THE SONG OF THE SONS OF MADOC.*

BY S. R. JACKSON.

Think ye because we are led captive, that our spirit is broken?

THE cloud that hangs upon our name,

Thus dark and heavily,

But shades a race as free from shame
As thine, proud lord! can be.

We never sold the land that gave
Our father's birth, but kept
Their faith, and o'er their children's grave
The valiant's eye hath wept.

Then tell us not of lowly state
To which our race is driven;
What though the tree be desolate,
It's stately branches riven ?—

Some stems remain,—and they may grow
To give their land a shade,

When thou and thine, vain man! are low,
And those who smite us, fade.

Not all the bearings on thy shield,

Like ours, are justly borne,

The flower thy pride to-day doth wield,
To-morrow may be shorn.

It does not clearly appear to what period of the Welsh history this melody has reference; unless it be to the time of Madoc, the son of the last Llewelyn, who revolted against Edward I, and was taken prisoner in 1295, when he was confined in London, where he remained for life.

EDITOR OF CAMB. BRIT.

The gentle heart slight wrong may bear,
But goad it not too far.
Remember what our fathers were !
And what their children are.

THE DYING BARD.

Air.-Davydd y Garreg Wen.

By Sir Walter Scott.

THE Welsh tradition bears, that a bard, on his death-bed, demanded his harp, and played the air to which these verses are adapted, requesting that it might be performed at his funeral.

I.

DINAS Emlyn, lament; for the moment is nigh,
When mute in the woodlands thine echoes shall die;
No more by sweet Teivi, Cadwalon shall rave,
And mix his wild notes with the wild dashing wave.

II.

In spring and in autumn, thy glories of shade
Unhonor'd shall flourish, unhonor'd shall fade;
For soon shall be lifeless the eye and the tongue
That view'd them with rapture, with rapture that sung.

III.

Thy sons, Dinas Emlyn, may march in their pride,
And chase the proud Saxon from Prestatyn's side;
But where is the harp shall give life to their name ?
And where is the bard shall give heroes their fame ?

IV.

And oh Dinas Emlyn! thy daughters so fair,

Who heave the white bosom, and wave the dark hair ;

What tuneful enthusiast shall worship their eye,
When half of their charms with Cadwalon shall die?

V.

Then adieu, silver Teivi! I quit thy loved scene,
To join the dim choir of the bards who have been;
With Lewarch,* and Meilor, and Merlin the old,
And sage Taliesin, high harping to hold.

VI.

Then adieu, Dinas Emlyn! still green be thy shades, Unconquer'd thy warriors, and matchless thy maids! And thou, whose faint warblings my weakness can tell, Farewell, my loved harp! my last treasure, farewell!

THE MINSTRELSY OF CHIRK CASTLE.
Air.-Erddigan Caer Waun.

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

CHIRK CASTLE stands just on the English side of Offa's Dyke, where it divides the counties of Salop and Denbigh, on an abrupt hill, finely wooded, jutting eastward from the mighty ridge of the Berwyns, over the beautiful and highly romantic vale of Ceiriog. Being a border fortress, it appears anciently to have been a place of much importance in war; and also a great resort of bards.

IN Cambria's noon of story,

Ere bright she set in glory,

The brave and great, in princely state,
All hail'd Chirk Castle walls;

With splendid arms returning,
The flaring noon-beams burning,

* Llywarch hên.

'Mid armour's clang the clarions rang,
And search'd the sounding halls.

Rich feasts profuse the garnish'd tables crown'd,
Where the chords of flashing fire loud flourish'd pealings

flung,

Gay banners waved the trophied walls around,

And high with heartful roar the grand carousal rung: Till the light-finger'd minstrels in silver-toned measure, With sharp notes of nimbleness sprinkled the strings; And the neat maidens dancing, all pranksome in pleasure Seem'd fairies that frisk'd it on zephyrine wings. While the bards on harps, in tears of triumph wet, With feats of liberty their deep full closes fill'd,

That long, though Cambria's sun in glory set,

Her bold and lofty tale, like mountain gleams, shall gild.

OWAIN GLYNDWR'S WAR SONG.

By Mrs. Hemans.

SAW ye the blazing star ?*

The heavens look down on Freedom's war,
And light her torch on high!

Bright on the dragon crest

It tells that glory's wing shall rest
When warriors meet to die.

Let earth's pale tyrants read despair
And vengeance in its flame,

Hail ye, my bards! the omen fair

*The year 1402 was ushered in with a comet, or blazing star, whic the bards interpreted as an omen favorable to the cause of Glyndwr.

Of conquest and of fame,
And swell the rushing mountain air,
With songs to Glyndwr's name.

At the dead hour of night,

Mark'd ye how each majestic height
Burn'd in its awful beams?

Red shone th' eternal snows,
And all the land, as bright it rose,
Was full of glorious dreams.

Oh Eagles of the battle, rise,

The hope of Gwynedd wakes;

It is your banner in the skies

Through each dark cloud which breaks,

And mantles with triumphant dyes
Your thousand hills and lakes!

THE DEATH OF GLENDOWER.
Air-Codiad yr Ehedydd. (The rising of the Lark.)
By T. J. Llewelyn Prichard.

Or this air, the most popular in Wales, Mr. Parry says:-"This is the melody which the great Haydn so much admired. More stanzas have been written to this tune, perhaps, than to any other, many of which may be found in Jones's Relics of the Bards. The mode of singing them with the harp is peculiar: the minstrel plays two bars, or measures of the air, when the singer takes the subject up, and sings two lines;-the first strain is repeated, and two lines more are sung, and then the whole of the second part, which takes up six lines. The following imitation of Welsh rythm will give the English reader an idea of the style of these stanzas.

The lines in the above stanza are purposely broken to shew the English reader the peculiarity of the measure, which is the same in the

other stanzas.