ou wert a house of melody,--
Proud music soared from every bough;
Ah! those who loved thee sorrow now!
Thy living branches teemed and rang
With every song the woodlands know,
And every woodland flow'ret sprang
To life--thy spreading tent below.
Proud guardian of the public way,
Such wert thou, while thou didst obey
The counsel of my beauteous bride--
And in thy native grove reside!
But now thy stem is mute and dark,
No more by lady's reverence cheered;
Rent from its trunk, torn from its park,
The luckless tree again is reared--
(Small sign of honour or of grace!)
To mark the parish market-place!
Long as St. Idloes' town shall be
A patroness of poesy--
Long as its hospitality
The bard shall freely entertain,
My birch! thy lofty stature shall remain!

THE HOLLY GROVE.

BY DAFYDD AP GWILYM.

Sweet holly grove, that soarest
A woodland fort, an armed bower!
In front of all the forest
Thy coral-loaded branches tower.
Thou shrine of love, whose depth defies
The axe--the tempest of the skies;
Whose boughs in winter's frost display
The brilliant livery of May!
Grove from the precipice suspended,
Like pillars of some holy fane;
With notes amid thy branches blended,
Like the deep organ's solemn strain.

* * * * *

House of the birds of Paradise,
Round fane impervious to the skies;
On whose green roof two nights of rain
May fiercely beat and beat in vain!
I know thy leaves are ever scathless;
The hardened steel as soon will blight;
When every grove and hill are pathless
With frosts of winter's lengthened night,
No goat from Hafren's {141} banks I ween,
From thee a scanty meal may glean!
Though Spring's bleak wind with clamour launches
His wrath upon thy iron spray;
Armed holly tree! from thy firm branches
He will not wrest a tithe away!
Chapel of verdure, neatly wove,
Above the summit of the grove!

THE SWAN.

BY DAFYDD AP GWILYM.

Thou swan, upon the waters bright,
In lime-hued vest, like abbot white!
Bird of the spray, to whom is giv'n
The raiment of the men of heav'n;
Bird of broad hand, in youth's proud age,
Syvaddon was thy heritage!
Two gifts in thee, fair bird, unite
To glean the fish in yonder lake,
And bending o'er yon hills thy flight
A glance at earth and sea to take.
Oh! 'tis a noble task to ride
The billows countless as the snow;
Thy long fair neck (thou thing of pride!)
Thy hook to catch the fish below;
Thou guardian of the fountain head,
By which Syvaddon's waves a