"DEATH OF SAUL."
Being restricted by the Wrexham Eisteddfod Committee to 200 lines, I
was obliged to lop away from the bulk of the following poem just
sufficient for their requirements. I have always declaimed, from a
physical point of view, against the pernicious influence of
light-lacing, and this being so, it was not likely I could go at once
and mentally encase my delicate muse, for a permanency, in a straight
waistcoat, at the behest of any committee in the world. What would she
have thought of me? If, therefore, the committee, or any member of it,
should by chance observe that the "Death of Saul," as I now produce it,
is of a more comprehensive character than the "Death of Saul" for which
they were good enough to award me the first prize, they will see the
poem without the temporary stays in which I was necessitated to encase
it in order to make it acceptable to them and their restrictive tastes.
To squeeze a poem of nearly 400 lines into the dimensions of one of
200, is, in my opinion, an achievement worthy of a prize in itself; and
as half of the original had a gold medal awarded to it, the whole of
it, I should think, ought to be worth two. I trust Eisteddfod
committees, when they contemplate putting the curb upon us poor poets,
will think of the Wrexham National Eisteddfod, and how half the "Death
of Saul" took a first prize.