Welsh Poems and Ballads

By DigiCat

Welsh Poems and Ballads is an anonymous lyrical compilation. Contents: Glendower's Mansion Ode to the Comet Ode to Glendower Here's the Life I've sighed for long The Prophecy of Taliesin The Mist The Cuckoo's Song in Meiron and many more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: May 29, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547016649

Book preview

Various

Welsh Poems and Ballads

EAN 8596547016649

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION.

GLENDOWER’S MANSION .

ODE TO THE COMET .

ODE TO GLENDOWER After His Disappearance.

HERE’S THE LIFE I’VE SIGH’D FOR LONG .

THE PROPHECY OF TALIESIN .

THE HISTORY OF TALIESIN .

THE MIST .

THE CUCKOO’S SONG IN MERION .

THE SNOW ON EIRA .

THE INVITATION .

THE PEDIGREE OF THE MUSE .

THE HARP .

EPIGRAM.

GRIFFITH AP NICHOLAS .

RICHES AND POVERTY .

THE PERISHING WORLD .

DEATH THE GREAT .

THE HEAVY HEART .

RYCE OF TWYN .

LLYWELYN .

PLYNLIMMON .

QUATRAINS AND STRAY STANZAS FROM WILD WALES.

I.

II.

III.

IV. EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH WILLIAMS.

V. THE LAST JOURNEY. From Huw Morus.

VI. THE FOUR AND TWENTY MEASURES. From Edward Price.

VII. MONA. By Robert Lleiaf.

VIII. MONA. From Y Greal.

IX. ERYRI.

X. ERYRI. From Goronwy Owen.

XI. ELLEN. From Goronwy Owen.

XII. MON. From the Ode by Robin Ddu.

XIII. MON. From Huw Goch.

XIV. LEWIS MORRIS OF MON. From Goronwy Owen.

XV. THE GRAVE OF BELI.

XVI. THE GARDEN. From Gwilym Du o Eifion.

XVII. THE SATIRIST. From Gruffydd Hiraethog.

XVIII. ON GRUFFYDD HIRAETHOG. From William Lleyn.

XIX. LLANGOLLEN ALE. (George Borrow) .

XX. TOM EVANS alias Twm o’r Nant. By Twm Tai.

XXI. ENGLYN ON A WATERFALL.

XXII. DAVID GAM. Attributed to Owain Glyndower.

XXIII. LLAWDDEN. From Lewis Meredith.

XXIV. TWM O’R NANT.

XXV. SEVERN AND WYE.

XXVI. GLAMORGAN. From Dafydd ab Gwilym.

XXVII. DAFYDD AB GWILYM. From Iolo Goch (?) .

XXVIII. TO THE YEW TREE on the Grave of Dafydd ab Gwilym at Ystrad Flur. After Gruffydd Grug.

XXIX. HU GADARN. From Iolo Goch.

XXX. EPITAPH.

XXXI. GOD’S BETTER THAN ALL. By Vicar Pritchard of Llandovery.

XXXII. THE SUN IN GLAMORGAN. From Dafydd ab Gwilym.

ADDITIONAL POEMS FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

I. THE AGE OF OWEN GLENDOWER.

II. THE SPIDER.

III. THE SEVEN DRUNKARDS.

SIR RHYS AP THOMAS .

HIRAETH . A Short Elegy.

PWLL CHERES: THE VORTEX OF MENAI .

THE MOUNTAIN SNOW .

CAROLAN’S LAMENT .

EPIGRAMS BY CAROLAN .

On Friars .

On a Surly Butler , who had refused him admission to the cellar .

THE DELIGHTS OF FINN MAC COUL .

TO ICOLMCILL .

THE DYING BARD .

THE SONG OF DEIRDRA .

THE WILD WINE .

INTRODUCTION.

Table of Contents

In a collection of unedited odds and ends from Borrow’s papers bearing upon Wales, and dating from various periods of his career, there is one insignificant-looking sheet on whose back some lines are pencilled, beginning The mountain snow. They are reproduced in the text, but deserve notice here because of the evidence they bring of Borrow’s long-continued Welsh obsession and his long practice as a Welsh translator. Apparently they date from the time when he was writing Lavengro, since the other side of the leaf contains a draft in ink of the preface to that book. Other sheets of blue foolscap in the same bundle—folded small for the pocket—are devoted to unnumbered chapters of Wild Wales. Yet another scrap, from a much earlier period, is so closely packed in a microscopic hand that it reminds one at a first glance of the painfully minute script of the Brontë sisters in their earliest attempts. Its matter is only a footnote on the Celts, Gaels and Cymry, and its substance often reappears in later pages; but other items both in the early script of a fine minuscule, and in the later bold, untidy scrawl, serve to carry on the Welsh account, with references to Pwll Cheres and Goronwy Owen; and the upshot of them all goes to show that Borrow, whether he was at Norwich or in London, was not only a stout Celtophile, but much inclined, early and late, to be a Welsh idolater. And since the days when the monks of the Priory at Carmarthen wrote the Black Book in a noble script, I suppose no copyist ever took more pains than Borrow did in his early years in transcribing the lines of the Welsh poets, as the facsimile page given in this volume can tell.

Of the bards and rhymers that he attempted in English, he gave most care to translating Iolo Goch, four of whose odes open the present collection. He was tempted to dilate on Iolo, or Edward the Red, because of that poet’s association with Owen Glendower, a hero in whose exploits he greatly