Rain is without, but the shelter is near; Yellow the furze, the cow-parsnip is sere, God in Heaven, how couldst Thou create cowards here!
(From a twelfth-century MS., "The Black Book of Carmarthen")
Hail, all glorious Lord! with holy mirth May Church and chancel bless Thy good counsel! Each chancel and church, All plains and mountains, And ye three fountains-- Two above wind, And one above earth! May light and darkness bless Thee! Fine silk, green forest confess Thee! Thus did Abraham father Of faith with joy possess Thee. Bird and bee-song bless Thee, Among the lilies and roses! All the old, all the young Laud thee with joyful tongue, As Thy praise was once sung By Aaron and Moses. Male and female, The days that are seven, The stars of heaven, The air and the ether, Every book and fair letter; Fish in waters fair-flowing, And song and deed glowing! Grey sand and green sward Make your blessing's award! And all such as with good Have satisfied stood! While my own mouth shall bless Thee And my Saviour confess Thee. Hail, glorious Lord!
(After Dafydd ab Gwilym, the most famous Welsh lyrical poet, 1340-1400)
When I die, O, bury me Within the free young wild wood; Little birches, o'er me bent, Lamenting as my child would! Let my surplice-shroud be spun Of sparkling summer clover; While the great and stately treen Their rich rood-screen hang over! For my bier-cloth blossomed may Outlay on eight green willows! Sea-gulls white to bear my pall Take flight from all the billows. Summer's cloister be my church Of soft leaf-searching whispers, From whose mossed bench the nightingale To all the vale chants vespers! Mellow-toned, the brake amid, My organ hid be cuckoo! Paters, seemly hours and psalm Bird voices calm re-echo! Mystic masses, sweet addresses, Blackbird, be thou offering; Till God His Bard to Paradise Uplift from sighs and suffering.
Memories fierce like arrows pierce; Alone I waste and languish, And make my cry to God on high To ease me of mine anguish. If heroic was my youth, In truth its powers are over; With brain dead and force sped, Love sets at naught the lover! The Muse from off my lips is thrust, 'Tis long since song has cheered me; Gone is Ivor, counsellor just, And Nest, whose grace upreared me! Morfydd, all my world and more, Lies low in churchyard gravel; While beneath the burthen frore Of age alone I travel.
