Sing while you may, nor grieve to know Though once it thrilled the sky. Above us, from his rocky chair There, where Ben-Edar's landward crest O'er eastern Bregia bends, to where Dun-Almon crowns the west. What change shall o'er the scene have cross'd What conquering lords anew have come; What lore-armed, mightier Druid host From Gaul or distant Rome! What arts of death, what ways of life, What creeds unknown to bard or seer, Shall round your careless steps be rife, Who pause and ponder here: And, haply, where yon curlew calls Athwart the marsh, 'mid groves and bowers, See rise some mighty chieftain's halls With unimagined towers: And baying hounds and coursers bright, Or by yon prostrate altar stone May kneel, perchance, and free from blame, Hear holy men with rites unknown New names of God proclaim. Let change as may the name of Awe, Let right surcease and altar fall, The same one God remains, a law Forever and for all. Let change as may the face of earth, And still, as life and time wear on, (Though strength be from their shoulders gone To lift the loads we raise) Shall weep to do the burial rites Of lost one's loved; and fondly found Farewell, the strength of man is worn ; Of Oscar and Aideen bereft So Ossian sang. The Fenians sped Three mighty shouts to heaven; and left Ben-Edar to the dead. Sir Samuel Ferguson. The Celtic influence, as such, has long since been absorbed into the general name of Anglo-Saxon; still the fountain of Celtic literature has by no means run dry. A current deep and strong continues to hold its own independent way across the earth. The following poem illustrates the pride with which the descendants of ancient Britain recall the achievements of a former age and people. It is an echo of those far-off times, when a sturdy race fought and ruled in their own rough and sturdy world. THE CELTS. Long, long ago, beyond the misty space Of twice a thousand years, In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race Taller than Roman spears; Like oaks and towers, they had a giant grace, Were fleet as deers : With winds and waves they made their biding-place, The Western shepherd seers. Great were their acts, their passions and their sports; They piled on strath and shore those mystic forts, Not yet undone; On cairn-crown'd hills they held their council courts; With giant-dogs, explored the elks' resorts, And brought them down. GWYDDNO GARANHIR was sovereign of Gwaelod, a territory bordering on the sea. And he possessed a weir upon the strand between Dyvi and Aberystwyth, near to his own castle, and the value of an hundred pounds was taken in that weir every May eve. And Gwyddno had an only son named Elphin, the most hapless of youths, and the most needy. And it grieved his father sore, for he thought that he was born in an evil hour. By the advice of his council, his father had granted him the drawing of the weir that year, to see if good luck would ever befall him, and to give him something wherewith to begin the world. And this was on the twenty-ninth of April. Then The next day, when Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the weir but a leathern bag upon a pole of the weir. said the weir-ward unto Elphin, "All thy ill-luck aforetime was nothing to this; and now thou hast destroyed the virtues of the weir, which always yielded the value of an hundred pounds every May eve; and to-night there is nothing but this leathern skin within it." "How now," said Elphin, "there may be therein the value of a hundred pounds." Well! they took up the leathern bag, and he who opened it saw the forehead of an infant, the fairest that ever was seen; and he said, "Behold a radiant brow!" (in the Welsh language, taliesin). "Taliesin be he called," said Elphin. And he lifted the bag in his arms, and, lamenting his bad luck, placed the boy sorrowfully behind him. And he made his horse amble gently, that before had been trotting, and he carried him as softly as if he had been sitting in the easiest chair in the world. And presently the boy made a Consolation, and praise to Elphin; and the Consolation was as you may here see. "Fair Elphin, cease to lament! Never in Gwyddno's weir Was there such good luck as this night. Being sad will not avail; Better to trust in God than to forebode 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; From seas and from mountains God brings wealth to the fortunate man." Then came Elphin to the house of Gwyddno, his father, and Taliesin with him. Gwyddno asked him if he had had a good haul at the weir, and he told him that he had got that which was better than fish. "What was that?" said Gwyddno, “A bard," said Elpin. Then said Gwyddno, "Alas! what will he profit thee?" And Taliesin himself replied and said, "He will profit him more than the weir ever profited thee." Asked Gwyddno, "Art thou able to speak, and thou so little?" And Taliesin answered him, "I am better able to speak than thou to question me." "Let me hear what thou canst say," quoth Gwyddno. Then Taliesin sang : "Three times have I been born, I know by meditation; |