Welsh Journals

It is in Irish poetry that we find a kindred type, in passionate love of homeland, and "Colum Cille's greeting to Ireland m is a striking example. There is a difference between the form of this poem and that of Howel's, but only in detail. Colum Cille names one beloved place after another, the Hill of Howth, Loch Lene, Linny, Munster, Meath, and Derry. In the first part of his poem, Howel takes in all Gwynedd in an impassioned geographical summary; in the second part Meirionydd, Cymer, and Tegeingl come to his mind. Colum Cille recalls the sloes and oakwoods, illustrious men, and illustrious women "for fond espousal Howel singles out sea gulls and shingle, trefoil and woman. Colum Cille was a dignitary of the church; Howel was a soldier. The poems agree in their perception of the beauty of landscape; they were lovely lands. Colum Cille in his delight in the bareness of the shores of Howth, and Howel in his love for even the vast wilderness of Gwynedd, were at one in spirit. Impending exile moved Colum Cille to song, and perhaps actual exile Howel. In the second part of Howel ab Owain's poem we find a hint of a love affair followed up by an allusion to the nightingale. This association is not accidental for we find it again in the poetry of Gwalchmai. Gwalchmai's fame rests on a dozen intelligible lines and a good many unintelligible ones, of nature-poetry, in his Gorhoffedd or Delights V the chief of which is admiring self-contemplation in war-paint. Literary fashions have changed many times since the poem was published in the Myfyrian Archaeology, but the text has made his fame immune from change in tastes, by the variety of interpre- tations it offers. 1 Ancient Irish Poetry, 83. 2 MA3, 30.