United States or Burundi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And then there was a burst of 'gemiti, sospiri ed alti guai. Alas, alas, poor child of clay! as the sparks fly upward, so wast thou born to sorrow Onward! Agreeable delusions Youth A profession Ab Gwilym Glorious English law There they pass My dear old master The deal desk Language of the tents Where is Morfydd? Go to only once.
‘“The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedar trees,”’ said I, ‘but what you hear is caused by a convulsion of the air; during a thunder-storm there are occasionally all kinds of aerial noises. Ab Gwilym, who, next to King David, has best described a thunder-storm, speaks of these aerial noises in the following manner:—
I should wish, moreover, to see the Welshmen assembled on the border ready to welcome me with pipe and fiddle, and much whooping and shouting, and to attend me to Wrexham, or even as far as Machynllaith, where I should wish to be invited to a dinner at which all the bards should be present, and to be seated at the right hand of the president, who, when the cloth was removed, should arise, and, amidst cries of silence, exclaim 'Brethren and Welshmen, allow me to propose the health of my most respectable friend the translator of the odes of the great Ab Gwilym, the pride and glory of Wales'."
‘The songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh bard, also translated by myself, with notes critical, philological, and historical.’ ‘Pass on—what else?’ ‘Nothing else,’ said I, folding up my manuscript with a sigh, ‘unless it be a romance in the German style; on which, I confess, I set very little value.’ ‘Wild?’ ‘Yes, sir, very wild.’ ‘Like the Miller of the Black Valley?’
There was one part of the day when I generally found myself quite alone, I mean at the hour when the rest went home to their principal meal; I, being the youngest, was left to take care of the premises, to answer the bell, and so forth, till relieved, which was seldom before the expiration of an hour and a half, when I myself went home; this period, however, was anything but disagreeable to me, for it was then that I did what best pleased me, and, leaving off copying the documents, I sometimes indulged in a fit of musing, my chin resting on both my hands, and my elbows planted on the desk; or, opening the desk aforesaid, I would take out one of the books contained within it, and the book which I took out was almost invariably, not Blackstone, but Ab Gwilym.
Having remained with his new friends for nine days, he accompanied them as far as the Welsh border, where he confessed himself the translator of Ab Gwilym, giving as an excuse for not accompanying them further that it was "neither fit nor proper that I cross into Wales at this time, and in this manner.
Morva was tying Gwil's cap on when they entered, and could no longer avoid the meeting; but if Gwilym had expected a rapturous greeting, he was disappointed; for no shy schoolboy and girl ever met in a more undemonstrative manner than did these two, who for so long had hungered for each other's presence. "Hello, Morva!
Ab Gwilym has been styled the Welsh Ovid, and with great justice, but not merely because like the Roman he wrote admirably on love. The Roman was not merely an amatory poet: let the shade of Pythagoras say whether the poet who embodied in immortal verse the oldest, the most wonderful, and at the same time the most humane, of all philosophy was a mere amatory poet.
"Well, yes!" said Gwilym Morris; "I think she owes her charm in a great measure to her foster-mother. Do you know old Sara?" "Oh, yes!" said the vicar; "we have all heard of old Sara ''spridion. Something uncanny about the old woman, they say. But, 'pon me word, there is something very interesting about her, too."
I used to think when I grew to be a woman I would marry Will, and settle down at Garthowen close to you here, mother fâch, and take care of 'n'wncwl Ebben when Ann and Gwilym Morris were married; but now, somehow, it all seems altered." The old woman looked at her long and thoughtfully. "Wait until later, child," she said.
Word Of The Day