ll her maidens, early sallied forth,
A pilgrimage among the neighbouring vales,
Culling of simples, nor yet comes she home;
And so the child lay sleeping in his crib,
With Gelert--you remember the old hound?
He pull'd the stag of ten down by the Holy Well--
With Gelert set to watch him like a nurse.

MONK.

The dog alone? nay! friend, but that is strange!

MORGAN.

Strange! Not a whit, for fifty times before
The hound hath kept him like his own bred whelp,
And ne'er a one could touch him; but the child
Play'd with his shaggy ears and great rough coat,
As no grown man had dared.

MONK.

I know there is
A strange nobility in dogs, to bear
The utmost sport of children, that would seize
Man by the throat e'en for a finger touch--
But to your tale--

MORGAN.

Well! suddenly at noon,
Llewellyn, baffled of his game, hied back,
Striding right grimly in his discontent,
And whistling, oft his spear upon the ground,
Slaying the visions of his fretful dreams;
And presently he thought him of his child:
So with its winsome ways to wile the time,
He went unto the chamber where it lay,
Watch'd o'er by Gelert, as his custom was:
But there, alack! or that the child had crost
The savage humour of the beast, or that
Some sudden madness had embolden'd it,
He saw the child lie bloody mid the sheets,
Slain by the hound, as it would seem, for there
Lay Gelert lapping from his chaps the blood,
That hung in gouts from every grisly curl.

MONK.

O Heaven! the woful deed! What did your lord?

MORGAN.

You know the hasty humour of the man,
That brooks no let betwixt him and his mood--
He slew the old hound with his heavy spear,
That almost licking of his feet fell dead;
For Gelert loved him well, and, crouching, took
Without a cry the blow that struck his heart.

MONK.

This is a sorry day for all the house; they say
Llewellyn had his soul set on the child.

MORGAN.

His soul! Ay, marry! many a time and oft
I've seen the man's great heart stare from his eyes,
Just like a girl's, out at the crowing boy:
And yesterday it was he perch'd him fair
Upon his broad rough shoulder, like a lamb
Laid on the topmost reaches of a hill,
And so he bore him, all his face a-glow,
When heralds came with war-notes from the king;
At which he turn'd him soft--the startled babe
Sti