Not again on earth is found

Such a slope of orchard ground:
Song of birds, and hum of bees,
Ever haunt the apple-trees.

Lovely green their leaves in spring;
Lovely bright their blossoming:

Sweet the shelter and the shade
By their summer foliage made:
Sweet the fruit their ripe boughs hold,
Fruit delicious, tinged with gold.

Gloyad, nymph with tresses bright,
Teeth of pearl, and eyes of light,

Guards these gifts of Ceidio's son,

Gwendol, the lamented one,

Him, whose keen-edged sword no more

Flashes 'mid the battle's roar.

War has raged on vale and hill:

That fair grove was peaceful still.

There have chiefs and princes sought

Solitude and tranquil thought:

There have kings, from courts and throngs,

Turned to Merlin's wild-wood songs.

Now from echoing woods I hear
Hostile axes sounding near:

On the sunny slope reclined,
Feverish grief disturbs my mind,
Lest the wasting edge consume
My fair spot of fruit and bloom.

Lovely trees, that long alone
In the sylvan vale have grown,
Bare, your sacred plot around,
Grows the once wood-waving ground:
Fervent valour guards ye still;
Yet my soul presages ill.

L

Well I know, when years have flown,

Briars shall grow where ye have
Them in turn shall power uproot;

Then again shall flowers and fruit
Flourish in the sunny breeze,

On my new-born apple-trees.

grown :

This song was heard with much pleasure, especially by those of the audience who could see, in the imagery of the apple-trees, a mystical type of the doctrines and fortunes of Druidism, to which Merlin was suspected of being secretly attached, even under the very nose of St. David.

Aneurin sang a portion of his poem on the Battle of Cattraeth; in which he shadowed out the glory of Vortimer, the weakness of Vortigern, the fascinations of Rowena, the treachery of Hengist, and the vengeance of Emrys.

THE MASSACRE OF THE BRITONS.

Sad was the day for Britain's land,

A day of ruin to the free,

When Gorthyn* stretched a friendly hand

To the dark dwellers of the sea.†

But not in pride the Saxon trod,
Nor force nor fraud oppressed the brave,
Ere the grey stone and flowery sod
Closed o'er the blessed hero's grave.‡

* Gwrtheyrn: Vortigern.

+ Hengist and Horsa.

Gwrthevyr: Vortimer: who drove the Saxons out

of Britain.

The twice-raised monarch* drank the charm,

The love-draught of the ocean-maid :+
Vain then the Briton's heart and arm,

Keen

spear, strong shield, and burnished blade.

"Come to the feast of wine and mead,"
Spake the dark dweller of the sea :‡
"There shall the hours in mirth proceed;
There neither sword nor shield shall be."-

Hard by the sacred temple's site,

Soon as the shades of evening fall,

Resounds with song and glows with light

The ocean-dweller's rude-built hall.

*Vortigern: who was, on the death of his son Vortimer, restored to the throne from which he had been deposed.

Ronwen: Rowena.

↑ Hengist.