Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WILD WALES: 1. LLYN Y MORWYNION, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WILD WALES: 1. LLYN Y MORWYNION, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: By fair festiniog, 'mid the northern hills
Last Line: To the enchanted twilights of the past.
Subject(s): Wales; Welshmen; Welshwomen


BY fair Festiniog, mid the Northern Hills,
The vales are full of beauty, and the heights,
Thin-set with mountain sheep, show statelier far
Than in the tamer South. There the stern round
Of labour rules, -- a silent land, sometimes
Loud with the blast that buffets all the hills
Whereon the workers toil, in quarries hewn
Upon the terraced rocksides. Tier on tier,
Above the giddy depths, they edge and cling
Like flies to the sheer precipice as they strike
The thin cleft slate. For solace of their toil
Song comes to strengthen them, and songlike verse
In the old Cymric measures, and the dream
Of fame when all the listening thousands round
Are ranged in Session, and the rapt array
Expectant of the singer's soaring voice,
Or full quire rising thund'rous to the skies,
The sheathed swords, and the sacred Chair of oak,
Where sits the Bard. But most of all they prize
Old memories of the Past, forgotten feuds,
And battles long ago. One tale they tell
Of a deep tarn upon the mountain side,
Llyn y Morwynion called, -- "The Maidens' Lake;"
And thus it is the fair old story runs.

On Arvon once the men of Meirion,
Being alone, nor having hearth or home,
Swooped down when all her warriors were afield
Against the foemen. And they snatched from them
The flower of all the maidens of the race,
And to their mountain fastness far away
Bare them unchecked. There with great care and love
They tended them, and in the captives' hearts
The new observance slowly ousted all
The love of home and country, till they stayed
Content, forgetting all their lives before,
Parents and kinsfolk, everything but love.

But when the war was ended, and their arms
Set free, the men of Arvon sent demand
That they should straight restore to home and kin
The maidens they had rapt. Then came great doubt
Upon the men of Meirion, knowing well
Their strength too weak to match the Arvonian hosts
In unassisted war; heralds they sent
To Arvon asking peace, making amends
For what had been their fault. But the others nursed
Deep anger in their hearts, and to their words
Made only answer, "Give ye back untouched
Our daughters and our sisters, whom your fraud
Has stolen from us, or prepare to die."
Then they, taking deep counsel with themselves,
Swore, not for life itself would they return
The women, only if themselves should will
To leave them; and they made request of them
That they might know their wish. But when they sought
To question them, they answered with one voice --

"We will not go; for barren is the lot
Of maidenhood, and cold the weary fate
Of loveless lives, the household tasks whose weight
Bears down the childless woman. Since we came
We have known life in the full light of home.
Say to our sires and brothers, that we stay
Willing, and bid our young men that they wive
From out some noble tribe; for thus it is
Our Cymric race grows strong. But do ye bid
Our mothers comfort them, for they shall take
Their grandsons on their knees; for we are wed
And cannot more return. Not Fate itself
Can e'er recall the irrevocable Past."

But when the men of Arvon heard the hest
The herald brought, their souls were wroth in them
Against the ravishers, whose cunning wiles
Had worked such wrong. They called their warriors forth
From every hill and dale, and marched in haste
To Meirion. And they summoned them to yield,
But they refused; and so the fight was set
For the morrow, on the margin of a mere
Deep down within the circuit of the hills.

There, with the sun, within a close-set pass
The men of Meirion stood, a scanty band,
Waiting the approaching host. With grief and pain
They left their loves, and swift, with breaking day,
Marched with unfaltering steps, without a word,
To the field of honour, as men go who know
That all beside is lost. But as they stood,
Ranged in stern silence, waiting for the fray,
They saw a white procession thread the pass
Behind, now seen, now lost, by flowery bends,
Gorse-gold and heather-purple. At their head
Blodeuwedd, she the flower in face and form
By magic formed, by magic art foredoomed
To sin and suffer. Then again they knew
The bitterness of death, and clasped once more
The forms they loved, when by the lake the sun
Lit the fierce light of countless marching spears.

Then with a last embrace the tearful throng
Withdrew to where above the fastness rose
A purple slope. No way the assailing host
Might find to it while yet one stalwart arm
Of Meirion lived. Toward the lake it fell,
Till in a sheer, precipitous cliff it sank,
Its base in the unfathomable deep.

Now, while the maidens like a fleece of cloud
Whitened the hill, or like a timid flock
From nearer danger shrinking, swift there came
Along the grassy margin of the lake
The glimmering spears of Arvon. And their sires
And brethren saw them, and great wrath and joy
Fired them and urged them onward, till they surged
And broke on Meirion. But her strong sons stood
And flung them backward; and the frightened throng
Of white-robed suppliants saw the deed, and feared,
Hiding their eyes, hovering 'twixt hope and fear,
Divided 'twixt their lovers and their kin.

All day the battle raged, from morn to eve;
All day the men of Arvon charged and broke,
And charged again the little band which stood
Unshaken in the pass, but hourly grew
Weaker and weaker still. Then at the last
The noise of battle ceased awhile; the shouts,
The cries, grew silent. On the purple hill
The kneeling women saw the Arvonian host
Retreating with their dead, and rose to go
With succour to their lovers. As they gazed,
Sudden, as with a last despairing strength
And a hoarse shout, again, a torrent of steel,
The men of Arvon, by their own weight pressed,
Burst on the scant defenders of the pass;
Like some fierce surge which from the storm-vext sea,
Through narrow inlets fenced by rocky walls,
Lifts high its furious crest, and sweeps in ruin
Within the rayless, haunted ocean-caves,
Rocks, wreckage, and the corpses of the dead.

And as the women, impotent to save,
With agonizing hands and streaming eyes
Looked down upon the pass, they saw their loves
Driven back, o'erwhelmed, surrounded, flashing swords
And thrusting spears and broken shields, and heard
The noise of desperate battle, then a pause
And silence, as the last of Meirion's sons
Sank in his blood and the long fight was done.

Then suddenly, ere yet the conquering host
Might climb to them, Blodeuwedd, standing clothed
In her unearthly beauty, faced the throng
Of shrinking women. Not a word she spake.
The sinking sun upon her snowy robe
Shone with unearthly gold; like some fair bird
Leading the flock she showed. With one white arm
She pointed to the dreadful pass where lay
The thick-piled corpses, with the other signed
Toward the sheer cliff, and to the lake beneath
Motioned. One word she uttered -- "Follow me,"
And all who heard it knew and shared her mind.

Then looking to the heavens, she hurried down
Through thyme and heather, chanting some wild hymn
To the Immortal Gods; and with her went
The white-robed throng, and when they gained the verge,
Without a pause, plunged through the empty air
Into the unfathomed depths, like some great flight
Of white birds swooping from a seacliff down
To ocean. The still waters leapt in foam;
One loud shriek only woke the air, and then
Silence was over all, and night and death.

Still sometimes, when the dreaming peasants go
By the lone mountain tarn at shut of day,
The white clouds with the eve descending swift
Down the steep hillside to the lake may seem
The white-robed maidens falling, and the shriek
Of night-birds, fair Blodeuwedd and her train;
And fancy, by the ancient fable fed,
Turns from the duller Present's dust and glare
To the enchanted twilights of the Past.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net