought its joy.
Thus they beguiled the pleasant hours, while night
Waned fast away; then late they laid them down,
Each on his bed of rushes, stretch'd around
The central fire.
The Sun was newly risen
When Madoc join'd his host, no longer now
Clad as the conquering chief of Maelor,
In princely arms, but in his nobler robe,
The sky-blue mantle of the Bard, arrayed.
So for the place of meeting they set forth;
And now they reached Melangell's lonely church.
Amid a grove
of evergreens it stood,
A garden and a grove, where every grave
Was deck'd with flowers, or with unfading plants O'ergrown, sad rue, and funeral rosemary.
Here Madoc paused. The morn is young, quoth he,
A little while to old remembrance given
Will not belate us... Many a year hath fled,
Cyveilioc, since you led me here, and told
The legend of the Saint. Come!.. be not loth!
We will not loiter long... So soon to mount
The bark, which will for ever bear me hence,
I would not willingly pass by one spot
Which thus recalls the thought of other times,
Without a pilgrim's visit.
And drew Cyveilioc through the church-yard porch,
To the rude image of Saint Monacel.
Dost thou remember, Owen, said the Prince,
When first I was thy guest in early youth,
That once, as we had wandered here at eve,
You told, how here a poor and hunted hare
Ran to the Virgin's feet, and look'd to her
For life?.. I thought, when listening to the tale,
She had a merciful heart, and that her face
Must with a saintly gentleness have beam'd,
When beasts could read its virtue. Here we sate
Upon the jutting root of this old yeugh...
Dear friend! so pleasant didst thou make those days,
That in my heart, long as my heart shall beat,
Minutest recollections still will live,
Still be the source of joy.
His glancing eye fell on a monument,
Around whose base the rosemary droop'd down,
As yet not rooted well. Sculptured above,
A warrior lay; the shield was on his arm;
Madoc approach'd, and saw the blazonry,..
A sudden chill ran through him, as he read,
Here Yorwerth lies... it was his brother's grave.
Cyveilioc took him by the hand: For this,
Madoc, was I so loth to enter here!
He sought the sanctuary, but close upon him
The murderers follow'd, and by yonder copse
The stroke of death was given. All I could
Was done ;.. I saw him here consign'd to rest,
Daily due masses for his soul are sung,
And duly hath his grave been deck'd with flowers.
So saying, from the place of death he led
The silent Prince. But lately, he pursued,
Llewelyn was my guest, thy favourite boy.
For thy sake and his own, it was my hope
That at Mathraval he would make his home;
He had not needed then a father's love.
But he, I know not on what enterprise,
Was brooding ever; and those secret thoughts
Drew him away. God prosper the brave boy!
It were a happy day for this poor land
If e'er Llewelyn mount his rightful throne.
THE place of meeting was a high hill-top,
Nor bower'd with trees nor broken by the plough,
Remote from human dwellings and the stir
Of human life, and open to the breath
And to the eye of Heaven. In days of old,
There had the circling stones been planted; there,
From earliest ages, the primeval lore,
Through Bard to Bard with reverence handed down
They whom to wonder, or the love of song,
Or reverence of their fathers' ancient rites
Drew thither, stood without the ring of stones,
Cyveilioc entered to the initiate Bards,
Himself, albeit his hands were stained with war,
Initiate; for the Order, in the lapse
Of years and in their nation's long decline
From the first rigour of their purity
Somewhat had fallen The Masters of the Song
Were clad in azure robes, for in that hue Deduced from Heaven, which o'er a sinful world
Spreads its eternal canopy serene,
Meet emblem did the ancient Sages see
Of unity and peace and spotless truth.
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