If warlike chiefs with dawning day
At Cattraeth met in dread array,
The song records their splendid name;
But who shall sing of Urien’s fame?
His patriot virtues far excel
Whate’er the boldest bard can tell:
His dreadful arm and dauntless brow
Spoil and dismay the haughty foe.

Pillar of Britain’s regal line!
‘Tis his in glorious war to shine;
Despair and death attend his course,
Brave leader of the Christian force!

See Prydyn’s men, a valiant train,
Rush along Gwenystrad’s plain!
Bright their spears for war addrest,
Raging vengeance fires their breast;
Shouts like ocean’s roar arise,
Tear the air, and pierce the skies.
Here they urge their tempest force!
Nor camp nor forest turns their course:
Their breath the shrieking peasants yield
O’er all the desolated field.

But lo, the daring hosts engage!
Dauntless hearts and flaming rage;
And, ere the direful morn is o’er,
Mangled limbs and reeking gore,
And crimson torrents whelm the ground,
Wild destruction stalking round;
Fainting warriors gasp for breath,
Or struggle in the toils of death.

Where the embattled fortress rose,
(Gwenystrad’s bulwark from the foes,)
Fierce conflicting heroes meet—
Groans the earth beneath their feet.

I mark, amidst the rolling flood,
Where hardy warriors stain’d with blood
Drop their blunt arms, and join the dead,
Grey billows curling o’er their head:
Mangled with wounds, and vainly brave,
At once they sink beneath the wave.

Lull’d to everlasting rest,
With folded arms and gory breast—
Cold in death, and ghastly pale,
Chieftains press the reeky vale,
Who late, amidst their kindred throng,
Prepar’d the feast, and join’d the song;
Or like the sudden tempest rose,
And hurl’d destruction on the foes.

Warriors I saw who led the fray,
Stern desolation strew’d their way;
Aloft the glitt’ring blade they bore,
Their garments hung with clotted gore.
The furious thrust, the clanging shield,
Confound the long-disputed field.

But when Rheged’s chief pursues,
His way through iron ranks he hews;
Hills pil’d on hills, the strangers bleed:
Amaz’d I view his daring deed!
Destruction frowning on his brow,
Close he urg’d the panting foe,
‘Till hemm’d around, they met the shock,
Before Galysten’s hoary rock.
Death and torment strew’d his path;
His dreadful blade obey’d his wrath:
Beneath their shields the strangers lay,
Shrinking from the fatal day.

Thus in victorious armour bright,
Thou brave Euronwy, pant for fight:
With such examples in thine eyes,
Haste to grasp the hero’s prize.

And till old age has left me dumb—
Till death has call’d me to the tomb—
May cheerful joys ne’er crown my days,
Unless I sing of Urien’s praise!

 

The pampered steed, of swiftness proud,
Pranced o’er the plains, and neighed aloud.
A Mule he met, of sober pace,
And straight defied her to a race.
Long she declined to try the course;
How could she match in speed the horse?
At length, while pawing side by side,
A precipice the Mule espied,
And in her turn the Horse defied.
Near to its foot there stood a tree,
Which both agreed the goal should be.
Hasty rushed on the bounding steed,
And slowly sees the Mule proceed:
He sees, he scorns; but as they bend
From the rough mountain to descend,
He finds his boasted swiftness vain,
For footing here he can’t maintain.
The steady Mule the toil abides,
And skillful down the hill she slides,
Reaching the goal, well pleased to find
The vaunting Horse creep slow behind;
Who, tumbling from the mountain’s brow,
Came battered to the vale below;
Too late convinced, by what had passed,
That ” slow and sure goes far at last”.

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

 

They came into our lives unasked for.
There was light momentarily, a flicker of wings,
a dance, a voice, and then they went out
again, like a light, leaving us not so much
in darkness, but in a different place
and alone as never before.

So we have been changed
and our vision no longer what it was,
and our hopes no longer what they were;
so a piece of us has gone out with them also,
a cold dream subtracted without malice,

the weight of another world added also,
and we did not ask, we did not ask ever
for those who stood smiling
and with flowers before the open door.

We did not beckon them in, they came in uninvited,
the sunset pouring from their shoulders,
so they walked through us as they would through water,
and we are here, in a different place,
changed and incredibly alone,
and we did not know, we do not know ever.