Welsh Journals

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His friend and mine, my earliest friend, whom I Have ever, through all changes, found the same, From boyhood to grey hairs, In goodness, and in worth and warmth of heart. Together then we traced The grass-grown site, where armed feet once trod The threshold of Glendower's embattled hall; Together sought Melangel's lonely church, Saw the dark yews, majestic in decay, Which in their flourishing strength Cyveilioc might have seen; Letter by letter traced the lines On Yorwerth's fabled tomb; And curiously observed what vestiges, Mouldering and mutilate, Of Monacella's legend there are left, A tale humane, itself Well-nigh forgotten now Together visited the ancient house Which from the hill-slope takes Its Cymric name euphoniouss; there to view, Though drawn by some rude limner inexpert, The faded portrait of that lady fair, Beside whose corpse her husband watch'd, And with perverted faith, Preposterously placed, Thought, obstinate in hopeless hope, to see The beautiful dead, by miracle, revive. At times there hovered before Southey's mind the possibility of completing the tour which he and Wynn began in 1801, and he referred to this when writing to his friend in 1819. However, 6 Mr A. W. Williams Wynn has kindly drawn my attention to a paper by the late Archdeacon D. R. Thomas in the Montgomeryshire Collec- tions, Vol. XIV., p. 10, according to which the house is called Llechweddgarth. GOD in the Mountain, robed in shining fern Beneath the dim and pearly-misted blue, All humbly here your votary comes to you With heart and spirit disciplined, to learn With what strange art you turn The thought that in your inmost mind is born To the deep autumn crimson on the thorn, And in June hollows make your foxgloves burn Torches of FaErie ?-Because we need To light some star of noble beauty here Here in the world of men, where men shall heed- Tell me, my lord and brother ever dear, What meditation of yours, or what pure dream Issues upon this world the icy stream, "Madoc" was published and so, the chief incen- tive being gone, nothing came of it. Neverthe- less he clung to the idea of some such tour with singular tenacity. In 1825 he said that if he had a companion he would travel in North Wales, for though few men spent more hours by themselves, he had a mortal dislike of journeying alone. The following year he thought that he had found suitable companions in Henry Taylor and his father, and proposed a tour in Wales with them. Apart from these projects, when circumstances took him from Keswick to the south of England, he would plan to see Wynn either on the outward or the homeward journey. In his letters he more than once expressed his regret that he should have been within reach of Llangedwin and failed to find Wynn there, and frequent allusions to con- templated visits show how deeply he was attached to this friendship. Southey had always a keen sense of the swift passing of time, and with the approach of old age he became increasingly aware of the danger of delaying till a more con- venient season, which after all never arrived. In Southey's later correspondence delight in natural beauty is less often heard than in the letters written about his earlier tours. Yet it had not altogether vanished, as may be seen from his account of his stay at Lord Kenyon's seat at Gredington on the borders of Flintshire in October, 1836. Having recalled that it lies near the old monastery of Bangor, in which he had always been interested, he remarks on the beauti- ful view which it commands, with an undulating and richly wooded foreground and the mountains of Wales stretching far and wide in the distance. But it is a subdued delight, and one is conscious that in the interval between this and his first tour Southey the traveller had left youth behind. GARTH MOUNTAIN Mountainy-vital, from Ty'n Darran Well?- What aspiration blooms through each bluebell That hangs its solemn beauty in the shade Of alder and hornbeam. With what druid spell Of intricate cynghanedd verse you made These patterned mosses? Of what love the hue Of myosote or of marsh-marigold? Tell me your secret, so that we, grown bold In beauty's cause, for love of men and you, May lift our being toward the timeless blue, And brood such grandeur here as shall turn men To their old mountain purity again KENNETH MORRIS.