onied now I stand at strains,
As of ten thousand clanking chains;
And once, methought, that overthrown,
The welkin's oaks came whelming down;
Upon my head up starts my hair:
Why hunt abroad the hounds of air?
What cursed hag is screeching high,
Whilst crash goes all her crockery?"

You would hardly believe, Belle, that though I offered at least ten
thousand lines nearly as good as those to the booksellers in London, the
simpletons were so blind to their interest as to refuse purchasing them."

"I don't wonder at it," said Belle, "especially if such dreadful
expressions frequently occur as that towards the end; surely that was the
crash of a tree?"

"Ah!" said I, "there falls the cedar tree--I mean the sallow; one of the
tall trees on the outside of the dingle has been snapped short."

"What a pity," said Belle, "that the fine old oak, which you saw the
peasants cutting up, gave way the other night, when scarcely a breath of
air was stirring; how much better to have fallen in a storm like this,
the fiercest I remember."

"I don't think so," said I; "after braving a thousand tempests, it was
meeter for it to fall of itself than to be vanquished at last. But to
return to Ab Gwilym's poetry, he was above culling dainty words, and
spoke boldly his mind on all subjects. Enraged with the thunder for
parting him and Morfydd, he says, at the conclusion of his ode,

'My curse, O Thunder, cling to thee,
For parting my dear pearl and me!'"

"You and I shall part; this is, I shall go to my tent if you persist in
repeating from him. The man must have been a savage. A poor wood-pigeon
has fallen dead."

"Yes," said I, "there he lies just outside the tent; often have I
listened to his note when alone in this wilderness. So you do not like
Ab Gwilym; what say you to old Goethe:--

'Mist shrouds the night, and rack;
Hear, in the woods, what an awful crack!
Wildly the owls are flitting,
Hark to the pillars splitting
Of palaces verdant ever,
The branches quiver and sever,
The mighty stems are creaking,
The poor roots breaking and shrieking,
In wild mixt ruin down dashing,
O'er one another they're crashing;
Whilst 'midst the rocks so hoary,
Whirlwinds hurry and worry.
Hear'st not, sister--'"

"Hark!" said Belle, "hark!"

"'Hear'st not, sister, a chorus
Of voices--?'"

"No," said Belle, "but I hear a voice."

C