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THE

CAMBRIAN WREATH;

Poems, Historical, Legendary, and Humorous.

THE HARP OF WALES.

An Ode,

Inscribed to the late Princess Charlotte of Wales, on dedicating to her an Elegant volume of Welsh Melodies.

By John F. M. Dovaston, A. M.

Sweet Harp of Wales, Forgive a Border-minstrel young, That tunes thy tones all slack and sleeping, And wakes thy wires to Saxon tongue, hy chords with feeble fingers sweeping. Though thine old oak is bare and broke, and sad scathed branches long have crown'd it, Some few green sprays, in summer days, glossy green, wave light around it : Of these I'll pluck and plank the fair, nd golden missletoe I'll bring thee, With ivy-bands to bind it there,

ough I to Saxon voice must ring thee; And if short while these garlands smile, hey'll better suit the songs I sing thee, Sweet Harp of Wales!

L

Dear Harp of Wales!

I owe thee much;

For she that bids me now address thee,
With almost angel touch,

Has made my raptured bosom bless thee,
When from the canting crowd escaped,
My all-delighted heart has leap'd

To greet with every muse,

In pleasure's hour,

At the fairy bower,

Among the meeting hills of shady Vallecruse.*
Though all too proud of praise,

With such to cherish Friendship's flame,

While such allow my lays

One ivy leaf to claim,

Oh then to me,

Thy minstrelsie

Is sweeter far than Fame,

Dear Harp of Wales.

Sad Harp of Wales,

Thy wild and mournful melodies,

Though an enthusiastic and very frequent visitor of mountains, woods, rocks, and waters of Vale Crucis, which, v the fine ruins of its venerably abbey, terminates the upper reces Llangollen vale, just where the rocky and romantic Dee searc impatiently, its winding way, between the mountains from Glynd dwy vale, all overhung with oaks and old birches; I shall avail self, the better to give some faint idea of this lovely spot, of a pas abridged from "The Philosophy of Nature."-The Cistercian ar of Vale Crusis rise in a deep romantic vale, encompassed on all by towering rocks and mountains, which render it worthy the p Dyer, the harp of Taliesin, and the touch of Wouvermanns; a in which, forsaking all the world, you might devote the remaind your days to contemplation and delight: it appears, as Rous would have said, like an asylum which Nature had spared for faithful lovers, escaped from the ruin and desolation of the w There you might learn to estimate at their true value, the por Folly, the ignorance of Pride, and the littleness of human grande

Though muffled now in silent slumbers,
Have gain'd the good, and won the wise,
To weep and worship at thy numbers.

By him, the warrior-bard* of yore,
That wail'd his twenty sons and four:
And him in watery cradle found,+
By royal hand with honors crown'd:
By broken-hearted Hoel's urn,
Closed by cold Mevanwy's scorn:
By all the bards of sorrowing swells,
Mournful and many as thy dells,
How oft have they thy dirges swept
To heaving hearts indignant glowing,
And eyes like trickling wells that wept
To feel thy sounds of sorrow flowing,
Sad Harp of Wales.

High Harp of Wales,

By firm conflicting Freedom strung,
How has thy spirit sped her!

Thy strains to panting patriots flung,

Have on to conquest led her.

Great Bards of Cambria! your grand requiems loud
Hymn'd in the mountain-torrent's roar I hear:
See monuments in Snowdon's summits proud,
While setting sun-beams write your stories there.
Though flown your souls of eagle wing,
Still neighbouring nations list with wonder,
Those sounds that call'd a ruthless king
To cut thy glorious chords asunder,

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Mevanwy Vechan; see the poem of that title in this work.

The lover of

Proud Harp of Wales,
Come lie at the feet

Of thy princess sweet,

Of worth beyond thy power to praise her;
Protected by

Her courtesy,

Who takes thy nation's name to grace her:
Around her realm thy spirit spread,
Let Freedom, Love, and Concord swell thee;
And to revenge thy bards that bled-
Delight the land that could not quell thee,
Proud Harp of Wales.

THE AWEN'S REVIVAL.

By Henry Davies.

I.

LONG ages of gloom have enveloped thy glory,

And we look through the vista in vain for a spark, To illumine and brighten the leaves of thy story; But all that surrounds them is gloomy and dark. Each hero, each patriot, has gone unrecorded, And lost like a star overcast by a cloud, For no one a wreath to the poet awarded, That wove immortality up with his shroud.

II.

Since Gryffydd was slain, when his rights he defended, The Awen of Cymru has lain in the grave;

Though when Glyndwr arose it flash'd high and ascende Bright gleaming awhile o'er the land of the brave:

'Twas past in an instant, 'twas gone like a meteor
That glitters for once, and is never seen more,
And the flash of the lightning would hardly be fleeter,
Then all became dreary and dark as before.

III.

But now there appears in the sky, sweetly dawning!
A sun that is rising full glowing and bright;
And bards are rejoicing to see such a morning
Succeed to a dark and a recordless night;

May it shine on thy mountains and valleys forever!
On the land where the noble and brave are at rest;-
And reach its meridian, but never! oh never!
Be hid by a cloud, or go down in the west.

SHADES OF THE GREAT.

Stanzas on the formation of the Cambrian Institution.
By S. R. Jackson.

I.

SHADES of the great, the nobly brave,
Rejoice! the hour, though long delay'd,
Hath come, when like the ocean's wave,
In majesty and might array'd,

The treasures of your native land
Shall ride sublime from strand to strand.

II.

Cambria, exult! behold, her wings,

Aroused from slumber, Fame hath spread;
Loved dwelling of a thousand kings,
Again she rears her sunken head:
See the vast roll her hand displays,
The records of thy past and glorious days.

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