_Alluding to the captivity and treatment of the Welsh Bards by King
Edward I._
Sad near the willowy Thames we stood,
And curs'd the inhospitable flood;
Tears such as patients weep, 'gan flow,
The silent eloquence of woe,
When Cambria rushed into our mind,
And pity with just vengeance joined;
Vengeance to injured Cambria due,
And pity, O ye Bards, to you.
Silent, neglected, and unstrung,
Our harps upon the willows hung,
That, softly sweet in Cambrian measures,
Used to sooth our souls to pleasures,
When, lo, the insulting foe appears,
And bid us dry our useless tears.
"Resume your harps," the Saxons cry,
"And change your grief to songs of joy;
Such strains as old Taliesin sang,
What time your native mountains rang
With his wild notes, and all around
Seas, rivers, woods return'd the sound."
What!--shall the Saxons hear us sing,
Or their dull vales with Cambrian music ring?
No--let old Conway cease to flow,
Back to her source Sabrina go:
Let huge Plinlimmon hide his head,
Or let the tyrant strike me dead,
If I attempt to raise a song
Unmindful of my country's wrong.
What!--shall a haughty king command
Cambrians' free strain on Saxon land?
May this right arm first wither'd be,
Ere I may touch one string to thee,
Proud monarch; nay, may instant death
Arrest my tongue and stop my breath,
If I attempt to weave a song,
Regardless of my country's wrong!
Thou God of vengeance, dost thou sleep,
When thy insulted Druids weep,
The Victor's jest the Saxon's scorn,
Unheard, unpitied, and forlorn?
Bare thy right arm, thou God of ire,
And set their vaunted towers on fire.
Remember our inhuman foes,
When the first Edward furious rose,
And, like a whirlwind's rapid sway,
Swept armies, cities, Bards away.
"High on a rock o'er Conway's flood"
The last surviving poet stood,
And curs'd the tyrant, as he pass'd
With cruel pomp and murderous haste.
What now avail our tuneful strains,
Midst savage taunts and galling chains?
Say, will the lark imprison'd sing
So sweet, as when, on towering wing,
He wakes the songsters of the sky,
And tunes his notes to liberty?
Ah no, the Cambrian lyre no more
Shall sweetly sound on Arvon's shore,
No more the silver harp be won,
Ye Muses, by your favourite son;
Or I, even I, by glory fir'd,
Had to the honour'd prize aspir'd.
No more shall Mona's oaks be spar'd
Or Druid circle be rever'd.
On Conway's banks, and Menai's streams
The solitary bittern screams;
And, where was erst Llewelyn's court,
Ill-omened birds and wolves resort.
There oft at midnight's silent hour,
Near yon ivy-mantled tower,
By the glow-worm's twinkling fire,
Tuning his romantic lyre,
Gray's pale spectre seems to sing,
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King."