Welsh Journals

ALL IS SACRED. A translation of Islwyn's Mae'r oil yn gysegredig. By the late T. Z. Jones, Aberaeron. "\ 17 HY seek we from one world beyond the stars, * * One hill immortal made, the power of song ? Go, strike the rock, for waters lie therein, And inspiration breathes through nature all. The heavens themselves have naught to utter more Than what they uttered at their glorious dawn. An awful thought is at thy side. Give ear, Canst hear its piteous moans for liberty ? Mayhap in youder hill-top it hath lain, Since God created all that was, and is, And none of time have ever seen its birth. Go, lift thy soul upon it ever more, And bring it to the eternal light of day. Mayhap on yonder distant heights it roams, Timid, now resting on a cloud of gold, Now climbing up the blue on sunbeams bright, Bright intimation of a farther world, Or of a higher truth in human fate ; A hint, that as a favour God let fall On yon far-musing, far-observant hill, Which with keen eyes to the Almighty looked, When the great Sabbath of its peace should dawn, To take it back, when all creation's work Became divinely perfect. Go, bring down The modest thought, and cause the world to hear The good and joyous tidings it would preach. Oh ! the throng of thoughts the earthquake buried Ere yet the world had seen them ; men would not; God then by one dread judgment took them all, Them all, and in one night the angry hills Fell down in ruin on the blinded fools ; Fancy was confined, the stream divine, To Helicon, and gathered round one hill The joys and muses of the ages past. Nature to every spot hath lent a muse, An epic to each wave, and to each flood An over-flood of inspiration sweet. She hath ordained the muses o'er the earth ; O happy age when yet they will be heard Together chanting their immortal strains ; When nature yet shall hear her jubilee,— The voices of her soul; and when shall march The works of God, as countless captives back, Singing of Him their Father, as they sang When earth and all the myriad spheres of heaven Began the music of eternal peace. The streams of Helicon make green the world. The whole is Helicon, drink where thou wilt. Parnassus ? Yon it is, the rugged hill Beneath whose shade thou first didst see the light; But none of Homer's tame were on its height; Yet oft the breeze hath fanned it, and the storm Hath onward rolled the voices of the earth, The gathered undertones of feeble time In the loud anthem of eternity. The ocean too swept o'er it, and the flood Hath left upon its top a mighty muse,— A lost world's memories. E'en God Himself, The Great Creator, walked these tracts alone, When by His word He caused the whole to be, Till on the last of clouds He should return To bid the whole away, that He might have All space the depths of His divinity. All, all is sacred, and a heavenly song Encircles as a crown the distant hills. And,—let a patriot's feelings be excused,— My fathers oft, and brothers dear to me,— None knew their name or fame except their sons, The weaker off-spring of a stronger age,— Have roamed these peaceful hills at eventide, And wept or sung as life's experience tau' ht. We too bequeath some passing memories, A few faint breathings, and our wondering thoughts, Which e'er may nestle on the gentle breeze, Or die and wither in the mist above. Means the well of Jacob aught ? An image Of one greater far than Jacob lingers In every stream and spring throughout the world. This murmuring river have my fathers crossed, And all the winds of heaven full oft, the moon, The dawn divine of many a star, the sun, And thunder too. All, all is sacred ground On all the earth, and every hill-top bears Its cherub with his never-dying song. The far Algean hills are but a part, A little part, of a poetic world. By Homer yonder hills were never sung ; He saw them not. What would to him have been This Snowdon, had it thrown its shadows o'er His cot ? Some grander Ida in his song, And o'er its height a day break of the gods. Oh, for the age ! Oh, for the dawning morn When, proud Eryri, on some peak of thine On golden wings the bard alights who shall To thy unspoken depth of thought give tongue ! O priests on high of heaven's eternal shrine That minister for aye beyond the skies, And, ye countless storms, to God made sacred Some one of nature's mightiest on each peak ; Oh ! for the hand that on our hearts would grave Some awe-inspiring dream of thine, and search Each rock, and cloud, and distant fold of mist To find the mighty thoughts of many an age,— The awful moans of nature's inmost depths,— Where her broad bosom to the sun doth swell The day, and to the suns beyond, the night. 484