United States or Réunion ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He said it was; and that it was over the mountains not far from Llan Sanfraid. I asked whether it was not called Pont y Meibion. He answered in the affirmative, and added that he had himself been there, and had sat in Huw Morris's stone chair which was still to be seen by the road's side. I told him that I hoped to visit the place in a few days.
He is standing on a bridge over the Ceiriog, just after visiting the house of Huw Morus at Pont y Meibion: "About a hundred yards distant was a small watermill, built over the rivulet, the wheel going slowly, slowly round; large quantities of pigs, the generality of them brindled, were either browsing on the banks, or lying close to the sides, half immersed in the water; one immense white hog, the monarch seemingly of the herd, was standing in the middle of the current.
I was therefore obliged to content myself with peeping through a window into the interior, which had a solemn and venerable aspect. "Within there," said I to myself, "Huw Morris, the greatest songster of the seventeenth century, knelt every Sunday during the latter thirty years of his life, after walking from Pont y Meibion across the bleak and savage Berwyn.
The brook when we viewed it, though at times a roaring torrent, was stealing along gently, on both sides it is overgrown with alders, noble hills rise above it to the east and west, John Jones told me that it abounded with trout. I asked him why the bridge was called Pont y Meibion, which signifies the bridge of the children.
A little way up on yon hill is Clawdd Offa or Offa's dyke, built of old by the Brenin Offa in order to keep us poor Welsh within our bounds." As we stood on the bridge I inquired of Jones the name of the brook which was running merrily beneath it. "The Ceiriog, sir," said John, "the same river that we saw at Pont y Meibion."
I asked him the name of the house, and he said Pont y Meibion. "But where is the bridge?" said I. "The bridge," he replied, "is close by, over the Ceiriog. If you wish to see it, you must go down yon field, the house is called after the bridge." Bidding him farewell, we crossed the road and going down the field speedily arrived at Pont y Meibion.
What interesting associations has this church for me, both outside and in, but all connected with Huw; for what should I have known of Barbara, the Rose, and gallant Richard but for the poem on their affectionate union and untimely separation, the dialogue between the living and the dead, composed by humble Huw, the farmer's son of Ponty y Meibion?"
He replied that I should be quite right in doing so, and that no one should come to these parts without visiting Pont y Meibion, for that Huw Morris was one of the columns of the Cumry. "What a difference," said I to my wife, after we had departed, "between a Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class.
Whilst drinking our ale Jones asked some questions about Huw Morris of the woman who served us; she said that he was a famous poet, and that people of his blood were yet living upon the lands which had belonged to him at Pont y Meibion.
I soon reached the bottom of the hill, passed through Llansanfraid, and threading the vale of the Ceiriog at length found myself at Pont y Meibion in front of the house of Huw Morris, or rather of that which is built on the site of the dwelling of the poet.
Word Of The Day