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 A BOOK ABOUT POETRY IN WALES 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HUGHES JONES, B.A. (Oxon.) 
 
 JARVIS 6- FOSTER, LORNE HOUSE 
 
 JVIDCCCCXII, 
 

 383776 
 
Foreword 
 
 The book is late because the printers were 
 busy. It has no special purpose. There 
 is a discussion here about modern poets 
 in Wales. I do not say they are better 
 or worse than the old poets. They have 
 given me pleasure, and I speak of it. 
 The title is my homage to the only 
 region in the world that interests me. 
 Wales has often been no larger than 
 Eryri, and at the foot of it I am content 
 to loiter and to learn. 
 
 I thank the one or two friends who 
 have helped me, and the Editor of the 
 Brython for leave to print three essays. 
 
 W.HJ. 
 
 yune^ 1912. 
 
Contents 
 
 
 Pag« 
 
 About Poetry 
 
 I 
 
 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 . - 46 
 
 Spectacles - - - . 
 
 - - 73 
 
 Verse-making 
 
 - 79 
 
 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 - no 
 
 Love's Philosophy 
 
 - 129 
 
 On Translating Omar - 
 
 - 139 
 
 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 - 151 
 
 Meadow Song 
 
 • - 170 
 
 Odlau Serch a Bywyd - 
 
 . . 182 
 
 ToaB.Sc. - , - . 
 
 • - 193 
 
-n 
 
About Poetry 
 
 Once I spent a summer's night out at sea 
 on the deck of a boat. Our pilot, fearing 
 the shoals, held the boat up in the lee of a 
 great rock, to await the daylight. I had 
 never seen the day break, and I looked long 
 and steadfastly up at the eastern sky. 
 Suddenly the man said, 
 
 "There she is." (In Wales the Dawn 
 is a girl.) 
 
 I peered hard at the sky, but I could see 
 no change. 
 
 " There, on the water," he added. And I 
 saw that the sea's face had changed : there 
 was a gleam upon it that I had missed 
 through the watch of the night. That was 
 the sensitiveness of the Earth Mother to 
 the movements of her children. My eyes, 
 

 2 ' * ' • ■ • About Poetry 
 
 though I had waited a night-time, failed to 
 note the dawn. But the sea knew. 
 
 What the sea did with the dawn is the 
 Poet's function. As the sea was ultra- 
 sensitive to the dawn, so is the Poet ultra- 
 sensitive to Nature, to Man, to Love, to 
 Beauty, As the sea reflected and accentu- 
 ated the dawn, so the Poet can reflect and 
 accentuate love, hate, nature, man. 
 
 The time when man grows most like his 
 Creator is when he becomes a poet. The 
 Poet is the second creator of the world, just 
 as a taper is a secondary creator of light. 
 The Poet is his Creator doing over again 
 His own work. The Poet is he who can 
 reproduce the Earth, He can reproduce 
 the heavens too ; and the hells. The poet 
 is a creator, within limits. The limits are 
 as wide as God*s horizon set for men. 
 The poet stops there. The wildest woman 
 that ever blinded the eyes of a seer is still 
 Eve. 
 
 And so, no matter from ^h^re \ye start 
 
About Poetry 3 
 
 we must come back to what was said over 
 two thousand years ago : Poetry is a species 
 of Imitation. 
 
 But this is only one way of looking at it. 
 Poetry in its Method is an Imitation of 
 creation. Poetry in its Function is a 
 Creation like God's. There is the inevi- 
 table limit : like. Therefore we must say, 
 The Poet is a Re -creator. 
 
 And yet Wordsworth goes further than 
 this ; there is almost the suggestion that the 
 Poet can create Soul : for the Poet has a 
 sacred dream of power 
 
 to add the gleam, 
 The light thai never was on sea or land. 
 
 And Shelley is very explicit. For the man 
 that 
 
 feeds on the aerial kisses 
 Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses, 
 
 is the Poet, who watches 
 
 from dawn to gloom 
 The lake-reflected sun illume 
 The yellow bees in the ivy bloom, 
 
|. About Poetry 
 
 and who will not heed nor see what things 
 they be, because 
 
 from these create he can 
 Forms more real than living man. 
 
 And perhaps we have here the very essence 
 of Poetry. Poetry is a Power. All effec- 
 tive Powers have Source and Function. 
 The source of all power is the visible and 
 sensible world. All the powers that the 
 physicist discovers or will discover are 
 already in the world. The source of the 
 power of Poetry is the world. The Poet is 
 the Physicist that discovers it, that controls 
 it, that hands it over for the use of man. 
 The Process is complete in the Promethean 
 lyric. First, the Poet discovers the Power 
 by observation and meditation : 
 
 He will watch from dawn to gloom 
 The lake-reflected sun illume 
 The yellow bees in the ivy bloom. 
 
 Then, he controls the Force, not by means 
 of his Intellect, but by his Imagination, 
 
About Poetry « 
 
 This control is effected by bringing into 
 play that faculty of Detachment possessed 
 by the Imagination : a daisy can live in the 
 imagination better than in a field. The 
 Poet having v^^atched the bees in the ivy 
 bloom detaches them from the lake side 
 into the realms of imagination, and then 
 forgets the originals : 
 
 Nor heeds nor sees what things they be. 
 
 Finally, the Poet uses his Intellectual 
 faculties to hand over what was once 
 potential energy in Nature, as an active 
 controllable Power, kinetic energy which 
 every child can use hereafter for the shap- 
 ing of his destiny : 
 
 And from these create he can 
 Forms more real than living man, 
 Nurselings of Immortality. 
 
 The agents in the Process, then, are 
 Observation, Imagination, Intellect. And 
 the greatest of these three is Imagination. 
 The essence of the Process is Transmuta- 
 
) About Poetry 
 
 tion. And this is the chief faculty of the 
 Imagination. A poet may copy nature, 
 but he must imagine it anew ; he must 
 transmute it into something distinct from 
 Nature, however much like it. As 
 Coleridge says : 
 
 Images, however beautiful, though faith- 
 fully copied from Nature, and as 
 accurately represented in words, do not 
 of themselves characterize the poet. 
 They become proofs of original genius 
 only as far as they are modified by a 
 predominant passion. 
 Every true Poem is a Picture and a Song. 
 And yet the Poet, though he must be a 
 singer, is much more than a singer. To 
 the singer, singing is an end in itself. To 
 the Poet the song, the measured cadence, 
 the melodic sequence, is only a mighty 
 means to a great end, an end that is every- 
 thing that life itself is. 
 
 Poetry is greater than Music, greater 
 than Painting ; for there is music and 
 
About Poetry J 
 
 painting in all poetry ; and whereas Music 
 is satisfied if it please the ear, and Painting 
 is satisfied if it please the eye, Poetry insists 
 on satisfying the inward eye and the 
 physical ear, mth a purpose : to subject both 
 eye and ear to its control, that by their aid 
 it may overwhelm the imagination of the 
 reader with the feelings and passions of the 
 Poet. 
 
 And here we come to the Imagination 
 working as a transmuting energy in the 
 mind of the reader : it transmutes what he 
 sees and hears into something that is analog- 
 ous with his own experience : his tears, 
 and noons, and dim horizons. 
 
 And these are the uses of Poetry. 
 
 Poetry is the power the Poet has of 
 making me see my own heart as in a mirror, 
 and his heart, too, and the hearts of most 
 others, and the heart of the earth, and, most 
 nearly to Deity, the heart of the Deity 
 Itself; as much of each as my vision is 
 capabable of seeing. 
 
8 About Poetry 
 
 Ann Griffiths told me all she wanted to 
 tell me in 
 
 Codi'r groes, a'i chyfri'n goron, 
 
 and I shall have triumphed over all things 
 when I can say 
 
 Mi ganaf yn y mellt. 
 
 And if you, who are not a poet, wanted to 
 remind me on a June day how cold it had 
 been in March, you would just tell me how 
 cold it was in March, and how the snow 
 did fall ! But the greatest of all poets had 
 a subtler way by far, he said not a word 
 about cold nor sno'^^ but he said something 
 about a Jio-^er and a bird that makes me 
 always feel the March, and not merely 
 remember it : 
 
 daffodils 
 That come before the swallow dares. 
 
 He has the March spirit locked up for ever 
 in these lines ; and the March need never 
 come in its turn again to me, for I have it 
 here at my call. 
 
About Poetry 9 
 
 And there is a dainty example of this 
 power in Eifion Wyn that we always 
 treasure. There is an effect produced upon 
 us in so simple a manner that we almost 
 miss recognising it. It is an effect, that 
 neither Painter nor Singer could produce. 
 The Poet's subject is the coming of the 
 spirit of November, muffled and mysterious. 
 We do not^ think a Painter could paint it 
 all ; and we are not certain that a Singer 
 could give any of the effect by his melody 
 alone. Even the Poet does nothing more 
 than describe it, paint it, in these lines : 
 
 Gwyntyll y corwynt sydd yn ei law 
 A thrwy ei lawr dyrnu yfory y daw, 
 and 
 
 Pwy sydd yn crechwen yn droiog flin 
 A'i fantell symudliw fel enfys grin ? 
 
 But we begin to understand things when 
 the Poet says the leaves gather in the ruins 
 at the sound of his step : 
 
 Casgl y crinddail wrth swn ei droed 
 Tr aelwyd aniddos ym murddyn y coed. 
 
to About Poetrv 
 
 But the whole case is made clear; we know 
 all about it, when the Poet says he closed the 
 door of his cottage ; it is a great stroke of 
 intimacy that makes the November known 
 to us : 
 
 Canaffy nor nes dywedo'r wawr 
 Pwy syfl dylathau y Moelwyn Mawr. 
 
 Poetry not only makes me see the heart of 
 things as in a mirror, but the poet, touching 
 his subjects with his fiery fingers, gives 
 them everlasting form. So that I, poor 
 plain soul, can summon before me every 
 phantasy and every face that people the 
 realms of gold, if I have the care and the 
 heart to do so. For the Poet has given me 
 the wand, and the open sesame. In truth, 
 the Poet is the only proper magician that 
 lives. 
 
 The Poet is a magician in his Methods 
 and in what one might call his Consolations. 
 Poetry, says Mathew Arnold, interprets 
 Nature, and interprets Life. Science 
 dissects Nature and analyses Life. And 
 
About Poetry n 
 
 poetry has its own peculiar methods by 
 means of which it succeeds in this inter- 
 pretation. Three of these methods we 
 propose to deal with shortly. They are 
 the Subjective Method, the Objective, and 
 the Kinetic. 
 
 We have said that the Poet's first func- 
 tion is Observation and Meditation. To 
 the impressions thus received the Poet 
 applies first the heat of his passion, and then 
 the wings of his imagination. And this is 
 what we mean by applying the Subjective 
 treatment to his impressions. All things 
 perceived by the Poet must bear the stamp 
 of his Passion and of his Imagination before 
 we can call his work poetry. Otherwise 
 he cannot interpret. Let us seek an 
 example. There is Keats, on hearing the 
 nightingale, calling for wine that he might 
 drink : 
 
 and leave the world unseen 
 And with thee fade away into the forest dim. 
 
 And what a wine his Passion_. demands, and 
 
12 About Poetry 
 
 with what a wine moreover docs his 
 Imagination, by illusion^ provide him: 
 Wine 
 
 full of the warm south, 
 wine 
 
 cooled a long age in the deep delved earth, 
 
 wine 
 
 tasting of Flora and the country green, 
 Dance and Provencal song and sunburnt mirth. 
 
 This is not wine merely in the beaker with 
 bubbles winking at the brim, but wine 
 glorious in everything that wine means ; 
 the warm blue south, the Provencal lads and 
 lasses, the full vineyards, the white feet in 
 purple presses — this is poetry interpreting 
 Nature with the grand purpose of giving 
 the reader th.^ intimate sense of Nature^ which 
 poetry alone can give. 
 
 There is a superb example of this sense of 
 intimacy in Ceiriog : 
 
 Cerddorion Ewrob ddont 
 I'ch mysg i roddi can : 
 
About Poetry 13 
 
 'Rwyf innau'n ymfoddhau 
 Ar lais y fronfraith Ian ; 
 Wrth wrando'r gwcw las, 
 A'r hedydd bychan fry, 
 A gweled robyn goch 
 Yn gwrandoW deryn du. 
 
 The Robin listening to the black -bird in 
 this verse is an instance of what Arnold calls 
 the natural magic in true poetry. The 
 passion and the imagination of Ceiriog were 
 so strong in this instance that he could not 
 help telling us that he felt that Nature had 
 something to say even to herself. And how 
 intimate does he make the two birds seem 
 to each other and to us. And who would 
 not rather think that the birds listen to one 
 another than that they are oblivious of each 
 other's songs ? And Ceiriog is better some- 
 how than Watts Dunton, though not so 
 musical nor as choice : 
 
 While from the dingle grass the skylark 
 
 springs 
 And merle and mavis anszver finch and jay. 
 
14 About Poetry 
 
 There is no more of poetry in Islwyn's 
 lines to Dyfifryn Clwyd than there would 
 be of kingship in us, could we invest our- 
 selves with the Coronation robes. 
 
 Hofif Ddyffryn Clwyd yng 7ighofio7i yr ym- 
 
 deithydd 
 A gwyd fel delweddo brydferthwch Ilonydd, 
 Teilynga y Jlaenoriaelh am lonyddwch 
 Ei olygfeydd cCi baradwysaidd heddwch, 
 Llifeiriol lawnder donna dros ei dolydd, 
 Mor aur cynhaeaf yma sy ysplenydd. 
 Ac hyd ei ochrau fel iV lawn amddiffyn 
 Heirdd furiau o fynyddoedd sy'n ymestyn, 
 Gwyrddlesni'r fro yn dal am eu cysgodau 
 A weua iddynt fentyll o bob lliwrau^ 
 Ardderchog goed a'u gwyrddni pell-lifeiriol^ 
 Ddyfnhant ogoniant yr olygfa swynol. 
 
 In these lines one might use Lessing's 
 words about a similar piece, " I hear the 
 poet labouring at his work, to I am very far 
 from seeing the thing itself^'' The fault is 
 that Islwyn paints without producing any 
 illusion. His poetry has the stamp neither 
 
About Poetry 15 
 
 of passion nor of imagination. It lacks 
 the subjective treatment. The line 
 
 Teilynga y flaenoriaeth am lonyddwch. 
 
 is probably the most barren, sluggish, woe- 
 begotten creation in all literature. And 
 may Ceridwen forgive him for his 
 ^^ gwyrddni pei/'/ifeirioI" and his "ogoniant 
 yr olygfa s'VpynoIy^ and his execrable *' meiityll 
 o bob llivi^iau." And yet Islwyn a few 
 lines down shows unmistakable power of 
 producing natural magic ; the half- whisper- 
 ing leaves create illusion, and one is at a 
 bound in the leafy month of June : 
 
 Cyngherddol adar ar y coed yn pyncio 
 A'r dail j/^ sibrwd hanner geiriau wrtho. 
 
 There is no poetry in this translation of 
 Eifion Wyn : 
 
 My windows are darkened 
 By the rain storm without. 
 
 But there is in the original : 
 
 Mae'r curwlaw yn dallu 
 Ff^nestri fy nhy. 
 
i6 About Poetry 
 
 It is of the same temper as Lorenzo's line : 
 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon the 
 bank. 
 
 And Professor Morris Jones has it in his 
 C'vyny G'^ynf. 
 
 Codi'i lais yn awr, ac wylo, 
 Beichio wylo mae. 
 
 The same poet has one stanza that particu- 
 larly illustrates this Subjective Treatment 
 under discussion. It shows what we mean 
 by the Transmuting Power of the Imagina- 
 tion which is evident in real poetry : 
 
 A synio'r wyf mae swn yr iaith 
 
 Wrth lithro dros ei min 
 Roes i w gwefusau'r lluniaidd dro 
 
 A lliw a bias y gwin. 
 
 What is it that delights us here, or rather 
 satisfies us ? 
 
 There is the sweet versification : synio'r 
 '^yf — f WW yr iaith ; Roes ; dro. 
 
 There is the pretty conceit that the words 
 of the maiden shaped her lips. 
 
About Poetry 17 
 
 But there is a soul's worth more than 
 this. There is illusion created. It is not a 
 chance conceit, bnt a deliberate poetic act 
 that makes the words give shape and taste 
 to the lipSj and not the lips that give form 
 and sound to the words. It is the poet's 
 Imagination answering to the call of his 
 Passion. His Passion experiences these 
 things in the presence of the maiden — what 
 beautifully shaped lips she has ! of what a 
 deep crimson ! what taste of wine ! what 
 a lovely way of talking ! and what a 
 language — more sonorous and more beloved 
 by me than all the languages of the earth ! 
 The Poet's Passion wants all this put into 
 the form of poetry. Imagination replies, I 
 can only express the intensity of such a 
 passion by means of a fiction, of an illusion 5 
 to make a mere list of your comments 
 would never express the depth of your feel- 
 ing. It must be left to me to say that the 
 beauty of the language she uses, and the 
 beauty of her use of it must have had some 
 deep divine intimacy with the crimson rose 
 
1 8 About Poetry 
 
 and the nectar taste upon her h'ps. Will 
 this do ? 
 
 A chlir felyslais ar ei min 
 
 A glywir megis can 
 Y gloew dd^r yn tincial dros 
 
 Y cerrig gwynion msln. 
 
 A chain y seinia'r hen Gymraeg 
 
 Yn ei hyfrydlais hi ; 
 Mae iaith bereiddia'r ddaear hon 
 
 Ar enau 'nghariad i. 
 
 A synioW wyfmai swfi yr iaith 
 
 Wrth lithro dros ei min 
 Roes i*w gwefusauW lluniaidd dro 
 
 A lliw a bias y gwin. 
 
 And Passion replies instantly, " Yes, it will 
 do." And the reader agrees ; for he has an 
 Imagination that can understand what it 
 means ; and he has a Passion that is satisfied 
 with the meaning. Poetry is not an appeal 
 to the Reason through the channel of the 
 Intellect. Apply the cold scullion fingers 
 of Reason to the body of Ceridwen and 
 she shrinks from the touch, and disappear^ 
 
About Poetry 19 
 
 into the spirit of which she is made. 
 Welcome her with the pliant hands of the 
 Imagination and she, the spirit she is, will 
 enter into your very veins and course along 
 with your blood. 
 
 Poetry in order to interpret does not tell 
 the truth as we ordinarily deem truth. It 
 arrives at Absolute Truth by Illusion. It 
 is a question of Absolute and Relative 
 Truth. Hazlitt has remarked : 
 
 "The language of the imagination is 
 not the less true to nature because it is 
 false in point of fact ; but so much the 
 more true and natural if it conveys the 
 impression whicn the object under the 
 influence of passion makes on the mind." 
 
 And he proceeds to give an example. 
 " When lachimo says of Imogen : 
 
 The flame o' the taper 
 Bows toward her, and would under peep 
 
 her lids 
 To see the enclosed light — 
 
 this passionate interpretation of the 
 
20 About Poetry 
 
 motion of the flame to accord mth the 
 speaker's o'^n feelings is true poetry." 
 
 And we have found a parallel to this quota- 
 tion in Ceiriog. It is in his poem Beth y^ 
 Cariad? He tells how various men 
 attempt to answer the question and fail. 
 Then he adds about Gwen, 
 
 Ond pe baech yn disgyn tan amrant ei liygad 
 Chwi deimlech eich calon yn deall y pwnc. 
 This alighting most gently upon the eyelid is 
 no mere conceit of the Fancy, but a very 
 delicate and exquisite creation of the 
 Imagination, meant to convey the poet's 
 own delicate feelings on the question, and 
 suggesting moreover a delightful sense of 
 shyness in the maiden's eyes. 
 
 And in order to appreciate fully, besides 
 giving fair play to, such hnes as these of 
 Mr. W. J. GrufFudd : 
 
 Am ronyn bach o seibiant 
 Yn rhuthr fy mywyd i 
 Gwerthwn fy enaid heddyw 
 I gario'i beichiau hi, 
 
About Poetry 21 
 
 one has only to remember another excellent 
 criticism of Shakespeare's methods : 
 
 " When Lear calls upon the heavens to 
 avenge his cause, "/ir they are old like 
 himj'^ there is nothing extravagant or 
 impious in this sublime identification of 
 his age vi^ith theirs, for there is no other 
 image v/hich could do justice to the 
 agonising sense of his wrongs and his 
 despair." 
 Thus, in a word on this Subjective Treat- 
 ment, the Poet is he who can express his 
 passions in such a manner, by means of the 
 Imagination, that the reader can understand 
 the quality and the degree of those passions. 
 That is, the poet is the only person that can 
 really make himself understood. 
 
 One other instance will suffice. In the 
 line 
 
 Codi'r groes a'i chyfri'n goron, 
 which is a lyric in itself, the author is a 
 Painter, and much more than a painter, she 
 is a Poet. It has been said that Painting 
 gives an object itself, whereas Poetry gives 
 
21 About Poetry 
 
 what it implies. And so when an artist 
 paints the carrying of the cross, he only 
 paints the cross and the bearing of it. 
 When Ann Griffiths paints the anguish — 
 and " codi'r groes " suggests anguish to all 
 Welsh minds — she means the anguish of 
 carrying the cross and much more : she 
 means every cross that every person in the 
 world has to carry, your cross, my cross, 
 His Cross, and all His crosses. The Painter 
 cannot do this, and this is nothing com- 
 pared with what next he cannot do — 
 
 a'i chyfri'n goron. 
 
 How can a Painter change with one stroke 
 of his brush all the anguish of the world 
 into a bliss supremer than the dreams of 
 angels ? And what Art, what Power in 
 the world can do it save Poetry ? And 
 more again, much more : What i^ some 
 strange divinity should suddenly turn all the 
 anguish of the world — save mine — into a 
 great joy ? I could laugh at the strange 
 god, and fling my little line of verse full into 
 
About Poetry 23 
 
 his face. It was some power akin to poetry 
 that made Brynhilde take Odin by the 
 throat ; and which inspired this picture of 
 Rhona Boswell as 
 
 " My fierce girl whose love for me would 
 
 send her 
 An angel storming hell, through death's 
 
 abysses 
 Where never a sight could fright or power 
 
 could bend her." 
 
 '*It is in giving voice not to emotion at 
 its tensest, but to the variations of emotion, 
 it is in expressing the shifting movements 
 of the soul from passion to passion that 
 poetry shows, in spite of her infirmities, her 
 superiority to the other arts," says England's 
 greatest critic. And that is why 
 
 Codi'r groes a'i chyfri'n goron 
 
 is among one of the best bits of isolated 
 poetry in the world. 
 
 That is the Subjective Method of Poetry. 
 " It seeks to relieve the aching sense of 
 pleasure by expressing it in the boldest 
 
24 About Poetry 
 
 manner ; to enshrine itself in the highest 
 forms of fancy." 
 
 The Objective Method of Poetry is not 
 something apart from the above, but rather 
 one of the agents whereby the Poet stamps 
 his verse with his own die. Although 
 Poetry interprets by means of Illusion, that 
 Illusion must be concrete. The Objective 
 Method the poet uses is that which supplies 
 the best materials for the illusion. 
 
 The principle of the Objective Method 
 is this, that the successful poet achiev^es his 
 finest results not by analytical description 
 either of scenery or of beauty, but by record- 
 ing in the aptest manner the effect such 
 scenery or beauty has upon his own imagina- 
 tion or emotion. If a poet can reproduce 
 the effect of any occasion, then he really 
 succeeds in reproducing the occasion of the 
 effect. 
 
 There is a good example in Tragedy. 
 The poet is describing the passing of 
 Oedipus into Hades, and his farewell to his 
 
About Poetry 25 
 
 daughters. A voice from Hades called out 
 Oedipus' name, and he, taking with him 
 only Theseus the King as an eye-witness to 
 his end, ascends the mountain. The 
 servants and the daughters of Oedipus hurry 
 away in terror : 
 
 Then followed we the maidens, grieving sore 
 With streaming tears. When we had gone apart 
 After short space we turned, and saw far off 
 Oedipus indeed nowhere still visible — 
 Only the king's self, holding up his hand 
 Over hisface^ so as to shade his eyes 
 As if some sight of terror had appeared 
 Awfulj intolerable to gaze upon. 
 
 Note what the poet has done. Instead of 
 describing the coming of the dread spirit, 
 and his taking of Oedipus, and instead of 
 giving the details of the actual departure, the 
 poet simply says that Theseus the King saw 
 something so dreadful that he could not gaze 
 upon it : 
 
 holding up his hand 
 Over his face, so as to shade his eyes. 
 
 To describe the subjective effect upon 
 
26 About Poetry 
 
 Oedipus would not be half so effective as 
 this describing of the objective effect upon 
 Theseus. 
 
 There is an exquisite example of this in 
 Scott's " Maid of Neidpath." The maid is 
 nigh dying from awaiting the return of her 
 lover. When he does return, he passes by 
 the castle wall, and although he looks at her, 
 he does not know her. The maid gives 
 one feeblest moan and dies. And how shall 
 Scott convey that moan to us? Not by 
 saying it was feeble, but by giving its effect 
 upon something outside it : 
 
 The castle arch whose hollow tone 
 Returns each whisper spoken 
 Could scarcely catch the feeble moan 
 Which told her heart was broken. 
 
 And Shakespeare provides us with a very 
 adequate illustration of this objective method 
 in Othello. That the gentle Desdemona is 
 very pure, Shakespeare takes pains to let us 
 learn ; that she is very beautiful we are left 
 to infer from an indirect account by Cassio, 
 
About Poetry ^7 
 
 who, when he hears that Desdemona has 
 arrived, in spite of the storm, safely at 
 Cyprus, exclaims : 
 
 Tempests themselves, high seas, and howl- 
 ing winds, 
 The guttered rocks, and congregated sands — 
 Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel — 
 As /laving sense of beauty^ do omit 
 Their mortal natures, letting go safely by 
 The divine Desdemona. 
 
 And when we read of the Passing of Arthur, 
 no amount of rhetoric will convey to us 
 the agony of Arthur, unless the poet uses 
 the objective method as his chief agent of 
 imitation. Tennyson and Mr. Gwynn 
 Jones use it in their renderings of the story. 
 But there is a danger of overdoing the 
 objective eiFects, and it appears to us that 
 Tennyson's interpretation is overwrought. 
 He describes the coming of the ship along 
 the mere to receive Arthur. The deck is 
 dense with stately forms, 
 
 Black-stoled, black-hooded like a dream. 
 
28 About Poetry 
 
 Then the poet attempts to convey the 
 intense tragedy of the death of Arthur by 
 describing the effect it has upon the Queen 
 in the ship : 
 
 And from them rose 
 A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
 And as it were one voice, an agony 
 Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes 
 Or hath come, since the making of the world. 
 
 We must confess that though this is beauti- 
 fully said, it appears to us sheer rhetoric, 
 inasmuch as it makes it impossible for us to 
 understand either the sympathy of the 
 women or the tragic dying of Arthur. 
 This is Mr. Gwynn Jones' version : 
 
 Bu druan y rhianedd 
 Drwy weld gwan, dreuledig wedd 
 Y cadarn Wledig ; codi 
 Wnaeth yr oll^ a thuahi rhi 
 Daliodd y iair eu dwylaw 
 Yn brudd ym mudandod braw. 
 Ac ebr un o naddun hwy — 
 " I Arthur rhowch gynorthwy j 
 
About Poetry 29 
 
 Awn ag ef o'i gynni i gyd 
 I sanctaidd Ynys lenctid." 
 
 This is immeasureably more effective than 
 Tennyson. The maidens here are women, 
 not ghouls, and Arthur is a man, not a 
 centaur. 
 
 But perhaps the best example of this 
 indirect or objective method of description, 
 which is really nothing more than a poet's 
 use of his dramatic sense, is to be found in 
 the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The 
 old sailor has come to that part of his story 
 where the albatross is looked upon by the 
 sailors as the guardian angel of the ship, 
 when suddenly the narrator's face becomes 
 convulsed with a certain agony, so indescrib- 
 able that even the poet does not dare to 
 describe it. Moreover, the poet is aware of 
 this, that a mere subjective description will 
 never frighten the reader as the look of the 
 Mariner frightened the guest ; therefore his 
 best method is to describe the fear of the 
 guest, and thereby give the reader some- 
 thing to judge the grimace by. Note, 
 
30 About Poetry 
 
 above all, the concentration and directness 
 of the style : 
 
 And a good south wind sprung up behind ; 
 
 The albatross did follow, 
 
 And every day, for food or play, 
 
 Came to the mariner's hollo ! 
 
 In mist or cloud, or mast or shroud, 
 
 It perched for vespers nine ; 
 
 Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 
 
 Glimmers the white moon-shine. 
 
 " God save thee Ancient Mariner I 
 From the fiends that plague thee thus I 
 Why lookst thou so ?" — with my cross-bow 
 I killed the albatross. 
 
 Surely you can see his face and hear his 
 voice ! 
 
 The third magic method used by the poet 
 to create illusion and to produce verisimili- 
 tude of effect is vvrhat we call the Kinetic 
 Method. It is a theory based upon a remark 
 in the Laocoon to this effect : 
 
 "We can generally more easily and 
 
About Poetry 31 
 
 more vividly remember a motion than a 
 
 mere form or colour," 
 A study of the most effective passages in 
 poetry will shovtr that the true poets act 
 unconsciously upon this principle of kinetics. 
 In the Maid of Neidpath already referred to, 
 there are only four verses, and we are 
 certain that Scott has not deliberately used 
 a single word to describe the beauty of the 
 maid. And yet we somehow feel she was 
 very beautiful. Nay, we know she was 
 beautiful. How ? This is the manner of 
 the poem : 
 
 Yet keenest power to see and hear 
 Seemed in her frame residing ; 
 Before the watch dog pricked his ear 
 She heard her lover's riding ; 
 Ere scarce a distant form was kenned 
 She knew and waved to greet him, 
 And o'er the battlement did bend 
 As on the wing to meet him. 
 
 There is no description of physical beauty 
 there, only of great love. And yet — read 
 the last four lines again — > 
 
32 About Poetry 
 
 Ere scarce a distant form was kenned 
 She knew and waved to greet him, 
 And o'er the battlement did bend 
 As on the wing to meet him. 
 
 Have you any doubt now as to the princess 
 that she was ? 
 
 It is surely one of the finest and most 
 delicate intimations of Beauty and Passion 
 in the pages of literature — as on the mng! 
 What the poet has done is to change beauty 
 into grace. For in Lessing*s words, Grace 
 is beauty in motion. 
 
 The Queens in Ymadawiad Arthur are 
 most beautiful, not in their static pose upon 
 the thrones : 
 
 Pali gwyn 
 A ymdonnai am danyn ; 
 A lliw teg eu gwalltiau aur 
 Drwyddo fel cawod ruddaur. 
 Gyddfau a thalcennau can 
 Mai eira ymyl Aran ; 
 Deufan goch pob dwyfoch deg 
 Lliw gwin drwy wynlliw gwaneg — 
 
About Poetry 33 
 
 but in their dynamic sympathy, full of the 
 loveliness of moving arms : 
 
 Breichiau glanach na'r sindal a'r pali 
 I'r gadair euraid a gaid i^w godi ; 
 Gwynion ddwylaw/z^'« gweini i'r Brenin, 
 A rhoddi gwin i lareiddio'i gynni. 
 
 And this Kinetic Method should not be 
 confined, nor is it confined, to the expression 
 of corporeal beauty alone. It is effective in 
 producing the sense of intimacy in every 
 sphere. When Ceiriog wants to praise the 
 Maytime, he only succeeds in making you 
 envious by telling of the coming of May : 
 
 Pe gwelech Mai yn dod 
 A'r blodau ar y drain ! 
 
 When he wants to make you see over again 
 the evening of the tryst, he gives you a 
 start by reminding you of the ruing of the 
 moon : 
 
 Wyt ti'n cofio'r lloer yti codi 
 Dros hen dderw mawr y llwyn ? 
 
 And when he wants you to bend that spirit 
 
34 About Poetry 
 
 of yours, it will not do merely to recall the 
 old friendship : 
 
 Wyt ti'n cofio'r hen wresogrwydd ? 
 
 Wyt ti'n cofio gwasgu^m Haw ? 
 
 In truth the Poet as well as the Moralist 
 lives by the same old rule : Deeds not 
 words. 
 
 We can only express some of the Consola- 
 tions of Poetry in these terms. 
 
 We like to think of our experiences as 
 treasured up in silver caskets in Memory's 
 store house. And when Experience or 
 Memory fails we love to go to the gold 
 caskets of poetry, where all the experiences 
 of life are stored : " All that is worth 
 remembering in life is the poetry of it," 
 says Hazlitt, and the consolation comes in 
 this : that I can always choose my casket, 
 for Poetry is kinder than Life. If I do not 
 want Pain, I can seek Joy, and I shall not 
 call in vain 
 
 Dynior hud a miri haf 
 
 Tyr'd eto i'r oed at^f, 
 
About Poetry 35 
 
 And if it is Pain that I seek in Poetry, 
 
 the torment of this vale of tears, 
 I shall at least find how to overcome it, and 
 thank whatever gods may be 
 For my unconquerable soul. 
 The philosopher may say, Joy is the absence 
 of Pain ; and no doubt Joy is swreeter 
 because of Pain. That is no argument for 
 my liking weeds to grow in my garden. 
 Poetry is more perfect than Life. For 
 Poetry has gardens without weeds, and men 
 without woe ; gardens 
 Where the pied wind flowers and the tulip 
 
 tall 
 And narcissi, the fairest among them all, 
 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 
 Till they die of their own dear loveliness, 
 
 where I shall find men, and track their path 
 
 No more by bloody groans 
 And desolation, and the mingled voice 
 Of slavery and command ; but by the light 
 Of wave reflected flowers and floating odours 
 And music soft, and mild free gentle voices 
 And sweetest music, such as spirits love. 
 
36 About Poetry 
 
 Or if with Llion I get tired of sunshine and 
 the dear loveliness of the narcissi, I can say 
 
 Dwg im haul digymylau, — 
 Gad im hefyd fy mj'd mau, 
 Lie mae'r cymyl yn wylo 
 Ym mhelydr haul ami i dro. 
 
 And why talk of the narcissi, Poetry can 
 make weeds in a ruin attractive, as in 
 Browning's 
 
 single little turret that remains 
 On the plains, 
 By the caper over rooted, by the gourd 
 
 overscored, 
 While the patching house-leek's head of 
 blossom winks 
 
 Through the chinks — 
 
 There are some caskets we always think 
 are wrapped in samite cloths, and when we 
 approach them, the poet seems to divine 
 our desires, and slowly unwinds the samite 
 before our eyes, and there is delight in the 
 very unfolding of the cloth^ such delight 
 
About Poetry 37 
 
 that the treasure desired within the casket 
 is not the joy in itself, so much as the cul- 
 mination of a satisfaction that increases 
 from the moment we begin to think we are 
 about to obtain what the heart desires. In 
 the following lyric Shelley seems to be 
 ready with the gem in his hands, and he 
 slowly and gravely, but passionately, unfolds 
 the windings about it ; we are breathless 
 till he has finished ; then instantly we are 
 satisfied to the very soul : 
 
 I can not give what men call love ; 
 But wilt thou accept not 
 The worship the heart lifts above 
 And the Heavens reject not ? 
 The desire of the moth for the star ; 
 Of the night for the morrow ? 
 The devotion to something afar 
 From the sphere of our sorrow ? 
 
 One of the stillest lakes in Eryri is 
 Cowlyd, And if you want to know what 
 peace is, climb to it alone. Never have I 
 seen mountain or mountain heather look 
 more beautiful than in the mirror of 
 
38 About Poetry 
 
 Cowlyd. There is no doubt in my mind 
 about this matter, that when Nature takes a 
 photograph of herself she improves upon the 
 original. I have watched a bunch of 
 heather, a whole day, on a rock by Cowlyd 
 side, and, in every degree of light and 
 shadow, the reflected heather in the water 
 was more beautiful than its personification 
 on the rock. Indeed, my purpose in this 
 vigil was to test Shelley's observation : 
 
 We paused below the pools that lie 
 Under the forest bough ... 
 
 In which the lovely forest grew 
 As in the upper air, 
 More perfect both in shape and hue 
 Than any spreading there. 
 
 Sweet views which in our world above 
 Can never well be seen 
 Were imaged by the water's love 
 Of that fair forest green. 
 
 And to us this is another function and con- 
 solation of Poetry, this Cowlyd function. 
 Life in some mysterious way becomes 
 
About Poetry 39 
 
 synonymous with Beauty in Poetry. Life 
 considers Truth, Goodness, and Beauty as 
 one. Poetry considers Truth, Goodness, 
 Beauty and Life as one. Put Life — even 
 the horridness of it — into Poetry, and 
 
 all is interfused 
 With an Elysian glow. 
 
 Lady Macbeth in life would horrify us. 
 Lady Macbeth in poetry makes us pity her. 
 Hamlet in life would make us laugh and 
 lock him up. Hamlet in poetry inspires 
 our deepest curiosity. 
 
 And what is this great difference between 
 Life and Poetry ? 
 
 Perhaps it is not a difference between 
 Life and Poetry at all. The difference lies 
 in the difference between you or me and the 
 Poet. The Poet is the great revealer. If 
 a man is mad, we only see his madness. 
 The Poet sees the conflict that caused the 
 madness. If a woman is wicked, we only 
 see her wickedness. The Poet sees her 
 weakness. If a man is wealthy, we only 
 
40 About Poetry 
 
 see his smug rotundity. The Poet sees his 
 drab misery. If a man is poor, we see the 
 pauper. The Poet sees the hero. 
 
 The Poet is the great revealer. The 
 Poet sees the circle of things. We can see 
 only the point at that end of the straight 
 line that happens to be pointing towards us. 
 Everybody in Venice spat on Shylock. 
 Most other people rather liked him. Shakes- 
 peare made the difference. 
 
 The great teaching of Poetry is that man 
 is neither an angel nor a devil, but a man. 
 Every hero has a weakness. Every villain 
 has a soul. We have said Poetry is kinder 
 than Life. It is, too, more inexorable, 
 Man in Poetry is sure of what he deserves. 
 Poetry is very certain that man is good, 
 that man is bad. Poetry is just. It knows 
 how good, how bad. You and I never 
 know. 
 
 Among the other functions and consola- 
 tions of Poetry, one we value is the power 
 it has of flashing upon the inward eye, 
 
About Poetry 41 
 
 giving bliss to solitude. This virtue is the 
 Daffodil Function. 
 
 For when Wordsworth went his lonely- 
 walk and saw all at once his host of golden 
 daffodils, 
 
 That stretched in never-ending line 
 Along the margin of a bay, 
 
 he gazed and gazed — 
 
 but little thought 
 What wealth the show to him had brought. 
 
 The new wealth he had acquired was the 
 re-discovery of the everlasting, latent power 
 of the Beautiful to satisfy the senses, when 
 once that Beauty had been truly perceived. 
 For, 
 
 oft when on my couch I lie 
 In vacant or in pensive mood, 
 They flash upon that inward eye 
 Which is the bliss of solitude, 
 And then my heart with pleasure fills 
 And dances with the daffodils. 
 
 This Daffodil Function is the making of 
 impressions of the Beautiful on the memory. 
 
42 About Poetry 
 
 It is not so much the sense of appreciating 
 Beauty, as the storing of it up in the heart ; 
 so delicately stored that it will reveal itself 
 at any magic touch of sympathy ; and give 
 more pleasure to the senses than ever it 
 gave even on its first perception ; more 
 pleasure because it is now part of one's own 
 experience, because it is being applied to 
 one's own circumstances by one's own self j 
 more pleasure because it can heighten even 
 another and distinguishable pleasure ; and 
 give more pleasure, of a truth, because it 
 can make deeper the gloom of gloom and 
 so intensify its own sweetness. 
 
 Shakespeare is dear for a hundred things, 
 but dearest because he enables us every day 
 to express our own very heart in the terms 
 of his noble numbers. For we, too, 
 
 know a Bank where the wild thyme blows. 
 
 And Keats is a joy for ever, because we 
 have longed 
 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain. 
 
About Poetry 43 
 
 And Wordsworth has said just what we felt 
 we wanted to say : 
 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 Bound each to each by natural piety. 
 
 And the myriad more memories we possess 
 
 stretching in never-ending line 
 
 of the sapphire-coloured throne, and the 
 thought o' Mary Morison, and the echoing 
 horn, and the unconquerable soul, and the 
 peak in Darien 
 
 And then my heart with pleasure fills 
 And dances with the daffodils. 
 
 And with this touchstone we are certain of 
 the value of our Cymric poetry. Obviously 
 in extent it is limited, but its intensity 
 satisfies. Were you to deprive us of all the 
 joys we cherish, culled from your English 
 realms, there would still be left to us the 
 Daffodil Function of the A'^en^ with power 
 to while our leisure and ease our care. 
 For, we can never tire of the girl of sunshine, 
 
 Yr eneth oleubleth lon^ 
 
44 About Poetry 
 
 and the lightning on the snow, 
 
 Llewych viellt ary lluwch man^ 
 and the sea change, 
 
 Gwyliwr mud miraglait'r mdt\ 
 and the troth blush, 
 
 Rhoiswn wedd rJiosyn iddi 
 
 A chariad merch roed i mi^ 
 and the sea gull, 
 
 Law law a vtty lili mor^ 
 and Beauty's embrace, 
 
 Gwn pa beih yw cael/y nal 
 Yti nyrysniW blodati^ 
 and the sky-lark, 
 
 Yn nes at ddydd^ yn nes at Dduw^ 
 and the heart among the hills, 
 
 Ond mae'm calonyn y mynydd^ 
 and the poetry of 
 
 Wyllt hiraeth y pellteraUy 
 and the ineffable dreaming, 
 fel breuddwyd anghyffwrdd cariadau ...» 
 
 It is the Daffodil function that Coleridge 
 
 has in mind, saying : 
 
 Who has not a thousand times seen 
 snow fall on water ? Who has not 
 
About Poetry 45 
 
 watched it mth a ne^^ feeling from the 
 time that he has read Burns' comparison 
 of pleasure with 
 
 Snow that falls upon a river, 
 
 A moment white, then gone for ever. 
 
 And strange that Shelley left verse out of 
 his list of genii : 
 
 Music when soft voices die. 
 Vibrates in the memory — 
 Odours when sweet violets sicken, 
 Live within the sense they quicken. 
 
 Rose leaves when the rose is dead, 
 Are heaped for the beloved's bed. 
 And so thy thoughts when thou art gone, 
 Love itself shall slumber on. 
 
 But perhaps he meant by these Thoughts 
 the thoughts of poetry that are borne 
 
 on viewless wings, 
 
 like Psyche by the Zephyr. 
 
Challenge and Sanity 
 
 /V anghred rhodder enghraiffi^ 
 Rhodder her i dduwiauW Aifft 
 
 Cymru Fu : Cymru Fydd. 
 
 It is possible to make out a case against the 
 
 Renascence of Wonder. Theodore Watts 
 
 Dunton has set down the case for it. He 
 
 has done so in three brilliant ways. In his 
 
 critical writings he enumerates the principle 
 
 with this formula : 
 
 The phrase "The Renascence of 
 
 Wonder" merely indicates that there 
 
 are two great impulses governing man, 
 
 and probably not man only but the 
 
 entire world of conscious life : the 
 
 impulse of acceptance — the impulse to 
 
 take unchallenged and for granted all 
 
 the phenomena of the outer world as 
 
 they are — and the impulse to confront 
 46 
 
Challenge and Sanity 47 
 
 these phenomena with the eyes of 
 enquiry and wonder. 
 In Aylwin, that book cherished by every 
 Cymro because it has within it some of the 
 mountain magic of Wales, Watts Dunton, 
 acting upon this critical principle, uses the 
 means of fiction to illustrate what he means 
 by " confronting the phenomena of nature 
 with the eyes of wonder ;" and where 
 there is clearly this one underlying theme, 
 that behind Life and Nature and all things 
 there is a Spirit working towards a goal of 
 Beauty. 
 
 In the Coming of Love, a poem so beauti- 
 ful that one cannot tell whether it will live 
 long, Watts Dunton has expressed the same 
 criticism of life, a criticism which finds a 
 mystic heart of love and beauty beating 
 within the bosom of nature herself; a 
 criticism whose foundation is the belief in 
 the Omnipotence of Love and its power of 
 knitting together the entire universe : 
 
 Though Love be mocked by Death's obscene 
 derision, 
 
 Love ^till is Nature's truth ^nd Peath her lie, 
 
48 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 Wliat we are disposed to argue about is, not 
 the value of these theories, so much as the 
 phrase itself, The Renascence of Wonder. 
 It is a phrase that arouses three objections : 
 it does not at once connote anything sub- 
 stantial to the mind ; it does not convey the 
 meaning of its author even when that mean- 
 ing has been grasped after a further 
 explanation ; it has led the author himself 
 to adopt an attitude to which he can neither 
 drag nor entice many even of his devotees. 
 The fallacy of the idea lies in its logic. 
 The author of the phrase has so great a 
 belief in the power of Wonder that he has 
 made Wonder itself a Belief. In emphasis- 
 ing as a critic the importance of the 
 Imagination, he has invested the imaginat- 
 ion with the attributes of Reason. He does 
 not say that what you can argue out you 
 can believe, but that you can believe even 
 what you imagine. This is the only inter- 
 pretation we can give of the poem " The 
 Coming of Love." Philip Aylwin, in the 
 poem^j loves the Gipsy girl, Rhoqa I^oswell, 
 
Challenge and Sanity 49 
 
 with a great love. Rhona Boswell is 
 stabbed by the Gipsy Romanies for loving 
 an outsider. Philip goes to the Alps in his 
 greatest grief. There he is tortured by 
 Natura Maligna — by the evil spirit of 
 Nature, by something outside himself: (there 
 lies the fallacy, for nothing can torture him 
 more than his o'^n grief). Then suddenly 
 the torture disappears, and he is comforted 
 by Natura Benigna — by the good spirit of 
 Nature, by something outside himself: (the 
 fallacy again, for nothing can satisfy and 
 comfort him more than his o'^n unconquer- 
 able soul) — 
 
 What power is this ? What witchery wins 
 
 my feet 
 To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking 
 
 snow, 
 All silent as the emerald gulphs below 
 Down whose ice walls the wings of twilight 
 
 beat? 
 What thrill of earth and heaven — most 
 
 wildj^most sweet — 
 
50 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 What answering pulse that all the senses 
 
 know, 
 Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow 
 Where far away the skies and mountains 
 
 meet? 
 Mother 'tis I reborn : I know thee well : 
 That throb I know and all it prophesies, 
 O mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell 
 Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies ! 
 Dumb mother, struggling with the years to 
 
 tell 
 The secret at thy heart through helpless 
 
 eyes ! 
 
 This, we maintain, is not Natura Benigna 
 revealing to him her mystic consolation, 
 but the soul of the man bowing willingly 
 to the ineffable workings of the ways of 
 God : peace greater than this no man may 
 know, that he should lay down his life for 
 Another. 
 
 In Aylwin, again, there is a fallacy, the 
 fallacy of fiction. Aylwin is a beauti- 
 ful illustration of the possible Omni- 
 potence of Love, but it is not a proof of it. 
 
Challenge and Sanity 51 
 
 It is the old fallacy of the wish being father 
 to the thought ; it takes it that because 
 love is stronger than the flesh, it is too, 
 stronger than fact. It assumes that, because 
 Henry Aylwin loved Winnie so much, she 
 could not possibly be lost to him — although 
 she v^ras lost. Aylwin finds Winnie ulti- 
 mately, not radically because his love was 
 without bounds, but because Winnie was 
 not really lost. Unconquerable love is not 
 exactly omor omnia vincit. 
 
 Finally, the phrase. Renascence of 
 Wonder, is not a satisfactory one to use in 
 Criticism. We have found it unsatisfactory 
 in the treatment of English and Welsh 
 poetry. The phrase is supposed to be a 
 characterisation of the poetry of England 
 since the time of Pope and Dryden. And 
 is based upon what ? Not upon the body 
 of the poetry of Keats, but chiefly upon one 
 little poem of Keats — La Belle Dame 
 Sans Merci — and upon three lines of Keats 
 in the Ode to the Nightingale ; not upon 
 Wordsworth, but upon two poems of 
 
52 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 Coleridge, and in particular upon the 
 fragment Kubla Khan -, hardly upon Byron 
 or Shelley at all, but upon Chatterton, the 
 wonderful boy ; and from this point of 
 view William Morris and Rossetti loom 
 much larger than Tennyson, Browning and 
 Mathew Arnold. Even to include Burns 
 among the high elect Watts Dunton has to 
 enlarge his definition of Romanticism to 
 include Humour, a thing which William 
 Morris and Rossetti even would not allow. 
 And when we, under the influence of 
 this new canon of criticism, come to apply 
 it to the New Poetry of Wales, we find, as 
 the analyst would say on the using of a new 
 re-agent, " no precipitate." When we 
 attempt to consider Awdl " Tr Hap'* and 
 Caneuon a Cherddi in the light of the 
 Renascence of Wonder, we do not feel in 
 any way that we have discovered their secret. 
 In fact all Poetry is Wonder. And yet 
 there is something new in Yr Hafzn^ in 
 Caneuon a Cherddi^ to find which we must 
 apply some other touchstone. And we 
 
Challenge and Sanity 53 
 
 have not far to go in search of it. Watts 
 Dunton in his further remarks uses an 
 alternative phrase to this one of the Renas- 
 cence of Wonder : it is this, The Attitude 
 of Challenge. Here is the cause of our 
 quarrel with the former phrase ; the latter 
 is the opposite of The Attitude of Accep- 
 tance. Therefore the two great impulses 
 that sway man are not Acceptance and 
 Wonder, but Acceptance and Challenge. 
 Tr Haf2ind Caneuon a Cherddi are easily 
 understood from this point of view. The 
 New Poetry of Wales is the Poetry of 
 Challenge. 
 
 The word wonder has too wide a signifi- 
 cance to be the name of an attitude, and for 
 that same reason it is even more certainly 
 precluded from being the watchword of a 
 school of thought. It is not practical 
 enough for criticism. Moreover, as we 
 have pointed out, it hypnotizes and leads its 
 protagonists into false conclusions and mysti- 
 cism. Carlyle has strongly said that a 
 Prophet is impossible in an age of science. 
 
54 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 So is a Magician. So is Wonder. But 
 Glamour is not. Haeckel himself cannot 
 deny me Glamour. Glamour is a very- 
 sensible, possible thing. Glamour is as 
 much a physical fact as a Rainbow. And 
 it is nothing more. Let me realize this, 
 and I shall not do myself wrong. Let 
 me be able to express it, and still realize 
 what it is, and I shall be a poet, but above 
 all a Sane Poet. Give us Sanity in Poetry 
 above all things. We do not think Kubla 
 Khan nor the Demon Lover insane ; but 
 we have a suspicion that there is something 
 wrong with the Coming of Love. The 
 poet has fallen in love with his marble 
 statue, and made it live. It has kissed 
 him, and he has forgotten himself. 
 
 While, then, there is not much of this 
 strict artificial Spirit of Wonder in Welsh 
 Poetry, there is plenty of Glamour about it. 
 When Eifion Wyn asks, 
 
 Wyt lonawr yn oer 
 A'th farug yn wyn, 
 
Challenge and Sanity 55 
 
 A pha beth a wnaeihost 
 I ddwr y llyn ? 
 
 he does not make the mistake of preaching 
 the doctrine of the malignancy of Nature, 
 he merely gives you the glamour that sur- 
 rounds the conception that January was 
 some Person that had done something 
 strange to the surface of the pond. Mystics 
 make dogmas out of what are merely 
 imaginative consolations. Every poet in 
 his senses only plays at make-believe. 
 
 Take again the mystical idea of the 
 Omnipotence of Love. It is too dogmatic 
 to be poetical. If Poetry does preach the 
 Omnipotence of Love, it does so only for 
 its own selfish purpose. It is only a trick. 
 In regard to Love, the function of Poetry 
 is to express how great and divine a thing 
 is love. One of the means of Poetry to 
 express this is by saying it exists in all 
 things and is supreme over all things. That 
 is Poetry's way of explaining itself. In 
 order to be vivid, it over-colours. The 
 Poet in point of Fact is the biggest Liar in 
 
56 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 the world. The only ultimate thing you 
 can say about Love is that it exists. And 
 it is a very sane thing to sav about Love, 
 that Love is very absurd. As Eifion Wyn 
 shows his sanity on the question of Wonder, 
 so Mr. W. J. GrufFudd shows his sanity on 
 the question of Love : 
 
 Os rheswm oer fyn fy neffro 
 O freuddwyd fy ngwallgof ^txch, 
 Os meddwl yn unig a wnaethum 
 Fod purdeb yng nghalon fy march ; 
 Gwell gennyf ^^/ afradlonedd 
 Cariad, na rheswm y byd, 
 Ac er fod fy mreuddwyd yn yfflon 
 Dygyfor mat hiraeth o hyd. 
 
 To say that love is mad is very sane ; to 
 admit that imagination had idealised the 
 maiden is very scientific ; to complain that 
 Love is master is very human. And if you 
 are sane, scientific, and human, are you then 
 less of a Poet? 
 
 Again, Awdl Tr Haf is constructed 
 entirely on the theme of Love, To the 
 poet in this poem Love is everything, but 
 
Challenge and Sanity 57 
 
 he does not lose his senses and preach the 
 narrow-minded dogma of the Omnipotence 
 of Love. He does not run in his ecstasy 
 and leap on to a mountain side, and scrambl- 
 ing to the top of it, hug the mountain peak, 
 and cry, " O Mountain Peak, thou art 
 Love." And yet he says : 
 
 Ni chenfydd serch nefoedd sant. 
 Which is a very sane remark to make. 
 And Mr. GrufFudd is equally precise : 
 
 'Does Nefoedd nac Uffern 
 Yn Eden ei hud. 
 
 Llion in Tr iF/^ philosophises over Love 
 in a very poetical and concrete manner. 
 Because the treatment is imaginative and 
 poetical there is Glamour about the poem ; 
 and because there is a concrete exposition of 
 the theme there is Sanity about the poem. 
 And we do not see what there is needed to 
 make Poetry save Glamour and Sanity. 
 Rhyme creates Glamour, so does Rhythm, 
 Sweetness of Verse,Vowel colour. Consonant 
 melody, Imaginative Passion. The reason 
 
58 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 why the Poet is supreme over all artists is 
 that he can create Glamour. If a Poet can 
 produce for us the glamour of any occasion, 
 then he can re-create for us the occasion of 
 the glamour. A poet is really not writing 
 poetry unless he is coining Glamour. To 
 describe by catalogue a beautiful scene does 
 not fashion the glamour of the scene. This 
 end can be achieved only by what we have 
 discussed in a previous essay as the Subjective 
 Method of writing verse. One example 
 from Tr Haf will suffice here. It is a 
 description of rustling leaves. If we say the 
 leaves on the trees were rustling, we do not 
 produce the Glamour of the occasion, and 
 therefore do not in truth re-create the 
 occasion. But Llion does it in these lines : 
 
 A mi'n gwrandaw mwyn gryndod 
 Hyd y dail yn mynd a dod, 
 A'r prennau ir y prynhawn 
 Ym min cwsg mwyn ac ysgawn, 
 A'r awel sorth, ar ol suo wrthyn^ 
 Yn mynd a'u gadael am enyd gyna^^n. 
 The sanity of the poem lies in its logic. 
 
Challenge and Sanity 59 
 
 The philosophy of the poet is elaborated on 
 strict scientific grounds. Mysticism is 
 deliberately rejected. Optimists, Theorists, 
 Pessimists, Scholiasts come to him in turn 
 with their consolations and their warnings, 
 and he meets them all with a supreme, 
 erect, unabashed Sanity. And the contri- 
 bution to thought in the following couplet 
 is not a rejection of spirituality but a lyrical 
 and philosophic foundation of faith : 
 
 Ba enaid wyr ben y daith ? 
 Bid anwybod yn obaith. 
 
 And the poet who is enough of a humourist 
 to defend to the utmost his theory that Love 
 is deathless, and who can afterwards bend 
 to admit that even if Love does die, he is all 
 the better . morally for the very experience 
 of its loss, such a poet is too much of a man 
 to become infatuated with the hypertrophied 
 creations of his own imagination ; such a 
 poet is too sane to be sentimental, too much 
 of a humourist to be a mystic. When 
 Poetry is seen to be of similar contour to 
 
6o Challenge and Sanity 
 
 Life, then that Poetry approaches the 
 supreme. You cannot gainsay couplets of 
 this dimension : 
 
 Marw i fyw mae'r haf o hyd ; 
 Gwell wyf o'i golli hefyd. 
 
 It is the impulse of Challenge that begets 
 Sanity. And Challenge is the keynote of 
 the new poetry in Wales. 
 
 There is the social challenge of New 
 Wales ringing in the strong verse of 
 Professor Morris Jones' Cymru Fu : Cymru 
 Fydd : a challenge to Saxon and to Turn- 
 coat, a cry that Young Wales is adopting 
 in every valley, a cry, we pray to Heaven, 
 that will grow louder and stronger day 
 by day till the time come to give over 
 challenging, till the time come to fight, 
 and to win. 
 
 Rhyw chwai eiriau rhy chwerwon ? 
 Chwerw, fy mrawd, a chur fy mron. 
 Hen fonedd a fu unwaith 
 I'n gwlad gu, loywed eu gwaith ! 
 
Challenge and Sanity 6i 
 
 I'w He daeth bonedd heddyw 
 A'u goreu waith gware yw. 
 
 It is a challenge to the Sycophants : 
 
 Ai er gwobr, neu am ryw ged 
 Yr wylodd Tudur Aled ? 
 
 It is no vapid sentimentalising over G'Vflad y 
 Menyg G'^ynion and Nefol Wlad y Gan, but 
 a flinging of the glove to the Pharisee 
 among the Cymry ; it is a plea for a cleaner 
 Wales : 
 
 Arglwyddi, yn wir, gwleddant 
 
 Yn segur ar gur rhyw gant ; 
 
 A beirdd sydd ofer gleriach 
 
 Yn brefu am ryw wobr fach ; 
 
 A gweision Ign, hyn sy'n waeth — 
 
 Boddio am gydnabyddiaeth, 
 
 Neu ymladd am hen waddol 
 
 A'r wir efengyl ar ol. 
 
 It is, too, the challenge of the folk, the 
 gwerin, to its ignorant, pompous lords. It 
 is time we had a Salm i Famon in cynghanedd. 
 Our national poetry is overweighted with 
 eulogy and base, ignoble flattery. It is 
 
62 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 stirring to hear the cry of the people, the 
 cry of the heart of the people. It is tragic 
 that the tongue says that which the heart 
 knows not. Welsh bard and Welsh pea: ant 
 have bowed down too long to the petty 
 child of chance : 
 
 Plygu'n llu, megis i'r llaid 
 I'w addoli wna'i ddeiliaid. 
 
 Ei air ef yvv eu crefydd 
 
 A'i ffafr yw sylfaen eu ffydd. 
 
 There is a hint of this folk revolt in Mr. 
 W, J. GrufFudd, where he sings of ^r Hen 
 
 Chfparehr : 
 
 Chwyddodd gyfoeth gwr yr aur a'r faenol 
 O'i enillion prin a'i amal gur. 
 
 And Mr. Gwynn Jones has the contempt 
 that breedeth challenge : 
 
 Ond er ei uched pan lasweno'n gas, 
 Mae chwerwder ysbryd yn ei ragrith bas ; 
 
 Os nad yw heddyw'n dlotyn ar y plwy, 
 Y mae er hynny'n dlotyn yn y plas. 
 
Challenge and Sanity 63 
 
 But in the new Welsh poetry there is a 
 greater revolt, a vaster challenge than this. 
 This is a revolt to which one can find the 
 key in the national history. But the vaster 
 revolt is in a way un- national, and if not 
 un -natural at least sudden. The former 
 challenge was the revolt of the body against 
 a historical necessity. This is a revolt of 
 the intellect against what it considers super- 
 stitious conventions, fit only for a dark age. 
 The three poems that signify this intellec- 
 tual revolt are, in the order of their appear- 
 ance, Ar yr Jl/t, 1896 ; Penillion Omar 
 Khayyam^ igoy ; and J^r Haf, 191 1. 
 These three poems typify what we have 
 called the Coming of Sanity, in respect to 
 the attitude towards spiritual faith. And 
 when we use the word Sanity to characterise 
 this attitude, we do not wish to be mis- 
 understood. We do not assert that Sanity 
 is Truth. A thing, an attitude, may be 
 sane, but it does not logically follow that it 
 is ultimately true. Hence, when we say 
 that the criticism of life in these three poems 
 
64 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 is a sane one, we do not claim infallibility 
 for that criticism. 
 
 This new poetry attempts to come into 
 intimate touch with things. It is no mere 
 trifling with Daffodils and My Lady of 
 Pain. It is an attempt to satisfy the spirit's 
 yearning for spirituality. It is an expression 
 of contempt for compromise, and for the 
 lazy lagging of the dull world. It is an 
 appeal for Individuality. It asks of the 
 Puritan, what the Puritan asked of the 
 Catholic. It is the cry for a New Reforma- 
 tion. The Puritan said of old : Give me 
 leave to make religion my own matter. 
 The poet of Ar yr Allt says to the Puritan 
 of to-day : Give me leave to make religion 
 my own matter : 
 
 Gwrandewais eiriau dyfnion Koheleth, 
 
 A dysgais ganddo waced yw pob path ; 
 
 Un peth sydd dda — gwna Nefoedd it dy 
 Hun, 
 
 A chyrcha ati weithian yn ddi-feth ! 
 That the poet should choose this for his 
 Heaven is a matter for himself; 
 
Challenge and Sanity 65 
 
 A beth OS yw fy Nefoedd oreu i 
 
 Yn gorwedd yn dy Fynwes stormus di ? 
 
 Mi gyrchaf ati pe bai Daer a Nef 
 
 Yn cynnyg imi'n hytrach Werth eu Bri. 
 
 And this is just the mood of Omar : 
 
 Chwiliais, tu hwnt i'r wybren bellaf un 
 Am Bin a Llech, Nef, Uffern, cyn creu dyn ; 
 F'Athro a'm dysgodd i — "Mae'rPin a'r Llech 
 " A Nef ac Uffern ynot ti dy hun." 
 
 And again : 
 
 Na dderbyn dithau mo'u credoau crin, 
 Ond dyro damaid i'r anghenog blin ; 
 Absen na wna, ac na niweidia neb, 
 Mi wrantaf iti Nefoedd. — Dwg im win. 
 
 And better still : 
 
 Mewn synagog ac ysgol, Han a thref, 
 Arswydant Uffern a deisyfant Nef; 
 Ond nid yw'r neb a \Vyr gyfrinach Duw 
 Yn hau'r fath efrau yn ei galon ef. 
 
 And the ultimate : 
 
 O ddeuddeg ffydd a thrigain eiu byd ni, 
 Dy gariad, Ion, yw f'unig grefydd i ; 
 
66 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 Anghred a chred, ufuddd-od, bai, beth ^nt ? 
 Gwagedd. Ac nid oes sylwedd ond Tydi. 
 
 A'^dl Tr Haf is full of Challenge. But 
 it is not the challenge of Despair ; it is not 
 dull, deadening, oppressive. Ar yr Allt is 
 the challenge of a man who has spent half 
 his summers seeking Truth, and who is 
 determined to give up the search for the 
 remainder of his life : 
 
 Ni chrwydraf mwyach dros y ddyfnllais Don, 
 Choleddaf yr un Breuddwyd dan fy Mron. 
 Mae Heddyw'n siwr a Chariad Heddyw'n 
 
 llawn, 
 Anweswn Serch, fy Ngwen, a byddwn Ion. 
 
 The Rubaiyat (according to Fitzgerald) is 
 the challenge of an old man who has spent 
 his days, and laughs at them all : 
 
 And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, 
 End in the Nothing all Things end in — Yes — 
 Then fancy while thou art, thou art but what 
 Thou shalt be — Nothing — Thou shalt not 
 be less. 
 
 There is something sinister ^bput tjhes^ 
 
Challenge and Sanity 67 
 
 two philosophies. Life is something very 
 heavy. They are the voices of men who 
 have attempted and failed. There is an 
 ugly hint of disappointment in the notes. 
 But A-^dlYr Haf is young and conquering. 
 Omar and the poet of Jr yr Allt are 
 disgusted with Yesterday, and To-morrow 
 does not exist for them. But the Summer 
 poet thinks Yesterday as wonderful as 
 To-day ; and a Yesterday really lived is 
 worth the living of To-day : 
 
 Hyd wyneb y ddaear a hi'n y blodyn 
 Cenais, Duw a i^yr, canys aderyn 
 A fum yn pyncio f'emyn, ag erioed 
 Ni chant yn y coed, na chynt nac wedyn 
 'R un dryvv bach mor iach a rhydd, 
 A thlawd fa'i cathl ehedydd 
 Wrth ddyfnder y mwynder mau, 
 Ddedwydded oedd y dyddiau. 
 
 This poet does not make the Passing of 
 To-day a matter of Regret nor of Ironic 
 Laughter. His is a wonderful Hope : it 
 can look back as well as forward. Because 
 To-dav has falsified Yestqrdav's Hope, that 
 
68 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 does not nullify or strangle Yesterday's 
 Hope. Hope is not a dream child to him. 
 Hope is a spiritual force ; it has the strength 
 of eternity behind it : 
 
 Od aeth fy Medi eithaf 
 
 Gyda'i rug a'i adar haf, 
 
 A dyfod cri y dufedd 
 
 Am ei ysbail dail dihedd 
 A meirwon, ba waeth ? Mae'r hen obeithion 
 Yn rhedeg eilwaith drwy waed y galon. 
 O choUwyd hen freuddwydion, nid marw 
 
 chwaith 
 O theimlais unwaith eu melus swynion. 
 
 That is our poet's view of Yesterday : sane, 
 magical, inspiring, uplifting. 
 
 Very sane and healthy and scientific and 
 wise is his view of To-day. His philosophy 
 of Hope is very exact : Hope and Joy are 
 not peers ; they cannot live in the same air. 
 Joy puts out the light of Hope. He says : 
 Of little worth do I consider my summer, 
 if I hope mthal^ — 
 
 Beth yw fy haf, o gobeithiwyf hefyd ? 
 
Challenge and Sanity 69 
 
 It is enough for Joy and Summer to kno'^ 
 that there is an Angel of Hope : 
 Myfi ym Mai fy mywyd 
 Ganaf y Mai, gwyn fy myd. 
 Ag i f'anwylyd gwelaf fy nhalaith 
 Violed a rhos yn fil dyryswaith. 
 Anwesaf hud ; mae'r nos faith yn dyfod, 
 A digon yw gwybod — gwyn yw gobaitli. 
 
 And the poet to whom Yesterday and 
 To-day are so sublime must have a great 
 conception of To-morrow. — No, not of 
 necessity. Yesterday was sublime because 
 he actually experienced it. To-day is sweet 
 because he can actually taste it. He cannot 
 experience nor taste To-morrow. Mystics, 
 Optimists, Dreamers, Frenzied Puritans, 
 think they can. Our poet is sane, and wise. 
 "To-morrow !" he meditates," To-morrow ! 
 all I know about To-morrow is that I do 
 not know it." And, therefore, his Joy 
 finishes with To-day. For Joy is not a 
 dream but a Fact. And To-morrow has no 
 Facts. And then his superb philosophy 
 justifies itself: To-day I have Joy, there- 
 
70 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 fore I am not in need of Hope. I have no 
 Joy for To-morrow, therefore I can Hope 
 with all my soul ; and my Hope for 
 To-morrow is my Ignorance of To-morrow. 
 Thus he gives his new Spiritual Gospel 
 of Reason to the world : 
 
 Ba enaid ^yr ben y daith sy'n dyfod? 
 Boed ei anwybod i'r byd yn obaith ! 
 
 This teaching does not reject Faith and 
 Hope. Rather it has a fine spiritual and 
 moral effect, even if it has no spiritual 
 purpose. It does not reject Puritan- 
 ism ; it rejects some of the props of 
 Puritanism. It does not accept. Epicurean- 
 ism as a creed ; it accepts part of it as a 
 necessity. It is a gospel that satisfies the 
 senses and the soul. The Hermit first, and 
 the Puritan afterwards ignored the senses. 
 The Epicurean first, and every man of the 
 world since, has tried to ignore the soul. 
 To admit that neither can be ignored is the 
 only sane criticism. To build up a creed 
 to meet it, as Llion has done, is Sanity in 
 
Challenge and Sanity 71 
 
 Poetry. Let him not be misunderstood. 
 He has not said the last word on the subject 
 even to himself. A'^dl yr Haf is only one 
 half of the argument. It is a plea for the 
 spiritual function of the senses. Shall we 
 hope for the creed complete from him ? — 
 for the plea for the wordly function of the 
 soul ? Are the great spiritual traditions of 
 Cymru to be totally ignored by the New 
 Poets of our nation ? We think not. This 
 attitude of Challenge and Sanity is not finaU 
 It is not a rejection of the spirituality of our 
 fathers. It is only a tuning up of the national 
 chords to enable them to capture and 
 express the new harmonies of the new heart 
 of the new Cymru. — 
 
 Eitha OS du yw, na thristawn, 
 Mewn da bryd, cyfyd cyfiawn 
 I'th arwain o gaeth oror 
 I rydd wasanaeth yr lor ; 
 Dwyn o aflan wasanaeth 
 Gau Famon feibion dy faeth : 
 E dyr gwawr, wlad ragorwen, 
 Nac wyla, O Walia Wen. 
 
72 Challenge and Sanity 
 
 Thus sings the poet of Cymru Fu : Cymru 
 Fydd, And with him we appeal to our 
 compatriots to deal kindly with these new 
 poets, for we can vouch for it by all that is 
 dear to us that they love Wales more than 
 all the poets that have ever sung to her. 
 
 If their songs are new, their hearts too 
 are on fire : 
 
 Ac k newydd ganeuon, 
 A thanbaid enaid y don'. 
 
Spectacles 
 
 Wales has many a critic, but no Criticism. 
 Criticism means above all things, a Point of 
 View. And this must not be merely a 
 personal one ; it must be logical, reasonable, 
 and scientific. Welsh criticism is too often 
 merely personal prejudice. It has no plan, 
 no principles. 
 
 When a new poet, such as Mr. Gwynn 
 Jones, publishes a volume of verse, outcome 
 the critics in swarms to buzz around him ; 
 buzzing the more, the less they understand. 
 They come, saying : We do not know very 
 much about the poetry of England and 
 Greece and Rome, but we do know Robin 
 Ddu Eryri and Twm oV Nant, and we 
 have read Grammadeg Bardd Nantglyn ; 
 therefore we ought to be able to tell what 
 sort of a poet Mr. Gwynn Jones is. 
 
 73 
 
74 Spectacles 
 
 It is really fatuous to attempt criticism 
 with such meagre equipment ; and it is 
 sheer insolence on the part of such palpably- 
 untrained men to attempt to review the new 
 poetry of Wales as they do, through the 
 most antiquated and befogged spectacles 
 imaginable. 
 
 The fault lies not so much with their 
 sight as with the literary spectacles they 
 affect. A critic must have spectacles. 
 The poet is the only being who can see 
 into the heart of things by virtue of his 
 sight alone. If Macaulay himself came to 
 study Welsh poetry, he would never under- 
 stand it, if he had on only the Nantglyn 
 spectacles. 
 
 There has never been a high standard of 
 poetry in Wales ; that is, no universal plat- 
 form from which all the poets sing. There 
 have been some single platforms, it is true. 
 Dafydd ap Gwilym had his own little 
 rostrum, though that was not entirely of 
 his own building : it was a plank of the 
 large European Troubadour stage of his own 
 
SPECtACLES 75 
 
 day. Ceiriog had his larger plank ; but it 
 was his own ; no one else shared it (unless 
 it be Ceiriog's fault that we have so many- 
 loose versifiers nowadays). Then, Islwyn 
 thundered from his loosely built pulpit, and 
 that very eiFectually at times. 
 
 True, these poets had their individual 
 standards, and excellent ones they were. 
 But they were not universal, not orderly, 
 and not generally recognised. 
 
 To-day, the New Poets of Wales are 
 working with one accord in the same habi- 
 tation. In the literatures of Germany, 
 England, and France, the governing spirit 
 is that of Romance, and Romance is the 
 soul of the new poetry in Wales. The 
 Hall of Romance is built on four pillars : 
 Inspiration ; Truth ; Passion j Style. And 
 on each pillar is graven : 
 
 Seek Inspiration in the Past, 
 
 Seek Truth in the Present. 
 
 Seek Passion in the Heart, 
 
 Seek Expression in Perfect Technique 
 
76 Spectacles 
 
 That is the Palace of Poetry that is being 
 built throughout Europe this very day. 
 And the Welsh hall of song must be put up 
 on that plan. The New Poets of Wales 
 are unanimous upon the scheme. That is 
 the scheme of the poets. And that must be 
 the outlook of the critic. For we, poor 
 critics, after all, are only envious on-lookers. 
 But the more anxious we are to 'ponder at it 
 all, the more certain are we to understand 
 it. And the more eager we are to scoffs and 
 to cry " Rubbish," the less and less shall we 
 see, and the less shall we understand. The 
 poets are at it already building the hall ; let 
 us, therefore, ask them to show us the plans. 
 Let us scofF afterwards at our peril. 
 
 The critic must take his cue from the 
 poet, for the poet is greater than the critic. 
 He must not attempt to understand the new 
 poets until he has learnt to understand what 
 the new poets are trying to do. It is 
 impossible to understand the Awdl G'^lad y 
 Bryniau merely by reading Twm o'r Nant 
 and Bardd Nantglyn, The key to G'^lad 
 
Spectacles 77 
 
 j; Bryniau is to be found in Wordsworth, 
 and Coleridge, and Rossetti, and Matthew 
 Arnold, and Theodore Watts Dunton. 
 
 We will take one example of the 
 spectacle-less critic. This burden is always 
 recurring in his numbers : Why bother 
 about style ? Is not the Soul of Song the 
 all in all ? An angel is an angel even in 
 rags, and a scarecrow is no other even in 
 silk ! They say : 
 
 " Gwell gennym weled angel mewn braiiau 
 na bwgan brain mewn pali." 
 They mean that technique is of little conse- 
 quence in Literature. 
 
 But this sentence begs the whole question. 
 For there has not been seen since the world 
 began, nor will there ever be seen to the end 
 of time such a sight as an ^^ angel me'Vpn 
 bratiau " or a " b'^gan brain me-^n pali '* in 
 Literature. 
 
 What is Literature ? Conversation, Small 
 Talk, Penny Novelettes, Newspaper Corres- 
 pondence, and Amateur Critiques have seen 
 many an angel in rags and many a scarecrow 
 
78 Spectacles 
 
 in silk, but Literature never has. Literature 
 is not Conversation, Small Talk, Penny- 
 Novelettes, Correspondence, and Amateur 
 Criticism. Literature contains nothing but 
 Angels in Silk. And you must have the 
 Angel and the Silk, the Soul and the Body, 
 the Thought and the Expression in all 
 Prose, in all Poetry ; or else it is not Prose, 
 but Talk ; not Poetry, but Rigmarole. 
 
 Has a Painter ever painted a picture full 
 of life, with his lines wrong, or his 
 shadows haphazard ? Has a Sculptor carved 
 a Venus full of love, with the figure curves 
 out of shape ? 
 
 Can a Poet write a poem full of love and 
 life, with the words ill-chosen, and the 
 grammar incorrect, the rhyme discordant, 
 and the rhythm unpremeditated ? 
 
 If so, then indeed we are all Painters, 
 Sculptors, Poets, 
 
Verse Making 
 
 We cannot get a better general text for a 
 discussion of versification as an art than 
 this sentence of Leigh Hunt : 
 
 " Every fine poet is an excellent versi- 
 fier; and he is the best poet whose verse 
 exhibits the greatest amount of Strength, 
 Sweetness, Straightforwardness, Un- 
 superfluousness, Variety, and Oneness." 
 And we shall apply these principles, in a 
 running comment, to our own poets* verses. 
 The verse of a good poet must be strong, 
 sweet, natural, direct, various, and uniform. 
 The verse must be strong. 
 Strength shows itself in the number and 
 force of the marked syllables. This strength 
 must be premeditated ; must be brain- 
 worked and not machined. 
 79 
 
8o Verse Making 
 
 Let us examine three selections side by 
 side : 
 
 Y fun iraidd fwjrn, cly^ ganii clau g^yn, 
 Dy harddwch dy hj^n, Ian Fenws, Ion fun. 
 
 Huw Morns. 
 
 The poet seems to treat the maiden in his 
 verse as if she were put into a barrel and 
 rolled down a rocky hill-side. The stress 
 is thoughtless, overdone, and therefore fatal 
 to good poetry. 
 
 Aros m^e*r mynj^ddau mawr 
 Rhtio drbstynt m^e y gw>^nt. 
 
 Ceiriog. 
 
 This Stress is in no way premeditated : it is 
 mere machine progress ; it adds nothing to 
 the meaning of the words ; it leaves no 
 impression but that of monotony upon the 
 reader's mind. This mere machine-made 
 stress of regular accented syllable followed by 
 unaccented is, therefore, not a strength, but 
 a source of ultimate weakness. For notice 
 that the line 
 
 Eto tj^fa'r lljrgad dydd 
 
Verse Making 8i 
 
 gets exactly the same thoughtless weight 
 upon it as 
 
 Arcs mae'r mynj^ddau m^wr. 
 
 And yet what a world of difference between 
 the dynamic frailty of the one and the static 
 hugeness of the other. 
 
 Cryf oedd swn ei gryman yn yr eithin, 
 
 Union ar y dalar oedd ei gwys, 
 Yn gj^nnar ar y mynydd oedd ei fedel, 
 Yn hwj^r ar ben ei ra^ y rhoddai'i bw}'s. 
 W.J. Gruffydd. 
 
 One feels at once in the above the happy 
 compromise between the heavy frequent 
 blows of Huw Morus and the enervating 
 recurrence of the stress in Ceiriog. And in 
 particular it is to be noted how the stress 
 comes always upon the important words in 
 the sentences. The last four lines should 
 be read aloud in order that the sweets of 
 real versification, such as the variety of stress, 
 and the happy marriage of accent and sense 
 should be enjoyed, 
 
82 Verse Making 
 
 Verse must be sweet. And the sweet- 
 ness of verse depends upon the Melody of 
 its consonants and the Harmony of its 
 vowels. Consonantal Melody in verse 
 means the selection of words whose chief 
 consonants when listened to in their 
 sequence give the ear the satisfaction of 
 music, and give the spirit the satisfaction of 
 appropriateness. 
 
 Here is verse by Mynyddog that lacks 
 melody in its consonants, and is particularly 
 inappropriate to express the sweetness an 
 Evensong demands : 
 
 H'Vyrgan, 
 
 Yr hwyrnos brudd sy'n ocheneididn wanllyd 
 Wrth roi ei phen i lawr mewn melus hun, 
 Mae'r bryniau oil mewn dwyfol orchudd 
 tanllyd 
 Yn moli Duw am wylio dyn. 
 
 Ceiriog at his best had a fine ear for the 
 Melody of Consonants ; and his power con- 
 sisted in the appropriate selection of con- 
 sonants with due regard to the sense, 
 
Verse Making 83 
 
 coupled with their tender repetition in an 
 ingenuous free cynghanedd : 
 
 A ddowch chwi' rwyfo ar yr afon^ 
 A ddowch chwi' ganu yno'n gor ? 
 I wel'd hynawsed ydyw'r noson^ 
 A mwyned murmur tonnau'r mdr. 
 A gawn mfyned ar y Fenai^ heno, 
 I Ynys Mona rhwyfwn gydcCr don : 
 O dowch i ganu, dow^ch i nofio, 
 Dowch i rwyfo gyda'r don : 
 Mae croeso anwyl ini yno^ 
 O mwyfi yw myned tua Mon. 
 
 Besides Melody of Consonants, Sweetness 
 in verse is made up of Harmony in Vowels. 
 Or to vary the figure, carefully chosen 
 consonants give Melody to verse ; carefully 
 chosen vowels give it Colour. The primary 
 rule of Vowel Colour is that the Colours 
 must not clash. Artists will tell you it is 
 very bad art to put together two colours 
 that belong to the same species ; and even a 
 schoolgirl would not wear a pink blouse 
 with a purple skirt ; and yet our poets (who 
 claim to be artists in words) are continually 
 
84 Verse Making 
 
 clashing their vowel colours. It is with 
 their Rhymes that they err most in this 
 respect. Two tints of pink can never be 
 the same pink, and yet two tints of one 
 vowel sound will serve as a rhyme for our 
 careless poets. The result is a most awful 
 clash of sound. Islwyn has them on every 
 page: 
 
 Fel dor blygedig egyr ef i ti 
 A'r enaid rodia i ryw wynfa/«. 
 
 Elfed teems with them : 
 
 Mae'r tywyll goed 
 Yn ysgafn^aw ; 
 Arnynt fe roed 
 Addewid Mai : 
 'Does neb ond Duw yr haul 
 Yn cofio'r coed di ddail. 
 
 In the above there is a treble discord : 
 ysgafnhau clashes with Mai instead of 
 rhyming with it ; haul clashes with ddail 
 instead of rhyming with it ; and the first 
 attempt at rhyme ysgafnhau — Mai clashes 
 with the second attempt haul — daily because 
 the sound effect is siniilar and it ought tq 
 
Verse Making 85 
 
 be dissimilar. But the Vowel Colour that 
 makes for sweetness in verse is not a question 
 of Rhyme alone : it is a matter of the whole 
 sequence of vowel sounds in the lines ; and 
 two general rules for the purpose may be 
 expressed thus : there must be a Contrast 
 of Sound, and Gradation of Sound. Eiiion 
 Wyn has many fine examples of simple 
 harmony of sound by contrast, and the 
 following verse contains, with the exception 
 of one clash, a beautiful scheme of vowel- 
 colour : 
 
 Wyt lonawr yn oer 
 A'th farrug yn wyn ; 
 A sigli yr adar 
 O frig yr ynn ; 
 Ni cheir ar y coed 
 Griafol fel bu— 
 Mae'r frongoch a'r fwyalch 
 O df i d^ 
 
 The clash comes in the third and fourth 
 lines : 
 
 A sigli yr adar 
 
 O frig yr ynn, — 
 
86 Verse Making 
 
 There is not quite enough of a contrast 
 
 between the vowel sound in stgli — -/rig — ynn. 
 Luxury of sound is as fatal to sweetness 
 
 as discord is. Here is a debauch of colour 
 
 in Islwyn : 
 
 Nid oes chwyth 
 O naws gauafol fyth yn disgyn ar 
 Amfrwysol bethau ei ramantol awr 
 Afreision godent mewn un nos ar hyd 
 Fell arwynfaoedd ei freuddwydion ef. 
 
 But Islwyn has many good examples of 
 the Sweetness that consists of Consonant 
 Melody, Contrast, and Gradation of Vowel: 
 
 Hudoles ber o gylch yr aber Ion 
 A'th galon gyda'r daran bell a'r mor ! 
 
 The sweetness here is unmistakable, and 
 is made up of the recurring soft consonants, 
 the ^s and b\ and g\ and /'s and r's ; and 
 the e and o colours in vowel : 
 
 When poets begin preaching they lose 
 their Sweetness, as Ceiriog did here : 
 
 'Does dim ond eisieu dechreu, 
 Mae dechreu'n haner gwaith, 
 
Verse Making Sj 
 
 I ddysgu pob gwybodau 
 A deall unrhyw iaith. 
 Nac ofnwch anhawsderau 
 'Does un gelfyddyd dan y rhod 
 Nad all y meddwl diwyd ddod 
 I'w deall wedi dechreu. 
 
 But when he keeps to his singing, the 
 Melody and Chords of it 
 
 Cwyd, cwyd, ehedydd, cwyd, 
 
 O le i le ar aden Iwyd^ 
 
 Yn uwch, yn uwch o hyd : 
 
 Can, cdn dy ddernyn cu, 
 
 A dos yn nes at lawen lu 
 
 Adawodd boen y byd, — 
 
 Canu mae, a'r byd a glyw 
 
 Ei alaw Ion o uchel le : 
 
 Cyfyd hiraeth dynol ryw 
 
 Ar ei ol i froydd n^: 
 
 Yn nes at Ddydd, yn nes at Dduw, 
 
 Ifynyfelefe, 
 
 Very little sweetness is discoverable in the 
 verse printed in our periodicals and Colofnau 
 y Beirdd now-a-days ; and it was with 
 intense amusement that we heard that the 
 
SS Verse Making 
 
 following Sonnet, superb in this Sweetness, 
 was rejected by the Genhinen : 
 
 Gwna'n llawen, RuiTydd, yn dy hafan swyn. 
 
 Rhy brin yw'r byd o hoywder bron y bardd, 
 
 Rhy brin o hyd o loywder wybren hardd 
 
 I fedru hepgor glesni nef a llwyn 
 
 Yn nydd eu hoywder. Yno er dy fwyn 
 
 Mae gallt a gwig a chlogwyn gwyllt a gardd 
 
 Yn dwyn eu cynnwys teg, can's yno tardd 
 
 Ym mi a aberoedd gwiw, mewn bro ddigwyn, 
 
 Lliwiau yr Eden goll ar dan i gyd 
 
 Gan serch pob serch. Gwna'n llawen, fardd, 
 
 dy fun. 
 Llawn, llawn o'r gwin yw llais y gain ei llun, 
 A'i meddal drem o hedd pob meddwl drud. 
 O, dwfn o hyd yw hoen dy hafan di, 
 Lie huna gardd a llwyn ger hedd y Hi. 
 
 Llion. 
 
 While sweetness in verse is essential, 
 smoothness of verse is a vice. It is smooth- 
 ness really that makes second-rate verse 
 unreadable. Smoothness in the end makes 
 all poetry unreadable. No good poetry is 
 ever like an imperceptibly flowing river. 
 
Verse Making 89 
 
 The sea on a calm summer's noon is not 
 poetry. Poetry is the sea in storm, or, 
 more generally, the sea with ripples and a 
 swell, no ripple like another, and no wave 
 exactly like its peers. Good poetry is the 
 brook ever going on, ever keeping its own 
 course, true to its own song, but with 
 never a note exactly similar, with never an 
 eddy the very same. For good verse should 
 be ultrasensitive to the thought it bears, just 
 as the brook is sensitive to the course it 
 covers : gurgling under a stone, spurting 
 over a jagged flint, smooth on the gravel, 
 eddying in the willows, glistening on the 
 pebbles, grave only under the lush grass in 
 the shadows. 
 
 This trend has already led us to the other 
 important requisite of verse, Variety. 
 
 In Islwyn's Pryddest to Cymru we find 
 abundant examples of monotonous verse, 
 monotonous in its very smoothness, in its 
 superfluity of mellifluous words, lacking 
 variety in the cadence of what ultimately 
 becomes its oppressive rhythm ; 
 
90 Verse Making 
 
 Hoff Ddyffryn Clwyd yng nghofion yr ym- 
 
 deithydd 
 A gwyd fel delwedd o brydferthwch llonydd. 
 Teilynga y flaenoriaeth am lonyddwch, 
 Ei olygfeydd a'i baradwysaidd heddwch. 
 Llifeiriol lawnder donna dros ei dolydd, 
 Mor aur cynhaeaf yma sy ysplenydd. 
 
 Moreover it is not poetry, but prose ; and 
 poor prose at that, because it says nothing. 
 
 In Elfed's well-known Pryddest to 
 Lly welyn ein Llyw Olaf we find a much 
 more vigorous and live metre : 
 
 Tirion yw haf ar goed ym mis Mehefin 
 A blodau ar fin afonydd segur yn chwerthin. 
 Tirion yw glas y don, a mwynder ehedydd, 
 A chariad cyntaf merch, a diddanwch y 
 prydydd. 
 
 Wc certainly find variety in Elfed's versifi- 
 cation, but it tends to be as inefficacious as 
 Islwyn's smoothness. Verse demands 
 variety, not for the sake of variety, but 
 because of the sentiment. Even in a single 
 lyric the sentiment cannot be the same in 
 every line, although the whole lyric be 
 
Verse Making 91 
 
 overshadowed by the same thought ; and 
 as the sentiment changes, so should the 
 versification change to correspond with it. 
 The unknown author of" Y Fwyalchen yn 
 Llatai'* did not consciously introduce 
 variety into his verse ; he allowed the senti- 
 ment to do what it liked with his numbers, 
 and thus he wrote what he wanted to say 
 in exactly the natural manner he muld speak it: 
 
 O gwrando y beraidd Fwyalchen ! 
 Cl^w edn mibyft^ shrchhs^^ liib dil. 
 
 (That is the way to coax). 
 
 A ai di yn gtnnad heb oedi 
 At ferch fum i'n garu mor gu ? 
 
 And then with exquisite ingenuousness he 
 forgets all about his blackbird and addresses 
 " T geinhys ei g'^edd''^ in the manner of life, 
 in verse accented, not according to stereo- 
 typed and formal rule, but stressed by the 
 very passion of his heart : 
 
 Mae'n dda mod i'n galed fy nghalon, 
 Lliih blbdh drain gwyntbn yr allt. 
 
92 Verse Making 
 
 Mae'n dda mod i'n j^sgafn fy meddwl, 
 LlkVr banddl mel}n ei wallt ! 
 
 Was there ever more loveable scorn in the 
 world ? The variety in Llywelyn ein Llyw 
 Olaf is premeditated and unchangeable, so 
 that the sound will never help you to under- 
 stand the sense : 
 
 Tiriou fin hwyr yw arogl y gwair yn yr ydlan, 
 A ch^n mwyalchen ddifyr yng nghoed y 
 
 berllan, 
 Ond ym Mehefin mae porth y fynwent yn 
 
 ddadglo, 
 A bedd yn agor, a rhywrai gerllaw yn wylo. 
 
 The last two lines arouse no deeper feeling 
 than do the first two, simply because there 
 is a sameness about their very variety. 
 And again : 
 
 Ynddi dysgasom garu yr enw Rhyfeddol, 
 A chanu i'r lesu yn ymyl yr Afon Lifeiriol, 
 Ynddi gweddiwn " Ein Tad yr hwn wyt yn 
 
 y Nefoedd, 
 I'r Enw y byddo'r gogoniant fry yn oes 
 
 oesoedd," 
 
Verse Making 93 
 
 Er mwyn ein gwlad dioddefwn, a chenedl 
 
 y Brython, 
 Dros ryddid a hedd, drwy undeb a chalon 
 wrth galon. 
 The thought of the first four lines is a 
 gentle and sweet reminiscence ; the last two 
 lines seem to be meant for a warrior's 
 exhortation. Never was an exhortation so 
 fruitless. It murmurs in the quiet tones of 
 memory. It has no strength, no muscle of 
 verse. 
 
 Versification is as important to the poet 
 as his imaginative faculty. All the great 
 poets are conscious of this, and all the best 
 critics preach it. Shelley says about Metre : 
 It is a certain uniform and harmonious 
 recurrence of sound, '^hich is scarcely 
 less indispensable to the communication of 
 the influence of poetry than the 'Words them- 
 selves. 
 And another inspired critic has said of lyric 
 poetry : 
 
 It must combine exquisite polish of 
 diction with perfect simplicity. 
 
94 Verse Making 
 
 To say that a poem is good because it is 
 perfectly simple is the weakest of all criti- 
 cism. And yet it is what we hear oftenest 
 on reading our ordinary lyric writers. The 
 only simplicity in verse that is of any value 
 is the simplicity achieved in spite of an 
 exquisite polish of diction : when a poet, 
 after the most elaborate and painstaking 
 labour in the choice of his words creates a 
 poem that is still simple, then he has 
 conquered. To make simple verse without 
 labour and without polish is to land every 
 bard in the immediate vicinity of the Cockle 
 Poet. 
 
 There are two primary canons with 
 regard to metre : 
 
 (a) The metre must be chosen to suit 
 the sense ; the rhythm must be so 
 apt as to form in itself part of the 
 very sentiment of the poem. It 
 should be a child of the fire, as 
 Emerson would say. 
 
 (b) The rhythm must not be too 
 uniforn) ; it must exhibit the ^ualitjr 
 
Verse Making 95 
 
 of Variety in Uniformity : the 
 
 quality that the brook shows, ever 
 
 varying its flow in its clearly defined 
 
 course. 
 
 The verse of Eifion Wyn and Mr. W. 
 
 J. Gruffydd is wrought according to these 
 
 rigorous rules. In G'^en y Mav^ note how 
 
 Eifion Wyn shows the depth of his grief by 
 
 this gentlest tread of measure : 
 
 I'r ystafell aem yn ddistaw, 
 
 Un ac un, 
 Heb ddywedyd dim i dorri 
 Ar ei hun. 
 
 Wylai'r ieuainc gan y dwyster, 
 
 Wylai'r hen ; 
 Ar wynebpryd un yn unig 
 
 Yr oedd gwen. 
 
 Fyrred, ac mor ddiflanedig 
 
 Gwen y byw ; 
 Gwen yr arch — gwen olaf, hwyaf 
 
 Bywyd yw. 
 
 This is metre that is part of the very idea 
 of the poem itself. 
 
96 Verse Making 
 
 Then note how he changes into the 
 longer and more swinging periods when the 
 passion is of the kind that demands its fullest 
 expression ; when there is reproach and 
 complaint as well as grief in the heart : 
 
 Pe bai gennyt serch at dy fardd, fy Menna, 
 
 Ti ddaethet fel cynt 
 Rhwng llwyni y brwyn a gwymon Gorffena', 
 
 A'th wallt yn y gwynt ; 
 Mae celyn y mor yn holi am dahat, 
 
 Pan elwyf fy hun ; 
 A pheth a ddywedaf am nad wyt yn dyfod, 
 
 Fy mun, fy mun ? 
 
 Air. W. J. GrufFydd's versification is 
 more sophisticated than thatof Eifion Wyn, 
 and as it is never unnatural, has even a 
 greater power. There is one metre that 
 Mr. Gruffydd has made his own, and he 
 handles it so deftly that one never gets 
 tired of it ; indeed, at its very sound, the 
 heart of the reader leaps to its irresistible 
 call. It is the metre the poet uses when he 
 is in the " hwyl ;" it is the messenger of his 
 dreams of rose ; 
 
Verse Making 97 
 
 Breuddwydiem am grwydro heolydd 
 Dinasoedd pellennig y wawr, 
 A thithau, 'r un fach, fyddai 'nghariad, 
 Fy nghariad pan fyddem yn fawr. 
 
 It is the bearer of his grim dead : 
 
 Fel troediad di-swn y tymhorau 
 Wrth basio dros feusydd a gallt, 
 Dihidliad digymar drysorau 
 Awelon sy'n felus a hallt ; 
 Fel breuddwyd anghyffwrdd cariadau 
 Aeth heibio yr hen, ac nid oes 
 O atgof y marw deimladau 
 Ond gofid a loes. 
 
 Mr. GrufFydd betrays his exquisite poetic 
 culture when he turns from what we may 
 call poetic rhetoric, — the " hwyl," — to 
 poetic narrative. An orator in the narrative 
 part of his speech uses very different inflex- 
 ion of voice and rhythm from those he uses 
 in the peroration ; for to do otherwise is 
 unnatural and typical of mediocrity. And 
 a true poet does the same with his 
 verse. Mr. GrufFydd is going to tell the 
 story of Hen Lane Ty'n y Mynydd ; and to 
 
gS Verse Making 
 
 tell it effectively he must use not the strongly- 
 stressed rhythm of passion, burning to go 
 on, but the less clearly defined, matter of 
 fact, impersonal rhythm, suitable to an 
 intellectual attitude : 
 
 Cryf oedd swn ei gryman yn yr eithin, 
 Union ar y d^lar oedd ei g^ys, 
 Cj^nnar ar y mj^nydd oedd ei fedel, 
 Yn h^yr ar ben ei raw y rhoddai'i bA^ys. 
 Finally, there is in Caneuon a Cherddi one 
 classic example of the use and the value of 
 the principle of Variety in Uniformity so 
 indispensable to a lyric poet. It is found 
 in the forty-second lyric, Hen Ystori : 
 Ble mae'r llwyni'n las o hyd, 
 Ac atgof serch ar eu dail i gyd ? 
 Ar lannau y Penllyn mae'r helyg yn lion, 
 A phlyga'r gwiail dros ael y don. 
 Ble mae'r bachgen fu yma gynt 
 A'i gan yn nofio hyd Iwybrau'r gwynt ? 
 Mae'n crwydro'r byd gydag estron wraig 
 A'i galon ffals yn oer fel y graig. 
 Ble mae'r eneth fu yma gynt, 
 A'i gwallt yn eurwe ar adain gwynt ? 
 
Verse Making 99 
 
 Brysia at fynwent eglwys Min Llyn, 
 Cei weled colofn o farmer gwyn. 
 
 This is an old story told in a very fresh and 
 alluring way. It is very simple and direct; 
 but it is a simplicity and directness achieved 
 by conscious deliberate art. Any pot- 
 boiling bard can tell a thing simply and 
 directly ; that is not a virtue in itself ; it 
 can be done at the expense of freshness and 
 originality ; and it is successful only when 
 it seems to be enveloped in an atmosphere 
 that gives a taste of the pleasure of the high 
 rare air of the mountain. There is this 
 atmosphere about Hen Tstori ; and the secret 
 of it lies wholly in its versification : the 
 poem is constructed on the principle of 
 Variety in Uniformity. 
 
 First, note the variety in the verse : 
 
 Ble mae'r llwyni'n las o hyd, (7 syllables) 
 ■ Ac atgof serch ar eu dail i gyd ? (9) 
 
 Ar lannau y Penllyn mae'r helyg yn llon,(i i) 
 A phlyga'r gwiail dros ael y don. (9) 
 
 What a marked difference between the 
 
100 Verse Making 
 
 first and the third lines ! And there surely 
 can be no Uniformity in such a conglomer- 
 ate verse ! There is, however, a beautiful 
 symmetry about it, which is much more 
 obvious to the ear than to the eve. In fact 
 a great principle of metre is here involved : 
 Should metre be measured by Space or Time ? 
 And the answer is that Metre is too often 
 measured by Space instead of by Time, 
 Measure the above stanza by Space, by 
 Feet, and you get very irregular measure : 
 7 -9- 1 1 -9. But measure it by TVw^, and 
 the stanza assumes a beautiful symmetry : 
 The Time is Four Beats to the line, 
 
 Ble mae'r | llwyni'n | las | o hyd, 
 Ac atgof I serch ar eu | dail | i gyd ? 
 Arlannau | yPenllyn | mae'r helyg ! ynllon, 
 A phlyga'r | gwiail | dros ael | y don. 
 
 The third line takes exactly the same length 
 of time in the reading as the first line. 
 Thus we get the Uniformity that is neces- 
 sary in all Art, otherwise Form is lost. 
 The actual rhythm of line three (3 notes to 
 
Verse •Ma'k,iJ^Qi '• '!,; -i^'^i 
 
 the bar) is quicker than that of line one (2 
 notes to the bar), though the bars are of 
 equal length ; this is because the sentiment 
 of line 3 is different from the sentiment of 
 line 1 ; and this is the secret of the Power 
 of Verse j it is only by delicate changes of 
 this sort that Poetry can achieve that which 
 it is meant to achieve. 
 
 The last stanza of this poem is interest- 
 ing in the same way : 
 
 Ble mae'r eneth fu yma gynt, 
 A'i gwallt yn euiwe ar adain gwynt ? 
 Brysia at fynwent Eglwys Min Llyn, 
 Cei weled colofn o farmor gwyn. 
 
 Without sacrificing any of its unity of form, 
 this stanza presents a variety in its form 
 that lifts it immediately into a rare world. 
 Unity of form is maintained by the Time 
 Beat : the metre is four beats to the line, 
 which makes lines i and 3 equal in Time 
 though not in Space. The last two lines 
 are delicately wrought : the last has a 
 simplicity and directness that is worthy of 
 
id^ V^RJ^E Making 
 
 good prose. (Where the poet can be simple 
 and picturesque and direct like a prose 
 writer, without losing the melody of verse, 
 there the poet always excels.) Line three 
 is full of awe : not simply because of the 
 word myrfwenty nor because of the word 
 brysia^ but also because there is a distinct 
 pause in the line after the word myrv^ent. 
 There is here a silent half beat which like 
 the pauses in music are full of suggestion. 
 This pause is made up for by the short 
 syllables that come in succession in this line: 
 
 .... fynwent Eglwys Min .... 
 
 A 
 
 These three words form two beats, the first 
 beat consisting of two syllables and a pause. 
 This pause is premeditated and helps to 
 produce the effect at which the sense of the 
 words aims. The full value of this line is 
 seen on comparing it with line three in the 
 first stanza : 
 
 Ar lannau y Penllyn mae'r helyg yn lion . . 
 Brysia at fynwent eglwys Min Llyn . . . 
 
 A 
 
 The first line skips along, The second 
 
Verse Making 103 
 
 halts. And both are true to the scheme 
 of the poem. 
 
 The English master of this Variety in 
 Uniformity is Coleridge. The metrical 
 scheme of Christabel is well known in this 
 respect : the metre is time metre, and not 
 syllabic. And this appears to be the 
 only method by which poets can ever 
 hope to reproduce the Rhythm of Nature 
 into their songs. Rhythm should not be 
 the servant of Art. Rhythm should depend 
 upon the Nature of the theme. And as the 
 theme of a poem changes in each line of a 
 poem, so should the rhythm also change. 
 But, because Poetry is an Art, Art must not 
 be sacrificed even to Nature. And the first 
 principle of Art is not Variety but Unity, 
 All works of art must be Uniform pri- 
 marily. They must be variable, afterwards, 
 because Unity, unless controlled, becomes 
 Dullness. And the function of Art is to 
 arouse, not to stupify. Therefore Poetry 
 without Unity of Form is not Art. And 
 Poetry without Variety of Expression is not 
 
104 Verse Making 
 
 natural. Thus the principle of Variety in 
 Uniformity is a sound one, because it is 
 artistic and natural. Give me Christabel 
 to read, and I forget that I am reading 
 Poetry. Poetry becomes something that 
 moves with the wind, and hangs on the 
 branches like rain, and gleams and dusks 
 like poplar leaves or the smile of a girl : 
 
 The night is chill ; the forest bare ; 
 Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 
 There is not wind enough in the air (9) 
 To move away the ringlet curl 
 From the lovely lady's cheek, (7) 
 There is not wind enough to twirl 
 The one red leaf, the last of its clan. 
 That dances as often as dance it can (10) 
 Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 
 On the topmost twig that looks up at the 
 sky. 
 
 That verse should be straightforward and 
 unsuperfluous does not require comment at 
 any great length. Coleridge has com- 
 plairred that you can hear Wordsworth's 
 
Verse Making 105 
 
 speaking voice too often in some of his verses. 
 Poetry is something always above conversa- 
 tion, above w^hat is usually heard even in 
 the best talk. The language of Poetry is 
 always something very proud, and chaste, 
 and patrician — aristocratic even in its com- 
 monplaces. The language of poetry must 
 be new. The language of conversation is 
 never new. In talk we use the old set 
 phrases over and over again. Our vocabu- 
 lary is very limited. The phrases of poetry 
 must be new ; the vocabulary must be 
 large ; and yet newness of phrase is more 
 important than extent of vocabulary. A 
 poet is a poet without new words, big 
 words, strange words. But he is not a 
 poet without some newness of phrase, some 
 bigness of phrase, some strangeness of 
 phrase : 
 
 The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 
 
 The furrow followed free ; 
 
 We were the first that ever burst 
 
 Into that silent sea. 
 Here are no new words, no big words, no 
 
io6 Verse Making 
 
 strange words. But the new phrase : the 
 '^hitefoamjie'^; and the strange phrase : the 
 furro"^ followed free ; and the big phrase : to 
 burst into the silent sea. 
 
 The speaking voice is impossible in 
 Poetry. We have too much of it in Welsh 
 Poetry; particularly in modern verse. There 
 was one virtue about the old Cynghanedd- 
 wyr of Wales. If they were not good 
 poets, they were at least good versifiers. 
 The majority of the verse writers of to-day 
 are neither poets nor versifiers. And if you 
 are not a good poet, try at least to be a good 
 versifier. 
 
 Coleridge warns us to avoid the speaking 
 voice in poetry. But Maurice de Guerin 
 writes to his sister Eugenie : 
 
 " Your verse is too sing-song ; you do 
 not talk enough." 
 
 There is really no incompatibility between 
 these two injunctions. There is a funda- 
 mental difference in the strict connotation 
 of To Speak and To Talk. "To speak" 
 is a physical office ; " to talk " is a mental 
 
Verse Making 107 
 
 function. Coleridge says : " Your verse is 
 too much like prose and common speech, it 
 has not enough music in it." De Guerin 
 says : " Your verse is too much like music, 
 it has not enough directness and intimacy in 
 it ; you do not talk enough." Thus vfc 
 arrive at Watts Dunton's canon : That 
 Poetry is a form of expression that stands 
 midway betw^een Prose and Music. Poetry 
 can and must perform some of the offices of 
 Prose and Music. Music appeals to the 
 mystic sense in man ; Prose to the intellec- 
 tual sense. Poetry appeals to both. There- 
 fore Poetry must be musical, but not too 
 musical^ otherwise it becomes music. And 
 Poetry must be sane and direct, but not too 
 matter-of-fact and direct^ otherwise it becomes 
 Prose. Music never speaks. Prose never sings. 
 Poetry is not absolute music, nor absolute 
 prose. And yet Poetry can Sing and Talk. 
 Poetry must Sing and Talk. To Talk is 
 (using a common but vigorous expression) 
 "to get at." Thus we can distinguish 
 between Poetry and Prose. Poetry gets at 
 
io8 Verse Making 
 
 one by using some of the arts of singing. 
 Prose gets at one by using some of the 
 methods of speaking. Hazlitt has truly 
 said that " the best prose style is the familiar 
 style." In verse familiarity is base, as in 
 life it is vulgar. 
 
 We are not pleading for a poetic diction, 
 and the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is 
 still in the main incontrovertible. When 
 Wordsworth says : '* The language of 
 poetry should be that really used by men," 
 he is ^not defending familiarity. Words- 
 worth asks for language that is universal, 
 not familiar. " The poet must express 
 himself as other men express themselves," 
 is futile if it means anything more than that 
 the poet's language must be universal and 
 folk-wise. And the best commentary on 
 the Preface are the Ballads themselves. 
 And when Wordsworth writes 
 
 She had a rustic woodland air 
 And she was wildly clad ; 
 Her eyes were fair, and very fair j 
 Her beauty made me glad, — 
 
Verse Making 109 
 
 he is not at all familiar, he is only very easily 
 understood and appreciated. Apart from 
 the magical simplicity of this stanza, its 
 chief characteristic is dignity. And Poetry 
 without dignity is vain. 
 
The Idyll of Summer 
 
 As time proceeds, A'^dl Tr Haf will be 
 either a greater poem or a smaller poem than 
 it is to-day. For to-day it is hard to say 
 concerning it that it is other than important, 
 interesting, and beautiful. It is not for our 
 generation to decide its place in literature. 
 But we are allowed to pronounce it to be 
 important, interesting, beautiful. The Awdl 
 is important because it is different in form 
 and conception from any other Awdl in the 
 Welsh language. It is interesting because 
 it deals with life and attempts a criticism of 
 life. It is very beautiful. 
 
 Here we propose to wander from point to 
 point in the poem as the fancy wills, and to 
 dwell upon a few of the matters of impor- 
 tance, interest and beauty within it. 
 
The Idyll of Summer hi 
 
 First, the Cynghanedd is here shyly but 
 surely, perfect yet modest, the handmaid 
 and not the mistress, with 
 
 the music -stirring motion of its soft and 
 busy feet. 
 
 And when this poem is in the hands of the 
 public, the unjust criticism against the new 
 school, that it depreciates the great charac- 
 teristic of the poetry of Cymru Fu, will die 
 the death. There has been an idea abroad 
 of late days that the new bardism considers 
 the cynghanedd barbaric, and that the 
 younger writers are all for the Pryddest, 
 and blank verse, and lyric writing. But 
 here is the very youngest of them, imbued 
 with romance, brought up in the literary 
 modernisms of to-day, using as his medium 
 the forms of Dafydd ab Gwilym and 
 Goronwy Owen. 
 
 But let it be known at once, that, though 
 the Cynghanedd is as dear to the new bards 
 as it was to the old, the Twenty-four 
 Measures have not so sure a homage. 
 
1 1 2 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 Every writer of an Awdl has the right to 
 use the twenty-four measures at his discre- 
 tion, and in the average Awdl we find about 
 six of these measures in the ascendant. 
 Two years ago a change was apparent, and 
 in G'^lad y BryniaUy by Mr. Gwynn Jones, 
 there is a tendency to use three at most of 
 these measures. 
 
 Llion in Tr Haf has used only two. 
 And the Awdlau of the future, we feel, 
 will certainly shape themselves in this 
 manner. For not only has Llion, following 
 his master, Mr. Gwynn Jones, reduced the 
 irregular effect produced by an Awdl made 
 up of a jumble of many metres, but he has 
 added greatly to the strength of his poem 
 by an inexorable regularity in the sequence 
 of his rhythms. Moreover, the danger of 
 monotony is very slight inasmuch as the 
 two metres used by him occurr regularly 
 every four lines. The whole poem is there- 
 fore divided into about a hundred equal 
 verses, much in the manner of Spenser's 
 Faery ^een^ or Byron's Childe Harold^ 
 
The Idyll of Summer i 13 
 
 Here is a verse taken at random ; all the 
 other verses are similar in form. This 
 example will, at the same time, show Llion's 
 variety of metre, his ease of Cynghanedd, 
 his colour, his directness, and his romance. 
 The poet has lost his love, who is Summer : 
 
 Yng ngwynfyd bywyd buom, 
 
 A dyfod rhwyg adfyd rhom. 
 
 Ag o fewn y goedwig faith 
 
 Minnau wybum anobaith. 
 Fe'i gwelwyd yng ngwlad y pomgranadau 
 A pheraidd aeron anghyffwrdd erwau ; 
 Am olud y bell bau hiraethodd, 
 A'm bro adawodd am wybr y Dehau. 
 
 In order to appreciate the unique beauty 
 of this Awdl, we must follow the author 
 from first line to last. For it is a poem, 
 not only new in form, but fresh in concep- 
 tion. Before we attempt this, there are 
 certain beauties of detail that cannot be 
 passed over. 
 
 There is great Passion in the poem. It 
 is no impersonal cold tale of the glories of 
 the Summer that we read. Rather, it is the 
 
1 14 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 warm throbbing blood of summer colouring 
 the poet's face. 
 
 As when some great thought strikes the 
 
 brain, 
 And flushes all the cheek. 
 
 His heart knows full well the approach ot 
 Summer ; for in the groves of the evening 
 there are songs heard, that are like wine : 
 
 Mae'n dod, a'm henaid edwyn 
 Yn barod ddyfod y ddyn, 
 Rhag mor gu ym mrigau hwyr 
 Yw'r seiniau feddwa'r synnwyr. 
 
 And when the Summer and the Poet are 
 mated, there is a low sensuous nature sound 
 upon the air, similar to the "murmurous 
 chaunt of bees on summer days :" 
 
 A suai megis ewyn mor dihedd 
 Dwrf adanedd dirifedi wenyn. 
 
 The poem is full of sudden colour contrasts. 
 The black storm in golden June : 
 
 Ac megis y'mis'y^mel 
 Y tywaillt, pan fo tawel 
 
The Idyll OF Summer 115 
 
 Dduwch y bedd uwch y byd, 
 Ambell i gawod embyd. 
 
 The purple sunset and the maid*s pale 
 face : 
 
 A gwrid yr hwyr ar gread yr awron 
 Yn rhoi gemliw grug ymhlyg yr eigion, 
 Ni roddai'r pelydr rhuddion ddim o'u delw 
 Ar wyneb gwelw y rhiain heb galon. 
 
 And the passing of night in love's white 
 light : 
 
 Rhag mor wen y nen ini 
 Nid oedd nos i'n dyddiau ni. 
 
 There are clear and striking pictures in the 
 ode. Grey-bearded Winter lies in a harried 
 grove : 
 
 Ag ar y Uain 'roedd g^r llwyd, 
 Ai marw oedd ai ym mreuddwyd, 
 O'i wedd yn hawdd ni wyddwn, 
 Oni thorres iaith o'r swn. 
 
 A village idyll : the brook, and the birds, 
 and the maiden, at the ford : 
 
 A thyr'd a'r eneth a'r adar yno, 
 A sawr paradwys hwyr per i hudo, 
 
1 16 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 Hyd ganllaw'r bompren heno, bob mwynder 
 A bwrlwm aber i lamu heibio. 
 
 The poet in the snow month, grieving above 
 the embers : 
 
 A thonnau Mawrth yn y mor, 
 A'r eira'n gwynnu'r oror, 
 Mi neithiwr yn hwyr y nos 
 Hiroedwn uwch marwydos 
 Yr aelwyd oleu .... 
 
 The silent, happy, meadow lovers : 
 
 A disiarad a siriol 
 Y rhodiwn hyd wndvrn dol ; 
 Ni sieryd oes a wyr dau, 
 Rhy fawr yw ef i eiriau. 
 
 And how delicate, how strong, the verse 
 as it describes him on the morrow of his 
 loss. If the Poet loses Summer, or I my 
 love, or you your ambition, is not the world 
 then empty for the Poet, for me, for you ? — 
 
 A phrudd fu'r defFro heddyw 
 A gweld y wag aelwyd wyw 
 Heb farwor, ag agoryd 
 Dor Y hMh ar wacter byd, 
 
The Idyll of Summer 117 
 
 Beside Passion and Painting, there is 
 Thought in the Awdl. 
 
 Llion approaches Ann Griffiths in daring, 
 when he describes the passing of the maiden. 
 Her cheeks were like the apple bloom, but 
 to-day her very beauty has become supreme 
 in her tears : 
 
 Hithau yng nghyfoeth eang ei hafau 
 Oedd a'i deurydd hefelydd afalau, 
 Hyd onid aeth gofidiau llawer blwydd 
 A godidowgrwydd ei gwaed i'w dagrau. 
 
 And again his tender thought as he tells 
 how the gloom of her heart had tempered 
 the light in the blue eyes : 
 
 A gwelais wyll y galon yn dwyshau 
 Dihalog dlysau dau lygad leision. 
 
 And the same beauty again in : 
 
 Gwedi poen dan lygad pur 
 Tlysach eu tawel asur. 
 
 But these are only the excellencies of the 
 body, of the form, and of the intelligence of 
 the Awdl. 
 
 There still remain the virtues of the 
 
1 18 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 soulj of the heart of it. The essence of the 
 poet's song : 
 
 Myfi ym Mai fy mywyd, 
 
 Ganaf y Mai, gwyn fy myd. 
 His practical optimism : not the optimism 
 of the hermit who suffers to-day and waits 
 for the morrow, but of the man who lives 
 to-day, because the morrow has its hopes : 
 
 Ba enaid )^yr ben y daith ? 
 
 Bid anwybod yn obaith. 
 Further, there is plenty of the Omar 
 Khayyam and Oriental opportunism in the 
 Awdl. Llion singsof the joy of the present. 
 To-day he loves, and is merry. To-day 
 he sleeps, and is glad. He will taste, like 
 Omar, the sweetest things on earth. 
 About the Summer Maiden, Rhiain yr 
 Haf^ he sings : 
 
 Rhoiswn wedd rhosyn iddi, 
 
 A chariad merch roed i mi. 
 
 Dwfn gariad y fun gerais 
 
 Yn llif yng nghryndod ei Hals. 
 Ac yfed o riniau'r gafod rawnwin 
 Byddym, a llannerch heb ddim allwynin \ 
 
The Idyll of Summer i 19 
 
 Myfi ym mherth yn chwerthin yn nydd 
 
 serch 
 A chtn, a'm hoyw ferch yn ei Mehefin. 
 
 Our poet does not say, Drink, for to-morrow 
 we die. He says. Live to-day, for to- 
 morrow hath its hopes : 
 
 Nor does he say : Drink to drown thy 
 sorrow, thy summer has fled. To him, a 
 summer that has once been will always be. 
 Silver summer can never vanish : 
 
 O oes i oes hoyw yw hi, 
 A'r nawnddydd arian ynddi. 
 
 And even if the wine is all sipped, faith and 
 memory still remain : 
 
 Ond ni dderfydd ffydd, o ffoes 
 Grawnwin a goreu einioes. 
 
 And then he cherishes his Summer, and 
 gives his Winter Faith and Hope ; he will 
 have none of the milk and water summer 
 of the effeminate saint. 
 
 Some impractical optimist promises him 
 an everlasting summer, where the roses fade 
 not, and all is joy : 
 
120 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 Difarw yw hud y frodir, 
 Telyn a thant leinw ei thir 
 O buredig hvrsig/el 
 Fe bai eos pob awel. 
 
 And the poet replies : I have joy in this 
 world, why pine for a better ? 
 
 Digon i'r dydd ei degwch. Chwi'r adar 
 A'r gwenyn cynar gan hynny cenwch. 
 
 Moreover, he adds in a great passage, — I 
 will not give up this earth of mine, for all 
 the sunshine in the world : 
 
 Dwg im' haul digymylau 
 Gad im' hefyd fy myd mau, 
 Lie mae'r cymyl yn wylo 
 Ym mhelydr haul ami i dro. 
 
 And finally this sweet Summer of the poet 
 teaches him two things ; it dies to live 
 again, and hope succours it ; besides, the 
 losing of his Summer has given him exper- 
 ience ; he has learnt to suffer, and to bend 
 his head : 
 
 Marw i fyw mae'r haf o hyd, 
 Gwell wyf o'i goUi hefyd. 
 
The Idyll of Summer 121 
 
 The conception of the poem demands a 
 notice. There are three divisions : The 
 Passing of Summer ; The Summer of Lovej 
 The Evergreen Summer. 
 
 (i) The Passing of Summer : 
 
 In the first canto, Winter in a deserted 
 grove bewails the vanished Summer, and he 
 sings of the trusting place and calls long for 
 the maiden of magic to return : 
 
 Dymor hud a miri haf 
 
 Tyrd eto i'r oed attaf 
 
 Yn ddyn ieuanc ddeunawoed 
 
 A'i threm yn llevvych i'w throed. 
 
 In the second and third cantos a maiden 
 and a boy sing of their lost loves. And the 
 boy recalls the river and the peace : 
 
 A Uawen y llonyddwch 
 
 dan y coed yn y cwch. 
 
 And the maiden : 
 
 1 fewn i fore'm heinioes 
 
 Doi mal duw ym mlodau'i oes, 
 
 And then all is over : 
 
122 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 Daethai brad yn adwyth bron 
 A dur i lygaid oerion ; 
 Ni'm carai'r macwy mwyach 
 Ac yn y nos canu'n iach. 
 
 (2) The Summer of Love : 
 Love and Summer are one and the same : 
 A chaf degwch haf digoU 
 Tra bo dau trwy y byd oil. 
 Then the vision of a Grey Friar comes 
 along. He is a pessimist : 
 
 Mae llwybr i'r llan o'r llanerch 
 Daw'r meini mud, er min merch ! 
 And the poet replies : 
 
 Beth i haf yw gauaf gwy \v ? 
 Cyn a fydd, canaf heddy w. 
 And the Pessimist withdraws to give place 
 to the White Friar, the ultra -optimist, who 
 talks of Eldorado and Nirvana. The poet 
 gives him the reply sublime, Summer has 
 no room for Hope : 
 
 Beth yw fy haf o gobeithiwyf hefyd ? 
 
 (3) The Evergreen Summer : 
 Keats is the master here : a thing of 
 beauty is a joy for ever ; 
 
The Idyll of Summer i 23 
 
 Wedi cauad llygad Uaith 
 
 Mi welaf y Mai eihvaith. 
 Summer is evergreen in the memory. 
 Summer will come again. The last canto 
 tells how in early March the poet dreamed 
 of the Summer that was gone, and on a 
 sudden in the wood he beheld a snowdrop 
 and Hope at last comes to its own : 
 
 Ag ar y Uawnt ger y Uwyn 
 Darogenais dW'r Gwanwyn : 
 Ag wele, canfod blodyn 
 O bryd a gwedd y Brawd Gwyn ! 
 Ag o'r prynhawn ger y prennau yno 
 Deuai mewn siffrwd i'm mynwes effro — 
 "Fob rhyw delyn cyn bod co' gant a'i than 
 Geined y Ganaan. Gwna duag yno." 
 And the poem ends on a great note of 
 magnificently restrained optimism, — not the 
 wild unmeasured optimism of youth, but the 
 calm, deliberate, energetic, philosophic 
 optimism of a heart that has loved and 
 suffered, of a spirit that lives : 
 
 Marw i fyw mae'r haf o hyd ; 
 Gwell wyf o'i goUi hefyd i 
 
124 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 Dysgaf, a'm haul yn disgyn, 
 
 Odid y daw wedi hyn. 
 Mwy ni adnabum enyd anobaith 
 Y daw'm hanwylyd i minnau eilwaith : 
 Ba enaid >^ryr ben y daith sy'n dyfod ? 
 Boed ei anwybod /V byd yn obaith I 
 
 The philosophy of this poem has been 
 touched upon on another page. Its criti- 
 cism of life may be said in a word, its note 
 is that of Optimistic Acceptance, and is 
 very diiferent from that of Edward Fitz- 
 gerald and his Omar, which is the note of 
 Pessimistic Resignation. Both philosophies 
 agree on one point : That To-day is sweet. 
 But the latter ctiticism adds on to it this, 
 That To- day also is brief. This is very 
 narrow and bitter and ungenerous. Yr 
 Hafh2LS a sublime addition to make to the 
 common creed, To-day is sweet — To-day 
 is eternal. The Oriental says grimly that 
 To-day will soon be one with Yesterday's 
 Seven Thousand Years. The Celt says 
 confidently that his Yesterday has not yet 
 
The Idyll of Summer 125 
 
 passed away. His yester-love is still his 
 love : 
 
 Y fun a garaf yw honno gerais. 
 Omar says, Why fret about unborn To- 
 morrow ? Llion says, Why not hope about 
 the unknown To- morrow ? Omar says, 
 To-morrow is To-morrow, let it be. Llion 
 says. To-morrow may be To-day, it will 
 be — sweet. 
 
 Omar is really ungenerous, and unphilo- 
 sophic ; ungenerous because he contemns 
 Yesterday because it is dead : Yesterday 
 was sweet enough in its time. He is un- 
 philosophical for this reason that since he 
 despises Yesterday because it brought him 
 sorrow, he is too narrow- hearted to feel its 
 lesson. Further, Omar is a coward : the 
 only virtue of To- day is its sweetness and 
 its wine. 
 
 But the Welsh poet is brave : 
 
 Dwg im' haul digymylau, — 
 
 Gad im' hefyd fy myd mau 
 
 Lie mae'r cymyl yn wylo 
 
 Vm mhelydr haul ami i dro, 
 
1 26 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 He is wise : 
 
 Marw i fyw mae'r haf o hyd, 
 Gwell wyf o'i golli hefyd. 
 
 He is generous : 
 
 A thlysni digoU yr haf a gollwyd 
 
 Yn gyfoeth mawreddog fyth y'mreuddwyd, 
 
 Mi gofiaf am a gafwyd^ can's erys 
 
 Ei swyn yn felys yn nh^n fy aelwyd. 
 
 And note how Lh'on arrives by his poetic 
 instinct at Maeterlinck's conception of the 
 function of the memory in his philosophy 
 of Happiness. 1'he Fairy says to Tyltyl, 
 in the Blue Bird : How can your grand- 
 mother and grandfather be dead when they 
 live in your memory ? Men do not know 
 this secret, because they know so little ; 
 but you are now going to see that the dead 
 who are remembered live as happily as if 
 they were not dead. 
 
 And Llion says : 
 
 Myfi'n drist am fynd o'r haf 
 A'i ddiwrnod oddiarnaf, 
 
The Idyll of Summer 127 
 
 Uwch ei fedd wybum heddyw 
 Nad ofer oedd. Difarw yw. 
 
 Ag o hir ddisgwyl un gwir a ddysgais, — 
 
 Ni fwriaf o gof yr haf a gefais ; 
 
 Nid anghof y serch dyngais a hi'n haf, 
 
 Y fun a garaf yw honno gerais. 
 
 Od aeth fy Medi eithaf 
 
 Gyda'i rug a'i adar haf, 
 
 A dyfod cri y dufedd 
 
 Am ei ysbail dail dihedd 
 A meirwon, ba waeth ? Mae'r hen obeithion 
 Yn rhedeg eilwaith drwy waed y galon, 
 O chollwyd hett freuddwydion^ nid marw 
 
 chwaithy 
 O theimlais unwaith eu melys swynion. 
 
 And note in particular how very near he 
 comes to expressing Maeterlinck's most 
 pregnant contribution to philosophic 
 thought — the theory of Immortality based 
 on the assumption of the after -existence of 
 the soul in the form of Memory — V appari- 
 tion du mot mnemonique: 
 
 Mynych, mynych i minnau, 
 A swyn yr oes yn hwyrhau, 
 
128 The Idyll of Summer 
 
 YmriLhia ienctid gwridog 
 Y llwybrau gynt lie bu'r gog. 
 A'm llygad ynghau ar foelni'r gauaf 
 Dwys, ymharadwys y Mai y rhodiaf ; 
 A theg eilwaith y'i gwelaf, nes hiino 
 A myned iddo dm hun diweddaf. 
 
Love's Philosophy 
 
 Shelley was only toying with the question 
 when he sang his lyric on the theme : 
 
 See the mountains kiss high heaven 
 And the waves clasp one another ; 
 No sister flower would be forgiven 
 If it disdained its brother : 
 And the sunlight clasps the earth, 
 And the moonbeams kiss the sea — 
 What are all these kissings worth, 
 If thou kiss not me ? 
 
 In Caneuon a Cherddi^ Mr. W. J. GrufFydd 
 has made a deliberate and serious attempt to 
 divine its secret. Some critics express dis- 
 satisfaction with the book because, they 
 say, it is full of chagrin and misery and even 
 conceit. It cannot be full of these, for it 
 
 contains joy and ecstasy and humility, too. 
 
 129 
 
130 Love's Philosophy 
 
 This poet is too often condemned out of 
 
 his context. Single lines, single stanzas, 
 
 single poems, are not the expression of a 
 
 philosophy. It requires at least a book 
 
 for this purpose. In truth it requires 
 
 a life. And if Caneuon a Cherddi is 
 
 judged as a whole, much of the adverse 
 
 opinion held against it becomes idle, for 
 
 that opinion is based upon the particular 
 
 and not upon the general effect. Mr. 
 
 GrufFydd is a poet who is impressed with 
 
 the romance and wonderfulness of his own 
 
 passions. If his song is a song of woe, it is 
 
 not because he wants to be miserable, but 
 
 because woe is such a wonderful quality. 
 
 Some philosopher has said : 
 
 Fear is poetry, hope is poetry, love is 
 
 poetry, hatred is poetry ; contempt, 
 
 jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, 
 
 pity, despair, or madness, are all poetry. 
 
 And our poet sings of woe, not because he 
 
 is morbid, but because he is very sane. He 
 
 is so little morbid that, though he be very 
 
 sad, the contemplation of his sadness gives 
 
Love's Philosophy 131 
 
 him not dejection, but a great and stirring 
 impulse to write poetry. 
 
 Every poet is a humourist in the large 
 sense. Every poet has a double personality : 
 himself living and suffering ; and himself 
 looking at it all ; and this survey of himself 
 makes the poet either merry or sad. This 
 duality is essential to a lyric poet. 
 
 Ceiriog, contemplating himself thus, was 
 filled with merriment ; he saw the joke of 
 his own illusions : 
 
 Wrth feddwl am y gangen gyll 
 Ddanfonodd Menna imi : 
 Draw'n y pellder clywwn swn 
 Hen glychau Aberdyfi. — 
 
 Menna eto fydd dy fun 
 Gad y pruddglwyf iddo'i hun, 
 Cwyd dy galon, bydd yn ddyn, 
 Meddai clychau Aberdyfi. 
 
 Pe baivn iforn^n mynd i'r bedd, 
 Am calon wedi torri : 
 I ganu came dechreuech chwi^ 
 Hen glychau Aberdyfi. — 
 
132 Love's Philosophy 
 
 Menna etofydd dy fun, 
 Gady pruddglwyf iddoH hun. 
 Cwyd dy galon^ bydd yn ddyn^ 
 Meddai clychau Aberdyfi^ 
 Un — dau — tri—pedwar — pump — chwech^ 
 Cwyd dy galon^ bydd yn ddyn. 
 Meddai clychau Aberdyfi. 
 
 And our present poet sees too the humour 
 of his frettings. It is quite a misapprehen- 
 sion to declare that the spirit of his lyric, 
 Y Wen Goll^ is conceit. It is not by any 
 means conceit (and yet what matter if it 
 were ?) but humour : 
 
 Ddoe, ces wen dy lygaid mwynion, 
 Ddoe, bu 'mysedd drwy dy wallt, 
 Ddoe, bu awel fwyn Gorffena'n 
 Murmur wrthym ar yr allt. 
 
 Breuddwyd gefais am yfory, 
 Dywed, Gwen, yw hwnnw'n wir ? 
 Gweld dy enaid wedi colli, 
 Anghof wedi atgof hir : 
 Fe ddaw Rhywun ac fe enwa 
 " Wen y Dyffryn " ddydd fy mri. 
 
Love's Philosophy 133 
 
 Minnau 'nghanol gaeaf anghof 
 A ofynnaf— " Pwy yw hi ?" 
 
 Lad and lass and the love-light in the June 
 time are all very well, but what if, when lad 
 is man and lass is woman, they both forget 
 about the June time and the love-light ? 
 
 There is no need nor room here for us to 
 work out the poet's philosophy in its various 
 phases. The careful and unbiassed reader 
 will find it an entertaining task. We will 
 only record his final attitude. And that is, 
 The supremacy of Love over Life. 
 
 First, the Tyranny of Love : 
 
 A ddaethost ti i^m blino eio, fun ? 
 
 Pa beth yw'r swn sydd yn yr helyg draw, 
 
 A chlyw ar erwau'r mynydd gamre'r glaw ! 
 
 O, gad im' bellach gael ychydig hun. 
 
 A fynni di im' gefnu ar Dduw a dyn 
 
 Er mwyn cael unwaith eto wasgu'th law ? 
 
 Paham mae'r tonnau'n wylo mor ddidaw ? 
 
 Gad im' anghofio mwy dy liw a'th lun. 
 
 Mae cariad, natur, nefoedd, pobpeth oil 
 
 Yn drist a phrudd ; o flaen fy llygaid Uaith 
 
 Ymleda'n hir y blwyddi creulon maith, 
 
134 Love's Philosophy 
 
 A'r nef yn ddu gymylog uwch fy mhen. 
 Mae cwsg yn crwydro heno'n mhell ar goll, 
 A miyn sylhi^n myw dy lygaid^ Gwen. 
 
 Second, The Frenzy of Love : 
 
 Offeiriaid, ddiofryddion crefydd sanct, 
 Chwychwi santesau'r gysegredig wen, 
 Yn bygwth uffern boenau ar y gwr 
 Ro'i fryd ar geinion daear ' pan fo'r nef 
 Yn cynnyg iddo'u gwell,' — ynfydion oil 
 Drwy oesau'r byd leferwch ynfyd air ! 
 Pa beth yw poenau rhyw Ixion brudd 
 Os cafodd unwaith, er mewn cwmwl oer 
 Gofleidio cynnes fron ei dduwies-gariad 
 A theimlo'i gwallt yn oyddu gylch ei wddf ? 
 Mae eiliad serch yn hwy nag oes o uffern. 
 
 Third, The Consolation of Love : 
 
 Ni chrwydraf mwyach dros y ddyfnllais don, 
 Choleddaf yr un Breuddwyd dan fy Mron. 
 Mae Heddyw'n sivvr a Chariad Heddyw'n 
 
 llawn, 
 Anweswn serch, fy Ngwen, a byddwn Ion. 
 Anghofiwn Gwyn y Byd a'i greulon Loes, 
 A Llwybrau Drain a Chreigiau ein ber Oes. 
 
LovE*s Philosophy 135 
 
 Cawn dario mwy, a swn yforu 'mhell, — 
 Heddyw, o leiaf, ni raid codi'r Groes. 
 
 Fourth, The Spirituality of Love. How- 
 ever chary wc might be of expressing our 
 opinions in the three forms above, we can- 
 not refrain from admiring the pathos and 
 tenderness of this lyric : 
 
 Cyn disgyn o'r ddunos ddistaw 
 Dros orwel y tonnau maith, 
 Cyn tewi o'r awel a'i murmur 
 Wrth droedio'r nentydd llaith ; 
 Dros oror y diffrwyth genlli, 
 Dros bennau'r tonnau gwyn, 
 Mi welais un hwyrnos euraidd 
 Gopa'r breuddwydiol fryn. 
 
 Ymserchodd fy nghalon am dano, 
 Cwynodd ar lawer awr ; 
 Y copa a welswn y neithiwr 
 Giliasai yn llwyr gyda'r wawr. 
 Un noson mi hwyliais fy llestr, 
 Dros genlli gwancus y don, 
 I chwilio am gartref fy mreuddwyd 
 A dynnodd yr hiraeth i mron. 
 
136 Love's Philosophy 
 
 'R ol llawer noson o hwylio 
 
 Dan bigiad fy hiraeth syn, 
 
 Ymledu wnai ochrau'r cefnfor, 
 
 Ni welwn yno'r un bryn. 
 
 Mi droais fy Uestr bach adref, 
 
 Siomedig oeddwn a mud, 
 
 Ond er nad ydoedd ond breuddwyd, 
 
 Dygyfor mae hiraeth o hyd. 
 
 Os rheswm oer fyo fy neffro 
 O freuddwyd fy ngwallgof serch; 
 Os meddwl yn unig a wnaethum 
 Fod purdeb yng nghalon fy merch ; 
 Gwell gennyf ffol afradlonedd 
 Cariad, na rheswm y byd, 
 Ac er fod fy mreuddwyd yn yfflon, 
 Dygyfor ?nae hiraeth hyd. 
 
 It is surely a perfect lyric : " Very sad, very 
 sweet, very beautiful," as Watts Dunton 
 would say ; sung to a lovely rhythm, filled 
 with choicest melody ; rich in variety and 
 vigour. The heart that moaned, 
 
 " Cwynodd ar lawer awr," 
 and the little boat, which he had to steer 
 back home, 
 
LovE*s Philosophy 137 
 
 Mi droais fy llestr bach adref, 
 
 and the confession of the last stanza make 
 it complete. 
 
 The poet has called it S'lom Serch^ — surely 
 a misnomer 1 We do not take that to be 
 the message. 
 
 The way this Caneuon a Cherddi comes 
 within our canon of Challenge and Sanity 
 on this question, is that it arrives at the 
 theory of the Omnipotence of Love by 
 means of philosophy and not mysticism. 
 For in our second quotation, Of the 
 Frenzy, the poet decides for Love by inten- 
 tion, by instinct, by the experience of Love 
 in Life : 
 Mae eiliad serch yn hwy nag oes o uflfern. 
 
 In our third quotation, Of the Consolation, 
 he decides for Love by meditation, by grim 
 trial, by the experience of Life without 
 Love : 
 
 Mae Heddyw'n siwr a Chariad Heddyw'n 
 Uawn, 
 
138 LovE*s Philosophy 
 
 And in our fourth quotation, Of the 
 Spirituality, he shows that Love is supreme 
 whether it be known instinctively or by 
 trial ; whether it be reality : 
 
 fy Nefoedd oreu i 
 Yn gorwedd yn dy fynwes stormus di ; 
 
 or a mirage : 
 
 Ond er fod fy mreuddwyd yn yfflon, 
 Dygyfor mae hiraeth o hyd. 
 
On Translating Omar 
 
 Edward Fitzgerald as a translator of 
 Omar Khayyam is not always accurate, not 
 always effective, and not at all just. 
 
 Good poetry is always to the point. 
 Fitzgerald, like many a latter day English 
 poet, was always more alive to the music of 
 poetry than to its pointedness. There is 
 very little point in Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat 
 save its music ; its philosophy is neither 
 native, logical, nor complete. He himself 
 said, while translating : Better a live sparrow 
 than a stuffed eagle. It is, alack, no live 
 sparrow that he has given us, but a heavy 
 winged golden pheasant. And a live 
 sparrow is nearer to Poetry than a golden 
 winged pheasant, for a sparrow can fly. 
 His best known stanza will illustrate this : 
 139 
 
I40 On Translating Omar 
 
 Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, 
 A flask of wine, a book of verse — and Thou 
 Beside me smging in the wilderness — 
 And wilderness is Paradise enow. 
 Two things mar this stanza : the great 
 effort to complete the triple rhyme by the 
 use of an obsolete word ; and the pointless, 
 and therefore poetry-less, use of the word 
 singing in the third line. The original word 
 is sitting ; but singing is more musical than 
 sittings therefore Fitzgerald chooses the 
 former. The result is twofold : it suggests 
 unreality and it suggests insincerity. Poetry 
 is always real and sincere. 
 
 In Professor Morris Jones' Welsh trans- 
 lation of the stanza these two blemishes are 
 removed. First, he has a more apposite 
 and fortunate rhyme scheme — S'wltan is very 
 happy ; and secondly, by keeping delicately 
 to the original he has preserved the whole 
 point of the quatrain, namely, the faithful- 
 ness of the maid. It is unreal and insincere 
 to suggest that Omar wanted her song for 
 ever. The total musical effect of the 
 
On Translating Omar 141 
 
 Welsh stanza is equal in all respects to that 
 
 of the Engh'sh : 
 Ychydig wridog win, a llyfr o gan, 
 A thorth wrth raid, a thithau, eneth Ian, 
 Yn eisiedd yn yr anial gyda mi — 
 Gwell yw na holl frenhiniaeth y Swlfdn. 
 
 But one word overwrought is little com- 
 pared with a whole stanza. " Divine High 
 Piping Pehlevi " is an exquisite creation, but 
 the quatrain embodying it is flagrantly- 
 melodramatic and lacking in poetic taste : 
 And David's lips are lockt ; but in divine 
 High piping Pehlevi, with " Wine ! wine ! 
 
 wine ! 
 Red Wine !" — the Nightingale cries to the 
 
 rose 
 That yellow cheek of hers t' incarnadine. 
 The last line is clumsy, hard to understand, 
 and ineffective. Here is Heron -Allen's 
 literal translation : 
 It is a pleasant day, and the weather is 
 
 neither hot nor cold ; 
 The rain has washed the dust from the 
 faces of the roses j 
 
142 On Translating Omar 
 
 The nightingale in the Pehlevi tongue to 
 
 the sallow rose 
 Cries ever : " Thou must drink wine !" 
 
 And the Welsh translation is very natural, 
 and above all dramatic and delicate. The 
 mildness of the utterance is deceiving ; for 
 its portent is mighty ; it is the grim humour 
 of the Eastern fatalist in his highest 
 imaginative flight ; the poet's " Give me 
 wine " is nothing compared with this calm 
 sardonic sneer at Beauty Pale. Poetry will 
 as soon serve a Gibe as a Compliment. The 
 poetry of this lies in its naturalness ; its 
 cruelty in its simplicity ; its significance in 
 its suavity ; 
 
 Hyfryd yw'r dydd a chlaear ydyw'r hin, 
 Glawiodd y cwmwl ar y blodau crin ; 
 A chwyna'r eos wrth y gvvelw ros, 
 " Mae'n rhaid i tithau wrth ychydig win." 
 
 Poor misrepresented Nightingale of the 
 English verse. Better a live sparrow, Fitz- 
 gerald, than a shrieking pea-cock. 
 
 They say Fitzgerald has made a good 
 
On Translating Omar 143 
 
 poem out of an indifferent one. The 
 charge has hardly been substantiated, and 
 when we come across such concreteness as 
 the following in the original, it is hardly 
 wise to accuse Omar of indifferent poetic 
 power : 
 
 The heavenly vault is a girdle cast from 
 my weary body ; 
 
 Jahun is a watercourse worn by my filtered 
 tears ; 
 
 Hell is a spark from my useless worries ; 
 
 Paradise is a moment of time when I am 
 
 tranquil. 
 What could have come over Fitzgerald's 
 judgment in failing to perceive the perfec- 
 tion of this style it is hard to imagine. He 
 rejects it, however, and turns to another 
 Persian poet for a much weaker analogous 
 statement of faith. The indifference lies 
 here : 
 
 Heaven's but the vision of fulfilled desire, 
 • And Hell the shadow from a soul on fire 
 
 Cast on the Darkness into which ourselves 
 
 $0 late emerged from, shall 50 soon expire, 
 
144 On Translating Omar 
 
 Perhaps he failed to express it in English, 
 and therefore shirked it. That it is difficult 
 to preserve the original energy is evident 
 from the Welsh version, but there is poetry 
 still in the latter : 
 
 Yr entrych fry, gwregys i'm corfF y w ef, 
 A ffrwd o'm dagrau ydyw Jih\^n gref, 
 Gwreichionen o'm trallodion ydyw Uffern, 
 Ac ennyd o'm hesmwythder ydyw'r Nef. 
 
 Its compression, its straightforwardness, its 
 flow, and its faithfulness to the original 
 make this stanza a model piece of work- 
 manship in the art of translation. 
 
 Thus while it is probably impossible for 
 any future translation of the Rubaiyat to 
 contain more polished and artistic epigrams 
 than this : 
 
 The Moving Finger writes, and having writ 
 Moves on ; nor all thy Piety nor Wit 
 Can lure it back to cancel half a line, 
 Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it ; 
 
 or to be fraught with such consonantal 
 melody as this quatrain : 
 
On Translating Omar 145 
 
 And this delightful herb whose tender green 
 Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean^ 
 Ah ! lean upon it lightly ^ for who knows 
 From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen. 
 
 Yet it is possible to catch Fitzgerald not 
 only overcolouring his lines, but even at 
 times being beaten in his own search of 
 music. Here is a very daring experiment 
 of singing a song almost on one note — an 
 experiment only justified by its undoubted 
 success : 
 
 Fy min ^x fin y ff/ol a rois /, 
 
 I ofyn rhin yr einioes iddi hi ; 
 
 Ac yndij fin wrth^;^, sibrydodd hon, 
 
 " Yf win^ cans yma ni ddychweli ^/." 
 
 And there is a magic glimpse of the Desert 
 in this verse : 
 
 Gan nad oes fechni am yfory i ti, 
 
 Bydd lawen dithau heno gyda mi ; 
 
 Yf win y7tgoleiCr lloer, Fy Lloer, daw'r Uoer 
 
 Eto i dywynnu heb ein canfod ni. 
 
 But apart from being unfaithful m detail to 
 Omafj it seems tp u§ that Fitzgerald has 
 
146 On Translating Omar 
 
 grossly misinterpreted him. To judge 
 Fitzgerald's version severely one can call it 
 little less than a ribald, blasphemous drinking 
 song. And to judge it lightly one cannot 
 do more than call it an elegant sneer. 
 Fitzgerald sins in two respects. He leaves 
 out all the theistic stanzas in Omar. And 
 he considers those he has patronised in the 
 light of a benevolent, artistic, modern society 
 diner-out. Fitzgerald has made Omar too 
 much of a sensualist and too little of a 
 philosopher. He has made him too much 
 of a pagan and too little of a Puritan. The 
 English Omar is nigh an atheist. The 
 Persian Omar is a theist. In England he 
 is an epicurean. He was in Persia a stoic. 
 The original is a religious poem. The 
 modern version is a tavern song ; at least a 
 hotel philosophy. Fitzgerald says : 
 
 " Readers may be content to believe 
 with me that, while the wine Omar 
 celebrates is simply the Juice of the 
 Grape, he bragged more than he drank 
 gf it, in very defiance perhaps of that 
 
On Translating Omar 147 
 
 spiritual wine which left its votaries 
 sunk in hypocrisy or disgust." 
 Fitzgerald seems to have started off with 
 this idea, and has twisted his translation 
 into its mould. And this has led his com- 
 mentators quite astray : A. C. Benson and 
 The Hibbert Journal both make trite 
 remarks about ** the agnostic epicureanism 
 of Omar Khayyam.'* 
 
 Pan fethrir finnau gan Dynghedfen gref, 
 Heb gennyf obaith bywyd is y nef, 
 O'vi clai na wneler namyn cwpan gwin, 
 Ac odid na ddeffrof pan lanwer ef. — 
 
 This is no profession of agnosticism. It is 
 only a delicate bit of relative humour. 
 
 Ai griddfan am fy rhan yn drist fy mron, 
 Ai treulio 'myd a wnaf t chalon Ion ? 
 Llanw fy nghwpan gwin ! Myfi ni wn 
 A dynnaf anadl wedi'r anadl hon. — 
 
 This is no declaration of epicureanism. It 
 is only poetry in the form of stoical absolute 
 humour ; which reaches the sublime in the 
 fiext yerse ; 
 
148 On Translating Omar 
 
 Yd nyfnder Rhod y Nefoedd, draw ynghudd, 
 Cwpan y cyst i bawb ei yfed sydd ; 
 Tithau, pan ddel dy dro, na chwyna ddim, 
 Ond yf yn Uawen, cauys daeth y dydd. 
 
 Such symbolical uses of the cup and the 
 wine are ignored by Fitzgerald j hence his 
 perverted generalisation on the theme of 
 the original poem. And behold the shrink- 
 ing of Fitzgerald and his sycophants in the 
 light of this, which is the very heart of the 
 heart of Omar : 
 
 O ddyn, sy ddelw o'r cread mawr i gyd, 
 Na ad i goU ac ennill ddwyn dy fryd : 
 Yfwin gwpany Tragwyddol Fenestra - 
 Ac ymryddha o ofal y ddau fyd. 
 
 It remains to acknowledge our indebtedness 
 to Professor Morris Jones for giving a 
 version of the Rubaiyat which, apart from 
 its own intrinsic metrical and poetic merit, 
 is so faithful to the original scroll, and 
 thereby so just to the poet. If the 
 original is to be tampered with at all, we 
 submit to English translators this Weigh 
 
On Translating Omar 149 
 
 treatment of the undoubted difficulty that 
 confronts one who seeks to interpret for 
 modern minds a poem written according to 
 the demands of an apparently childish 
 mathematical rigour. The original quatrains 
 are placed together not according to sense 
 but according to a certain alphabetically 
 ordered rhyme scheme. The English trans- 
 lator surmounts the difficulty of making a 
 concerted poem by selecting stanzas hap- 
 hazardly and rejoining them to make a sort 
 of wine- woman -and- song anthology. The 
 Welsh translator has formed a poem made 
 of five divisions, and has thereby ensured 
 his version a sense of completeness, and 
 orderliness, and logic that is clearly lacking 
 in Edward Fitzgerald, 
 
 " Ystyriais mai iawn yn y cyfieithiad 
 oedd Uunio pryddest Gymraeg o'r 
 penillion, trwy eu trefnu hyd y gallwn 
 yn ol rhediad y meddwl, a'u hasio ag 
 ambell *ac' neu *ond.' Y mae i'r 
 bryddest a dyfodd fel hyn dan iy nwy- 
 
150 On Translating Omar 
 
 law bum rhan, sy megis yn dangos allan 
 bum niwrnod yn hanes y bardd." 
 
 But, fair play to Fitzgerald, he knew 
 what he had done : " I doubt I have given 
 but a very one-sided version of Omar." 
 And if we have only one side of Omar, we 
 probably have all of Fitzgerald. Shelley 
 had no finer ear. And the ^^ once lovely 
 Up " will be ever lovely. 
 
The Passing of Arthur 
 
 I. 
 
 Concerning King Arthur and his men, 
 England has her Idylls of the King, and 
 Wales has her Mabinogion, It would be an 
 asset for Wales to have a memorial of the 
 Round Table not only in Prose, but also in 
 Verse. There is a large section of the 
 Eisteddfod leaders that deems that the 
 Eisteddfod should encourage such a produc- 
 tion, and hence they have urged the setting 
 of romantic subjects on which the poets 
 might contend for the laurel. There are 
 many, strangely enough, who declare open 
 war against such a movement, and insist 
 year by year on the choice of subjects of the 
 Elusengar'^ch and T Greadigaeth type. 
 The influence of the romantic school is, 
 151 
 
152 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 however, spreading wide, and soon the 
 Welsh literary taste, we hope, will be 
 unsatisfied till it obtain all the charm of its 
 Mabinogi set in the tuneful and concen- 
 trated scheme of the Awdl. The supreme 
 test of the Awdl should be : can it hold and 
 convey the poetry of the Mabinogion ? If 
 the reply is satisfactory, we pray our poets 
 to weave in song the noble tales left them 
 as the heritage of a glorious period of Wales. 
 
 That this can be done is sufficiently 
 proved by the Awdl, " Ymadawiad Arthur," 
 of Mr. Gwynn Jones. 
 
 There are two difficulties on the road of 
 the poet to success : the intrinsic merit] of 
 the Mabinogion themselves ,• they are so 
 poetical that to tell the stories again in verse 
 seems almost a travesty ; and, further, the 
 great occasions of the Round Table have 
 already been set in poetry by the hand of 
 Tennyson. The question is, Can our poet 
 infuse new life into the original Mabinogi 
 and at the same time avoid the magic 
 influence of Tennyson ? The poem of Mr, 
 
The Passing of Arthur 153 
 
 Gwynn Jones may throw light upon the 
 difficulty. 
 
 First, we note that the story of the passing 
 of Arthur as told by Malory, Tennyson, 
 and Mr. Gwynn Jones is the same : these 
 latter having taken the account directly 
 from Malory. Tennyson gives us Malory's 
 facts, but they are set in the poet's 
 own vision of the colour and tone of the 
 situation. Tennyson, by virtue of his touch, 
 at times makes Arthur and Bedivere stand 
 out even more humanly than Malory does. 
 We can say the same of Mr. Gwynn Jones ; 
 nay, more : the Welsh poet has given us 
 yet another colouring of the old tale, having 
 avoided the Tennysonian treatment and hue 
 almost as if the English poet had never 
 written on the subject. And herein lies 
 the first excellence of his Ymadamad 
 Arthur, It is Mr. Gwynn Jones' own 
 vision of the passing of Arthur that we read ; 
 it is neither Tennyson's nor Malory's, as far 
 as the painting is concerned. Therefore, 
 the poem is an original one. Whether 
 
154 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 the vision is as inspiring, and the picture as 
 lively as that of Tennyson, we leave for 
 another discussion. Suffice it now to say 
 that there is enough poetry in the Awdl to 
 deserve the closest attention. And a note 
 on some of its parts will justify this asser- 
 tion. 
 
 It preserves in its diction the melody of 
 the old prose : the pure pearl white- 
 ness of the maidens' arms makes pale even 
 the silken whiteness of their heaving robes : 
 
 Rhag gwyndawd 
 Perlog ne eu purloyw gnawd 
 Pylai gwawr y pali gwyn 
 A ymdonnai am danyn'. 
 
 There are innumerable instances of 
 musical lines fraught with vowel chords : 
 
 In the shrill din of Camlan, where the 
 swords flash fire : 
 
 Goruwch cymmloedd groch Camlan 
 Lle'r oedd deufur dur yn dan. 
 
 And the steel blade, smoother than smooth 
 water ; 
 
The Passing of Arthur 155 
 
 Ei hir lafn lyfned oedd 
 A difreg lif y dyfroedd. 
 
 And the wonderful ship, and its sails like 
 white foam in sunlight : 
 
 A gweles 
 Yn angori long eras, — hwyliau hon 
 Mai y wendon dan liw y melyndes. 
 
 And illimitable clusters of gold gorse, like 
 golden bells : 
 
 Dibrin flodau'r eithin aur 
 Mai haen o glych melynaur. 
 
 And the sad, far off, gentle sob of the 
 wavelet, where the waters break : 
 
 Twrw'r dwr man lie torrai'r don, 
 Mwynder hiraethus meindon. 
 
 The Cynghanedd is so smooth and natural 
 that often we deem it accidental, and yet 
 it is always correct. There are many 
 instances of the happiest marriage of sound 
 and sense : 
 
 Thus the vigour of the command to hurl 
 the sword into the mid-torrent ; 
 
156 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 Heb dy atal, bid iti 
 Fwrw y llafn i ferw y Hi. 
 
 And the halt in the speech of Arthur, 
 wounded : 
 
 Clyw, brvvnt y clwyf 
 Hwn : clyw, Fedwyr, claf ydwyf. 
 
 And the rack of the pain : 
 
 Arthur 
 Oedd lesg gan dduloes ei gur. 
 
 And the thick words : 
 
 ebai'r Brenin 
 A geiriau bloesg gan gur bli?t. 
 
 Note the quickness of the movement and 
 the stealth of the sound in 
 
 Yn ol i'r agen eilwaith — draw e droes 
 Drwy y drysi diflaith, 
 Gofalu ar gelu'r gwaith, 
 Bras gamu brysiog ymaith. 
 
 And the music of the water on the gravel 
 shore : 
 
 Ond dwr a'i dwrdd yn taro 
 Ar y graig, a'i su drwy'r gro. 
 
The Passing of Arthur 157 
 
 And the receding voice and the whisper- 
 ing : 
 
 Yn y pellter fel peraidd 
 Anadliad, sibrydiad braidd^ 
 Darfu'r llais. 
 
 Then there are the Pictures of the poem. 
 The poet tells of the meadow, white with 
 clover bloom : 
 
 Wynned oedd a phe doi hi — Olwen dios, 
 Ar hyd yr hirnos i grwydro arni. 
 
 And here Bedwyr takes Arthur to die. 
 The King bids him take the sword 
 Excalibur to the lake ; and we get a picture 
 of Crafnant or Elsi before us : 
 
 A chafas faith, frychlas fryn 
 Tonnog, a marian tano, 
 Yn dres fraith ar draws y fro 
 'Roedd prydferth fiodau'r perthi, 
 Unlliw 6d neu ewyn Hi. 
 
 And then follows an Eryri hillside colour, 
 gold and purple : 
 
 Dibrin fiodau'r eithin aur 
 Mai ha^n o glych melynaur ^ 
 
158 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 Man flodau'r grug yn hugan 
 
 Ar y geillt, o borffor gwan. 
 Into the lake the brand Excalibur is hurled 
 by Bedwyr : 
 
 Cywrain oedd, ac arni wawr 
 
 O liwiau gemau lawer, 
 
 Lliw'r tan a lliw eira ter, 
 
 A gloywed a gwiw lewych 
 
 Rhudd yr haul ar ddisglair ddrych. 
 When Excalibur is thrown, the poetry is 
 magical in its sound effect : 
 
 Ac fe'i bwriodd 
 Onid oedd fel darn o dan 
 Yn y nwyfre yn hofran. 
 And finally, the barge that takes away 
 Arthur looms distinct in its colours 5 colours 
 of scarlet and gold, of snow and of wine : 
 Ar ei gerfwaith cywrain 
 Gwrlid mwyth o 'sgarlad main : 
 Where three beautiful women sit : 
 A lliw teg eu gwalltiau aur 
 Drwyddo fel cawod ruddaur ; 
 Deufan goch pob dwyfoch deg 
 Wiw ^win drwy wynlliw gwaneg. 
 
The Passing of Arthur 159 
 
 The power of the following is evident : 
 
 Gyddfau a thalcennau can 
 Mai eira ymyl Aran. 
 
 There remains for us to notice the 
 dramatic power of the poem. 
 
 Bedwyr tells Arthur that his country 
 cannot survive his death : 
 
 Can nis deil hi 
 O thrydd Arthur oddiwrthi. 
 
 Then comes this sudden couplet in echo 
 from above : 
 
 Megis o'r nef d6i gref gri, 
 
 " Ni thrydd Arthur oddiwrthi." 
 
 After a long series of rolling lines describ- 
 ing the throwing of Excalibur comes the 
 climax suddenly and in appropriate sound : 
 
 Yna'n ol hynny wele 
 Tan y dwfr y tynwyd e' ! 
 
 The picture of Bedivere is stamped on the 
 memory adroitly. Arthur is taken by the 
 women into the ship, and Bedivere begs to 
 be taken with him, A maiden replies ; 
 
i6o The Passing of Arthur 
 
 " Bid iti dewi, ni ddaeth y diwedd ; 
 Arthur byth ni syrth i'r bedd, — tithau, dos, 
 Y mae'n d'aros waith cyn myn'd i orwedd." 
 
 And the faithful knight : 
 
 Gan wylo'n drist a distaw, 
 Bedwyr drodd, edrychodd draw. 
 
 And when at last all is over, and the ship 
 has disappeared like a spirit in the mist, 
 there is a fine touch when the poet, by the 
 use of the one word "/r/«," meaning battle- 
 field, opens before us, as he ends, all the 
 turmoil which Bedivere has yet to go 
 through ere he joins his king : 
 
 Bedwyr yn drist a distaw 
 At y drin aeth eto draw. 
 
 II. 
 
 The two characteristics of the Awdl are 
 Dramatic Movement and Concentration. 
 Two characteristics of Tennyson's Passing 
 of Arthur are Eloquence and Fine Writing. 
 King Arthur in the Awdl is a dying 
 desperate man, In Tennyson he is ^ 
 
The Passing of Arthur i6i 
 
 polished deliberate speaker, with a tendency 
 to exaggerate, and a love of show. 
 In the Awdl Arthur is Arthur. In the 
 Idyll he is the Poet trying to be Arthur. 
 When Arthur is wounded, he makes a 
 beautifully phrased autobiographical speech 
 all about " the old days " and " summer 
 noons," and "walking about the gardens 
 and walls of Camelot," and about arms 
 "clothed in white samite, mystic, wonder- 
 ful." We wonder where King Arthur got 
 hold of the word "mystic"; and how he, 
 in his condition, " deep smitten through the 
 helm," could be so much of a decadent as 
 to rave over " one summer noon " it is 
 impossible to grasp. In the Awdl when 
 Bedivere is aghast at the fact that Arthur 
 has left his knights, the King replies with 
 these words : 
 
 Ebr yntau : " Clyw, brwnt y clwyf 
 Hwn ; clyw Fedwyr, claf ydwyf." 
 
 And when Bedivere returns after hiding 
 Excalibur instead of throwing it into the 
 
i62 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 lake, Arthur makes another speech, indulg- 
 ing this time not in poetry but in ethics. 
 He is very much the schoolmaster in this 
 line : 
 
 This is a shameful thing, for men to lie. 
 
 When Bedivere returns the second time 
 without fulfilling the King's request, 
 Arthur's anger is more elegant than con- 
 vincing. See this sweet epigram : 
 
 Authority forgets a dying king, 
 
 and this sly simile : 
 
 or like a girl 
 Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
 
 And then suddenly he forgets his elegance 
 
 and loses his temper : 
 
 get thee hence : 
 But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur 
 I will arise and slay thee with my hands. 
 
 One loses all respect for a man who loses 
 his temper. And if he does so when he is 
 dying, you do not like to imagine what he 
 might have done in his ordinary state of 
 health. 
 
The Passing of Arthur 163 
 
 In the Awdl, Arthur acts very naturally 
 for a wounded leader. He makes one 
 appeal to honour, infinitely more effective 
 than a murderous threat : 
 
 Nid gwir iti 
 Fwrw y llafn i ferw y Hi ! 
 Di rhed, a'th dynghedu'r wyf, 
 Na fethych cyn na fythwyf ; 
 Y breiniol gledd, bwrw hwnnw 
 I ferw y llyn — cofia'r llw ! 
 
 And it is really a very poor Arthur who 
 makes this feeble remark to Bedivere return- 
 ing the third time after having thrown 
 Excalibur : 
 
 " Now I see by thine eyes that this is done^ 
 Speak out : what is it thSu hast heard, or 
 seen ? " 
 
 In the Awdl we understand that Arthur 
 
 knew that Bedivere would redeem his 
 
 honour. There is no ugly doubt in his 
 last greeting: 
 
 " Ba ryw antur fu, Bedwyr ?" ebr yntau 
 Yn wannach ei lais gan nych ei loesau \ 
 
164 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 *' Dyred, byr fyddo d'eiriau, a dywed 
 Im rhag fy myned gan fyrred f'oriau." 
 Thereupon in the Idyll Bedivere, for a 
 change, makes a long speech, all about 
 " living three lives of mortal men," with 
 another dose of " the white samite," wonder- 
 ful, and mystic. Compare the Awdl reply: 
 " Arglwydd, llyma ddigwyddodd : 
 Y llain a dewlais ; Haw wen a'i daliodd ; 
 Trithro yn hy fe'i chwyfiodd, heb ballu, 
 Ac yna'i dynnu i'r eigion danodd. 
 And Tennyson's Arthur, The Killer with 
 his Hands, could never have said this : 
 Ha ! Bedwyr anwyl I heb dario ennyd 
 Yno yn gynnar, bid fy nwyn gennyd. 
 We have commented elsewhere on the Idyll 
 Queens, who sent shivering cries to the 
 twinkling stars, and howled like a very, 
 very lonely wind. And what hopeless 
 queens ! 
 They called him by his name, complaining 
 
 loud, 
 And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
 Striped with dark blood — 
 
The Passing of Arthur 165 
 
 Who wants to know anything about his 
 brow striped with dark blood ? Give us 
 the white, kind, ministering hands of the 
 Welsh Rhianedd : 
 Breichiau glanach na'r sindal a'r pali 
 I'r gadair euraid a gaid i'w godi ; 
 Gwynion ddwylaw fu'n gweini i'r Brenin, 
 A rhoddi gwin i lareiddio'i gynni. 
 And Layamon is much better than 
 Tennyson here : 
 
 "And even with the words there came 
 from the sea a short boat, borne on the 
 waves, and two women therein, wondr- 
 ously arrayed ; and they took Arthur anon^ 
 and bare him quickly and softly laid him 
 do'^Uy and fared forth away." 
 Tennyson, with true Saxon method, times 
 the departure of the barge to a nicety. He 
 waits until everyone has finished his speech : 
 Bedivere first, with his pretty little 
 sequence — 
 When every morning brought a noble chance 
 And every chance brought out a noble 
 knight, 
 
i66 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 and his Scriptural analogies : 
 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh, 
 
 and his exquisite adjectival felicities, 
 
 And I, the last, go forth companionless 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds. 
 
 Then Arthur slowly answers from the barge, 
 makes a big fuss about his departure, 
 
 I am going a long way 
 With these thou seest ; — 
 
 tells Bedivere to pray for his soul ; delivers 
 a short homily on prayer ; and never for a 
 moment thinks about Bedivere at all. Then 
 when he has finished his peroration, the 
 barge with oar and sail moves from the 
 brink like a dying swan. 
 
 It is not so in the Awdl. Bedivere does 
 not make a big speech about hiding his fore- 
 head and his eyes. He says simply and 
 passionately, "I have been with Arthur in 
 life, let me be with him in death." 
 
 "Dioer, o mynnwch " eb Bedwyr, "a minnau 
 I'm hola* hynt a ddeuaf mal yntau j 
 
The Passing of Arthur 167 
 
 Ynghyd y buom ynghadau, ynghyd 
 O'r byd caffom ddiengyd ddydd angau." 
 
 Then Arthur bids farewell, and does not 
 talk about himself, but about his country 
 and his people : 
 
 " Mi weithion i hinon ha 
 Afallon af i wella ; 
 Ond i fy nhud dof yn ol, 
 Hi ddygaf yn fuddugol 
 Eto, wedi delo dydd 
 Ei bri ymysg y broydd." 
 
 And the barge is sailing as he finishes, 
 Hwyliodd y bad a gadaw 
 Bedwyr mewn syn dremyn draw. 
 
 And then a song is heard coming as if from 
 the departing ship, and Bedivere hears 
 about Avilion as in a dream, and the last 
 faint whisper tells him his heart will not 
 break in the island valley : 
 
 Ni ddaw fyth i ddeifio hon, golli ffydd 
 Na thrawd cywilydd na thoriad calon. 
 
 Watts Dunton has said : There are some 
 poets whose impulse is to narrate, and 
 
i68 The Passing of Arthur 
 
 some whose impulse is to sing. Mr. 
 Gwynn Jones cannot sing (see his lyrics). 
 But he can narrate. Tennyson cannot tell 
 a story. But he can sing. 
 
 In a word, Tennyson is very lovely. 
 Mr. Gwynn Jones is very true. The Idyll 
 takes me to the study, where I hear sweetest 
 numbers on a mellow tongue.* It is the 
 A'99dl that takes me 
 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea, 
 where I can hear 
 
 the ripple washing in the reeds 
 And the wild waves lapping on the crag. 
 
 *It is well known that Tennyson preferred. to read 
 out aloud The Passing of Arthur to any other of his 
 poems. That is the cause of its failure. Reading 
 out aloud has not the same function as acting. You 
 can act Malory, though it is best to read him silently. 
 The plain swift statement about " the arm and the 
 hand rising from the lake " is much more mystic and 
 wonderful than are the words mystic and wonderful. 
 There is no mysticism in the word mystic. Mystic- 
 ism is the name of an action, not Nothing in terms of 
 name. Mystic is the critic's word, not the poet's. 
 The poet is a man of action. The critic is the man 
 of words. Tennyson is a man of words. It is 
 dangerous for a critic to write poetry, for he thinks 
 
The Passing of Arthur 169 
 
 Poetry is Words. It is obvious that in this critique 
 we take the point of view of Pure Poetry, in judging 
 Tennyson's Idyll ; by Pure Poetry we mean creation 
 in strict Imitation of Nature. If you say Tennyson 
 does not mean Arthur to be a man, but a type of the 
 soul of man, then the poet has a right to do as he 
 ikes with him. True poets have nothing to do with 
 types, Othello is Othello, not a type of a jealous 
 husband. Tennyson's Arthur may be anything. He 
 is certainly not Arthurian, nor of the earth. 
 
The Meadow Song 
 
 To be a child is the greatest thing in the 
 world. The heroes were children. The 
 gods are children. All great poets are 
 children. Gods, children, heroes, poets 
 have these priceless faculties : tender hearts 
 and spirits of wonder. The only difference 
 between a poet and a child is that the poet 
 is the child that can express his own feel- 
 ings perfectly. And Coleridge says : 
 
 " To carry on the feelings of childhood 
 
 into the powers of manhood is one of 
 
 the marks that distinguishes genius from 
 
 talent." 
 
 One of the chief glories of the period of 
 
 childhood is the fact that the boundaries 
 
 between the realms of reality and of 
 
 romance are ill defined. The child will 
 
 170 
 
The Meadow Song 171 
 
 have no boundary between reality and 
 romance. Moreover, he has the power to 
 make a romance of all his little realities, and 
 realities of all his mighty romances. 
 
 And he is the greatest poet who can do 
 these same things best. 
 
 We appear to detect these qualities in 
 Telynegion Maes a Mor, 
 
 Eifion Wyn pleases us, first, in this 
 respect, in the fineness of his childlike 
 susceptibilities. According to the poet's 
 mood, Nature is now a plaything, now a 
 divinity ; now a tyrant, now a beloved one ; 
 sometimes as clear as a blue sky, oftenest a 
 mystery. Sometimes he chides Nature, 
 sometimes he refuses her prophecy, oftenest 
 he is in awe of her. He asks her questions 
 full of wonder, he shows her how magical 
 she is, and therefore he worships her, and 
 therefore he loves her. For love and 
 religion are transcendent admiration. Had 
 Eifion Wyn not possessed the child heart, 
 he would have sung to January in some 
 such words as these : 
 
172 The Meadow Song 
 
 Wyt lonawr yn oer 
 A'th farrug yn wyn, 
 A tnaniell Iwydrew 
 A roddaist i^r llyn. 
 
 And the stanza would have been common- 
 place. But Eifion Wyn has the child heart 
 and the child wonder. January is to him 
 something much more wonderful than a 
 month in which there is frost on the pond ; 
 it is not a month, but a power ; a power, 
 not that gives, but that creates ; that works 
 miracles. It is a power that he does not 
 understand ; it is one with the great agencies 
 of the spirit. And therefore he sings in 
 simple child numbers his simple child 
 questioning : 
 
 Wyt lonawr yn oer 
 
 A'th farrug yn wyn, 
 
 A pha beth a wnaetkost 
 
 I ddwry llyn ? 
 
 Mae iar fach yr hesg 
 Yn cadw'n ei thy^ 
 Heb le i fordwyo 
 Na throchi ei phlu. 
 
The Meadow Song 173 
 
 This is supreme Wonder Poetry, 
 
 It is only the innocent that can wonder. 
 And the same innocence is the spirit of 
 the song to The Stars. The poet having 
 seen glittering pearls in the lake as he passed 
 by at night, goes there, in the morning to 
 pick out the pearls. But, wonder of 
 wonders, the pearls are gone ; and, ten 
 thousand wonders, there is not a trace of 
 a footstep on the banks, not even his own 
 marks of the night : 
 
 Eis neithiwr heibio'r llyn 
 Gan edrych dan y feisdon j 
 Ac yno gwelais fil a mwy 
 O berlau gloewon, gloewon. 
 
 Eis heibio gyda'r wawr 
 Gan feddwl casglu'r perlau ; 
 Ond nid oedd drannoeth berl ar ol, 
 JV^ac ol neb ar y glannau. 
 
 So artless is the innocence, and so artful is 
 the delicate admission that he really knows 
 — that he is certain that at least no denizen 
 of the land took his pearls away. 
 
174 The Meadow Song 
 
 With this spirit of wonder Eifion Wyn 
 combines the tender heart. And every 
 tender heart is a strong heart. This heart 
 delights in strength and mighty power : 
 
 Chwyth, aeafwynt, fel y mynnot, 
 Cladd y mynydd dan y lluwch, 
 Cladd y mor o dan yr ewyn, 
 Chwyth, aeafwynt, eto'n uwch. 
 
 But the strong heart is the tender heart : 
 
 Ond pe clywit ar rhyw dalar 
 Oenig cynnar yn rhoi bref, 
 Tro oddiwrth y dalar honno, 
 Paid a chwythu arno ef. 
 
 And the tenderness of his heart can over- 
 come even his awe of Nature, just as a 
 mother's heart can overcome all fears when 
 her love is touched. And this is what 
 makes him the poet he is. For the poet is 
 he who, when he likes, does what he likes 
 with Nature. He is the autocrat of Nature. 
 We, ordinary mortals, take it that Nature 
 kills her fair flowers. But the poet does 
 not allow the flowers to die. He does not 
 
The Meadow Song 175 
 
 believe they die. He believes they go back 
 to the bosom of the great Earth Mother, 
 whence they came : 
 
 " Cadwaf fy ngwyl," medd bywyd, 
 
 " Galwaf fy ngwyrdd yn ol," 
 
 ** Casglaf fy mlodau adref " 
 
 " O'r mynydd, yr ardd, a'r ddol." — 
 
 Clybu y maes a'r prennau, 
 A rhywbryd rhwng hwyr a gwawr 
 Cyfododd y gwersyll blodau — 
 Mae'r pebyll yn Uwyr hyd lawr. 
 
 And there is his lonely early primrose : 
 
 Briallen Sul y Blodau 
 Heb gymmar yn y coed. 
 
 That is so fair, so frail : 
 
 Yr wyt rhy dlws i farw 
 Os wyt rhy wan i fyw. 
 
 And dies of longing for the dawn. What 
 shall he say of it ? Nay, rather, what shall 
 he do to it ? And he does that which 
 betrays a tenderness unmatched in life, a 
 tenderness worthy of heaven itself j and he 
 betrays a simplicity in the telling of it 
 
176 The Meadow Song 
 
 possible only on the lips of an inspired 
 child : 
 
 Mi daenaf fwsog drosot 
 A gwyliaf ar fy nhroed^ 
 Briallen Sul y Blodau 
 Yn marw yn y coed. 
 
 There is never such gentleness in the world 
 as there is in a poet's song. 
 
 And it is the same delicate fingers that 
 moulded these word traceries of Nature, 
 transformed by the true lyrist's subjective 
 treatment into the gules and cornices of the 
 temple of his own heart : 
 
 The riot of flowers, and beauty's embrace : 
 
 Fel y gloyn, claf o serch 
 Yw fy nghalon innau ; 
 Gwn pa bath yw cael fy nal 
 Yn nyrysni^r blodau. 
 
 And the glorious laughter of the hazel trees 
 in the sun : 
 
 Cynhaeaf arall welais i — 
 
 ^Rocdd (hwerthin yn y llwyni mau. 
 
The Meadow Song 177 
 
 And the sea maiden, Gwylan, fashioned in 
 the sea's fashion : 
 
 Mae glesni y mor yn ei llygad, 
 A chrychni y mor yn ei gwallt. 
 
 And the happy lovers resolving all things 
 into their own joy : 
 
 Hyd fin y maes, ym min yr hwyr, 
 Rhodiannai dau yn wyn eu byd, 
 Ac iddynt, caruW oedd y ser, 
 A charuW oedd ysgubau'r yd. 
 
 And the sad lovers beholding their own tears 
 in all things about and above : 
 
 Hyd fin y raaes, ym min yr hwyr, 
 Rhodiannai dau yn fud, yn fud \ 
 Ac iddynt, z£;j//<?V oedd y ser 
 Ac wyloW oedd ysgubau'r yd. 
 
 It is in such a poem as Mahinogi that 
 Eifion Wyn shows best his temper. 
 Mahinogi is a lovely song of fancy and 
 imagination, full of a spirit communion with 
 Nature. It tells of an early morning vision 
 ^hat 9ame to hi|n in April ; 
 
178 The Meadow Song 
 
 Mi welwn Rhywun cynnar 
 Yn rhodio yn yr ardd, 
 Mor deg a duwies ieuanc, 
 Neu riain serch y bardd. 
 
 And this Rhywun is the very Spring 
 incarnate ; in the mould of a girl, throwing 
 treasure from a treasure box upon the earth, 
 and when the poet goes to see what has 
 happened, he sees little hands upon the 
 flower stalks each holding its cup of dew : 
 
 A sefais lie y safai 
 
 Gan gyffwrdd yn ei brys 
 
 A'r gwiail, heb eu siglo 
 
 O dan ei hysgafn fys ; 
 
 Ac ar y prennau'r ydoedd 
 
 Lle'r cyffyrddasai'r Rhith, 
 
 Rhyw ddwylaw bychain gwyrddion 
 
 Yn dal y gawod wlith. 
 Mabinogi is a song that could be written 
 only by a poet content to dream, and to let 
 the storm passions of his soul alone, not 
 knowing whether they be of God or of the 
 devil, Eifion Wyn is very unlike his lyric 
 colleague and peer^ Mr, W. J, GrufFudd^ 
 
The Meadow Song 179 
 
 who makes his storm passions his life, not 
 caring whether they be of God or the devil, 
 content that they are his own. Eifion Wyn 
 is a poet of calm. Mr. GrufFudd is a poet 
 of storm. The peace of the former's heart 
 gives him room to be altruistic. The 
 storm of the latter's soul blinds the landscape 
 around. When Mr. GrufFudd writes these 
 beautiful lines : 
 
 Anghofiwn Gwyn y Byd a'i greulon loes, 
 A Llwybrau Drain a Chreigiau ein her oes, 
 Cawn dario mwy, a S^n Yforu 'mhell, — 
 Heddyw, o leiaf, ni raid codi'r Groes, — 
 
 the philosophy is more typical of the poetic 
 actions of Eifion Wyn than of his own. 
 It is Eifion Wyn that forgets the " Ihybrau 
 drain"; his journey is a long journey, 
 sweetened by love : 
 
 Hwnt i for y mae yr ynys, 
 
 Hwnt i lawer tir ; 
 Ond gwnai serch y siwrnai'n felus, 
 
 Er yn siwrnai hif. 
 
i8o The Meadow Song 
 
 It is Mr. GrufFudd himself that is always 
 taking us amid the shoals and rocks. True 
 we never went so willingly into the whirl- 
 pools as with him, but our willingness does 
 not alter their character : 
 
 I genllif a loesion y gaeaf, 
 I fro lie mae hiraeth yn serch, 
 Ymchwelaf yn ol i'm cynefin 
 Yfory, fy merch. 
 
 There is, however, one agony in Eifion 
 Wyn ; and it is sung with so much sweet- 
 ness, and fraught with such imagery that 
 we are almost glad the poet once lost his 
 love : 
 
 Pe bai gennyt serch at dy fardd,- fy Menna, 
 
 Ti ddaethet fel cynt ; 
 Rhwng Uwyni y brwyn a gwymon Gorffena', 
 
 A'th wallt yn y gwynt. 
 Mae celyn y mor yn holi am danat, 
 
 Pan elwyf fy hun ; 
 A pha beth a ddywedaf, am nad wyt yn 
 dyfod, 
 
 Fy mun, fy mun ? 
 
The Meadow Song i8i 
 
 For the rest, Eifion Wyn is happiest with 
 the h'ttle, eternal things of the earth : 
 
 Onid merch y maes a'r mor 
 
 Yw fy nghalon innau ; 
 Car fugeilio'r gwenith gwyn, 
 
 Car gyfeillach tonnau. 
 
Odlau Serch a Bywyd 
 
 We chanced upon the h'terary supplement 
 of The Times during an Eisteddfod week, 
 and there Mr. Alfred Percival Graves, 
 whose poems appear regularly in The 
 Nationalist^ had written the following 
 sentence: 
 
 ** The chief present day poets of Wales are 
 Dyjed^ Eifion Wyn^ Elfedy Morris Jones^ 
 G'Vpynn yones, TV, jf, Gruffudd^ and 
 Marsiantr 
 
 In our younger days we had a similar 
 theory, with one exception. It was not so 
 much a mistake on our part, as an over- 
 sight. We put down The Times and 
 pondered ; and went to the bookshelf, an d 
 searched the topmost row, and found, nigh 
 
 l88 
 
Odlau Serch a Bywyd 183 
 
 a disused Tennyson, that which The Times 
 had sent us to seek. 
 
 It was a tiny volume, modest enough in 
 sage-green and gold, with the title, Odlau 
 Serch a By^yd^ 
 
 We had read it before, and we seem to 
 have made a few comments on the margin. 
 But we set ourselves to read it again, for 
 The Times is an honourable paper. 
 
 "" And there I beheld that which will give 
 me joy for ever." And joy breeds mirth, and 
 we know when to be happy now. For in the 
 light of recent Logan Stone oratory, and of 
 the discovery of The TimeSj we have seen 
 deeper into this little book, Odlau Serch^ etc.^ 
 than we ever hope to see again. Hence the 
 haste to write down the visions. 
 
 But before coming to the work in detail, 
 there is the general effect to be chronicled. 
 With due respect to TheTimes^ we claim to 
 have made, after the deep perusal, a further 
 discovery. The small sage-green volume, 
 which we had overlooked as a product of 
 the old school, now appears to be the fruit 
 
184 Odlau Serch a Bywyd 
 
 of a New Bardism. Like the New Bard- 
 ism of Wales, it contains metres rarely seen 
 in the works of the more popular poets of 
 the old days ; it contains similes and 
 metaphors which men of the temper of 
 Eben Fardd would never have had the 
 courage to make use of; it contains con- 
 fessions which the majority of poets would 
 have chosen to suppress ; it contains a wider 
 patriotism than Cymru Fu could have 
 demanded of its muse j and it has a form, a 
 body, a technique unknown to former days ; 
 We are convinced this is a New Bardism on 
 its own ; and we feel that the author, in his 
 more prosaic moments, has been doing him- 
 self a great injustice. 
 
 In the book there are some tenets to 
 which we do not subscribe. There are too 
 some cloudy passages. But every new 
 bardism has to preach its own crusade, and 
 we shall not demur much. It is only fair to 
 put the poems of this volume to the same 
 tests as we have applied to the works of the 
 other new bards. 
 
Odlau Serch a Bywyd 185 
 
 First, there is colour in the lines : 
 The white moonbeams with their golden 
 reflexion : 
 
 O ! leuad wen 
 Sydd uwch fy mhen 
 Yn driogo'n ddistaw grisiau aur y nef ! 
 
 The anaemic sun, — 
 
 Mae'r haul wedi codi, a'i wedd yn ddiwaed. 
 
 The whole glorified spectrum upon the 
 Miller's Daughter's face, besides the blush 
 of the sweet apple : 
 
 Yn gloewi'i grudd, mae'n hysbys 
 Fod Uiwiau goreu'r enfys, 
 A gwrid yr afal melus. 
 
 There is Passion in the poems ; Passion 
 consuming itself; Passion swift as an eyelid 
 drooping ; Passion relentless in pursuit of 
 prey: 
 
 Ni ches ond un edrychiad 
 O gornel pella'r llygad 
 Ac yna mewn amrantiad — 
 Meddyliais am offeiriad — 
 Mae'a oedi'n hir 
 
i86 Odlau Serch a Bywyd 
 
 There are moving Pictures in the verse : 
 The crescendo song of the thrush : 
 
 Yn y llwyni llawenha, 
 Canu, chwiban, bloeddio wna. 
 
 The blackbird hilarious (note the happy 
 double entendre) :» 
 
 Yno'n canu rhwng y dail 
 Ac yn chwerthin bob yn ail — 
 Chwerthin, am ei fed yn byw yng Ngwalia 
 Wen. 
 
 The orator in action, clear as a silhouette : 
 
 Ei lais oedd glir a chryf, 
 Ei farn a roddai'n hyf, 
 Gan weithiau darro'r bwrdd a'i law neu ben 
 ei lin. 
 
 Care should be taken not to read the last 
 line as if the only alternative gesture of the 
 speaker was confined to the upw^ard thrust 
 of his knee. 
 
 We find many examples of the mystic 
 communion of the poet with specific objects 
 of nature, as in 
 
Odlau Serch a Bywyd 187 
 
 O ! leuad wen 
 Sydd uwch fy mhen. 
 
 The three essentials of a Lyric are Colour, 
 Movement and Passion ; and we have the 
 three acutely in this volume. 
 
 Further, the thought is strong, especially 
 in Cynghanedd : 
 
 The inevitableness of Fate : 
 
 Wedi'r gaeaf, haf ddaw o hyd, — a'r haul 
 I'w reoli gyfyd. 
 
 His Hiraeth is deep ; and here are two lines 
 sprent with a Miltonic largeness : 
 
 Gwell fyddai gennyf awr wrth draed dy hen 
 
 fynyddoedd 
 Na byw yn Eden wiw am filoedd o flynydd- 
 
 oedd. 
 
 And, oh ! the tenderness of the genial 
 Celt : 
 
 Gwell fyddai gennyf glywed Rowlands o 
 
 Langeithib 
 Na chlywed Paul ei hun yn Athen yn 
 
 areithio. 
 
 This is a superb example of the egoistic 
 
i88 Odlau Serch a Bywyd 
 
 temperament overcoming the paltry exigen- 
 cies of rhyme. Character will out. And, 
 personally, in this case, our own narrow- 
 mindedness gets the better of our patriotism, 
 and we must confess to a weakness for Paul. 
 But, finally, heed the abandon and clinch- 
 ing finality of this couplet : 
 
 Gwell fyddai gennyf weled Cymro syml, 
 
 diurddas, 
 Na gweled angel gwyn, neu Moses, neu 
 
 Elias. 
 
 And yet when we come to think of it, this 
 is one of the cloudy bits of the book. We 
 might understand the writer's possible 
 objections to Moses, but we cannot make 
 out why he does not like Elias, who was not 
 much of a scholar. 
 
 The Technique of the poet attracts our 
 attention. We find an occasional swing- 
 ing rhythm, suggestive of an English 
 roundelay : 
 
 O ynfyd urddasolion 
 
 Y ddaear ! Cydraddolion 
 
Odlau Serch a Bywyd 189 
 
 A'r tlodion, yn nhywyllwch 
 Y beddrod ydych, cofiwch. 
 
 The unwary reader must have a care how 
 he reads the four lines ; because there is a 
 certain elusive sequence of alternate syllabic 
 stress in them that on some lips might give 
 the effect of prose. 
 
 The Diction, too, is studied. 
 
 Melody and the Bird's nest : 
 
 Perffeithiach peth nid oes is nen 
 Mewn cynllun nen wneuthuriad. 
 
 And in the poem, The Cloud, we find the 
 Ancient Mariner's simplicity of vocabulary, 
 combined with exquisite Pre-Raphaelite 
 realisms : 
 
 Yn ngwres yr haf, dawW meddwl 
 
 Ynfynych ify mhen 
 Y carwn gwmni'r cwmwl 
 I fyny yn y nen. 
 
 We are left to surmise what might have 
 happened in a cyclone. 
 
 And our poet has the structural and 
 dramatic power of Contrast, 
 
igo Odlau Serch a Bywyd 
 
 This we see in the two poems, Heddy^y 
 and Tfory. Heddy^ is a picture of the 
 sleeping day, where we see the human touch 
 of the workman, after his day's work, in his 
 blushes : 
 
 Mae'r haul ar ddiflannu, wedi gorffen ei 
 waith ; 
 
 Mae'n myned i huno ; 
 
 Mae fel pe bae^n gwrido. 
 A'r mor sydd yn gorwedd a'i ben ar y traeth. 
 
 The Italics are ours. And note the sweet 
 suspicion of rhyme in lines one and four. 
 Then comes the sudden contrast in Tfory, 
 The sun appears with haggard face, and 
 bloodshot eyes. The breeze — the breeze — 
 rushes about, roaring. And the sea, — well, 
 the sea ! — 
 
 Mae'r haul wedi codi, a'i wedd yn ddiwaed, 
 
 Yr awel sy'n effro, 
 
 Yn rhuo, yn rhuthro, 
 A'r mdr sydd yn sefyll ar flaenau ei draed. 
 
 We must refer to a great lyric, entitled 
 T Pili Pala^ or The Butterfly ^ because it \% 
 
Odlau Serch a Bywyd 191 
 
 so true to nature, and marks the poet's 
 insight into the ways of men. It tells how 
 the poet twiddled his cane on the Rhyl 
 sands : 
 
 Mor lion a'r pili-pala. 
 And on he goes : 
 
 Llawer tro 
 Bum ar y gro yn rhodio, 
 Gan bwyso a mesur merched Rhyl, 
 A geir yn filoedd yno. 
 
 What a jolly boy ! we say. 
 
 Finally, there are two great truths in the 
 book that cling to us. 
 
 The first is a quotation from Herrick, 
 and is the title of one of the poems : 
 
 Cofgolofn y Bardd yw ei Farddoniaeth. 
 True, O King, 
 
 The second truth appears in a poem that 
 sings of Wales, and her fortune of heroes. 
 After telling a list of them, the poet reaches 
 the climax : 
 
 O Gymru dirion, — Mawr dy frainf, 
 Hen Wladfy Ngenedigaeih., 
 
192 Odlau Serch a Bywyd 
 
 Ifor Herbert's Valhalla is complete. 
 
 Here is the New Bard, sui generis. And 
 to-day's battles are in vain; he has hung 
 himself round the neck of the Great 
 Antique. The New and The Old are 
 inextricably bound on the dedication page of 
 the sage green volume : 
 
 Cyflwynedig i Aelodau yr Orsedd a 
 Chymdeithas yr Eisteddfod. 
 
 They may not deserve it, but the prophet 
 was right : 
 
 E dyr gwawr, wlad ragorwen, 
 Nag wyla, O Walia Wen. 
 
 And our advice is his : 
 
 Nag wy/Uj O Walia Wen ! 
 
To a B.Sc. 
 
 Dear Physics, 
 
 You say you are tired of your radio- 
 activities, and you want me to recommend 
 you a relaxation. You suggest Poetry. By 
 all means. Here are some points, neither 
 wise nor adequate. But you are only a 
 beginner. So am I for that matter. They 
 shall serve the two of us. 
 
 Never read a book of poems straight 
 through. Do not read more than one 
 poem at a sitting, whether it be Othello or 
 Crossing the Bar. Either is sufficient for a 
 day. To read poetry is to fasten wings to 
 your Fancy ; and one good poem, however 
 short, can send you myria- metres through 
 the higher air. What is the use of fasten^ 
 
 i?3 
 
194 To A B.Sc. 
 
 ing on wings if you do not fly ? And you 
 begin to fly only when you have stopped 
 reading. You cannot fly with your feet on 
 the ground. 
 
 If you read Poetry, read a little and dream 
 a lot. Poetry is not like a picture, just to 
 be looked at ; nor like a song, just to be 
 listened to. It is not merely 
 
 A lovely apparition sent 
 
 To be a moment's monument. 
 
 Poetry is something to live with : 
 
 Everyman, 
 I will go with thee, 
 And be thy guide, 
 In thy most need 
 To go by thy side. 
 
 Do not imagine that poets are mere 
 dreamers ; that poetry is easy work to a 
 poet. A poet may dream a lot, but he 
 works much more. Poetry means hard 
 work both to the poet and the reader. If 
 poets are morp born than made^ poems ar^ 
 
To A B.Sc. 195 
 
 certainly more made than born. Keats 
 complained to Shelley that he did not mal^e 
 his poems good enough. Some think that 
 a Poet has only to open his mouth and a 
 Poem dances on his lips, and it is popular 
 to believe that Shakespeare never 'forked to 
 obtain his poetical effects. Take Coleridge's 
 word for it : 
 
 '* What then shall we say ? Even this, 
 that Shakespeare, no mere child of 
 nature ; no automaton of genius ; no 
 passive vehicle of inspiration possessed 
 by the spirit, not possessing it ; first 
 studied particularly, meditated deeply, 
 understood minutely, till knowledge 
 became habitual and intuitive, wedded 
 itself to his habitual feelings, and at 
 length gave birth to that stupendous 
 power by which he stands alone, with 
 no equal or second in his class." 
 
 Do not read poetry out of doors. When 
 you are out in the fields or on the mountain 
 ^if you are going to read there at all) read 
 
196 To A B.Sc. 
 
 Hero Worship, not the Golden Treasury. 
 Never make the horrible mistake of reading 
 Tennyson's Brook by a brook. You might 
 as well light a candle in summer sunshine. 
 Poetry is not Nature's rival, but her supple- 
 ment. Tennyson gives The Brook to 
 those who have no brook. You want The 
 Brook in your arm chair when the wind 
 blows the oak's last leaf against your window 
 panes. The best place to read Nant y 
 Mynydd is Manchester. Fitzgerald writ- 
 ing to Frederic Tennyson said : 
 
 " I like pictures that are not like nature. 
 I can have nature better than any 
 picture by looking out of my window. 
 Fancy, painting dew with lead !" 
 
 That is it. Fancy, trying to talk like a 
 brook ; as if words could be liquid eddies of 
 grace. The nearer you bring your words 
 to the brook, the less like a brook they are ; 
 the more certain are you they are words. 
 And Richard JefFeries has tried it. He 
 says he cannot bring a book out even intg 
 
To A B.Sc. 197 
 
 the sunlight without thinking less of the 
 book : 
 
 "I can never read in summer out of 
 doors. Human thoughts and imagin- 
 ings written down are pale and feeble 
 in bright summer light. The eye 
 wanders away, and rests more lovingly 
 on greensward and green lime leaves. 
 Take the book indoors again : the 
 thoughts and imaginings of others are 
 vain, and of your own too deep to be 
 
 written The sunlight puts 
 
 out the books I bring into it, just as it 
 puts out the fire on the hearth indoors. 
 
 There is something here that 
 
 is not in the books " 
 
 Train your ear. Find out why " Bobbie 
 Bingo" is a more musical phrase than 
 " Who's who." Remember that the poet 
 plays the musician with his consonants and 
 vowels. ''Bobbie Bingo" is musical (i) 
 because it has unity of sound, (2) because it 
 
198 To A B.Sc. 
 
 has variety of sound. The variety here lies 
 in the distinct vowel notes — and ^, and in 
 the distinct but melodious consonants — h 
 and ng. The unity is apparent in the 
 repetition of the theme consonant — h ; and 
 also in the inverted repetition of the vowel 
 chord : the o-g sequence in Bobbie is 
 inverted into ^-o in Bingo. Thus there is 
 a scheme of music in the phrase. It is a 
 miniature chorale. " Who's who " is a 
 sort of agreeable grunt. 
 
 Remember that all good poets have a 
 scheme of music in every phrase they write. 
 That man who thinks he can write poetry 
 without this musical scheme is brother to 
 the man who thinks he can sing with a 
 cracked voice. 
 
 Analyse the music of "Hob y derri 
 dando" and see that its music depends 
 equally upon its consonants and its vowels. 
 Keep the vowels and replace the consonants 
 by others, and you lose the melody of the 
 phrase : 
 
To A B.Sc. 199 
 
 Tos y shedi crathto — 
 Keep the consonants! and preserve only one 
 of the vowel sounds, and you lose the colour 
 of the phrase : 
 
 Heb e derri dendi. 
 
 Tennyson is the poet for musical effects. 
 I quote a singular one : it is from The 
 Ballad of the Revenge : 
 
 Men of Bideford m Devon. 
 
 The music of the line 
 
 Men of Bideford in Devon, 
 
 is skilfully produced ; it contains a tripli- 
 cate vowel chord : 
 
 e-o-i-e-o-i-e-o. 
 
 Change of stress prevents it getting mono- 
 tonous, and the repeated consonantal sounds 
 of d and v add to its melody. 
 
 Turn to Welsh literature at regular 
 intervals. Welsh Prose is very fine. Get 
 the following books to begin with ; 
 
2CX) To A B.Sc. 
 
 Mabinogioriy done into modern para- 
 graphs, and preserving every syllable of 
 the original, by Mr. Ifor Williams. 
 Mabinogion^ done into modern language, 
 and preserving much of the beauty of 
 the original, in two volumes, by Mr. J. 
 Morgan Edwards. 
 
 T 'Bardd C'9fsgy with notes and invalu- 
 able introduction by Professor J. Morris 
 Jones. 
 
 Drych y Prif Oesoedd^ edited by Mr. S. 
 J. Evans, and Llyfr y Tri Aderyn, 
 O'r Bala i Geneva^ by Mr. O. M. 
 Edwards. 
 
 Clasuron Rhyddiaith CymrUy by Mr. 
 Edward Edwards. 
 Gypymony Mor^ by Eluned. 
 
 They are all worth learning off by heart. 
 
 And what Welsh you could write after the 
 
 assimilation. 
 
 Take Welsh Poetry up as a study not as 
 an easy chair luxury. To read Dafydd 
 ab Gwilym vou must summon as much 
 
To A B.SC. 201 
 
 energy as if you were going to take up 
 Horace. Do not complain that our new 
 poets are hard to understand. That is their 
 business. Your business is to understand 
 them or leave them alone. I do not think 
 you would understand Swinburne at the 
 first reading. 
 
 Here is my course for you in Welsh 
 Poetry. List of Books : 
 
 (1) Geiriadur Cymraeg^ by Mr, O, M. 
 Edwards (Cyfres y Fil). 
 
 (2) Dafydd ab Gmlym (Cyfres y Fil). 
 
 (3) Cywyddau Cymru^ by Mr. Arthur 
 Hughes (Anthology). 
 
 (4) Telynegion Cymru^ by Mr. Lewis 
 Jones (Anthology). 
 
 (5) A'^dl: Tr Haf, by Mr. Robert 
 Parry (Eisteddfod Transactions). 
 
 The most important item on the list for 
 a beginner is the little dictionary in Cyfres 
 y Fil j it is indispensable. You should keep 
 
202 To A B.Sc. 
 
 it always in your pocket, I always take it 
 with me on a railway journey, and I try to 
 learn six new words between each station. 
 You say the new poets use words you do 
 not understand. You can learn all the 
 hard words they use on one wet Saturday 
 afternoon. Buy that dictionary ; go 
 through Awdl Yr Haf, marking every word 
 you don't know ; learn their meanings ; and 
 you will have no more difficulty with either 
 Dafydd ab Gwilym or Gwynn Jones. 
 
 Things worth reading in Welsh Poetry : 
 
 A'^dl: Tr Haf^ for its Blue Bird. 
 Alun Mahon^ for its dear homeliness. 
 Caneuon a Cherddi^ for their style. 
 Tmadamad Arthur^ for its parsimony. 
 Omar Khayyam^ for its philosophy. 
 Salm i Famon^ for its truth. 
 Telynegion Maes a Mor^ for their purity. 
 Caniadau Elfedy for their ease. 
 Caniadau Elphin^ for their metrics. 
 
To A B.Sc. 203 
 
 Gorontfy O'^en^ for his hiraeth. 
 Dafydd ap Gmlyniy for his passion. 
 
 You ask me to justify my glow over my 
 Welsh Poets. You know very well that 
 the Eryri passes are more to my liking than 
 ail the roads that lead to Rome. 
 
 No, I do not forget the summer time we 
 spent reading and writing about the poets. 
 Most of that work you see within these 
 covers now. The sunsets, the long, long 
 twilights, the garden silences, and ourione 
 sweet matter of talk — these are not here, 
 but they were life to us that June time. 
 That this book was written under the spell 
 of the magic of those nights, I do not forget, 
 and if the random pages will bring any of 
 them back to you, they need do no more, 
 unless, too, they serve to remind you that 
 whatever you have truly felt, whatever you 
 have truly lived, is worth more than all you 
 may ever read or write or dream. 
 
204 To A B.Sc. 
 
 Best trust the happy moments. What 
 
 they gave 
 Makes man less fearful of the certain grave, 
 And gives his work compassion and new 
 
 eyes : 
 The days that make us happy make us wise. 
 
 VALE. 
 
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