After dead centuries, Neglect, derision, scorn, And secular miseries, At last our Cymric race again is born, Opens again its heavy sleep-worn eyes, And fronts a brighter morn. Shall then our souls forget, Dazzled by visions of our Wales to Be, The Wales that Was, the Wales undying yet, The old heroic Cymric chivalry? Nay! one we are, indeed, With that dim Britain of our distant sires; Still the same love the patriot’s bosom fires; With the same wounds our loyal spirits bleed; The heroes of the past are living still By each sequestered vale, and cloud-compelling hill. Dear heart that wast so strong To guide the storm of battle year by year, Last of our Cymric Princes! dauntless King! Whose brave soul knew not fear! Thou from Eryri’s summits, swooping down Like some swift eagle, o’er the affrighted town And frowning Norman castles hovering, Onward didst bear the flag of Victory; And oft the proud invader dravest back In ruin from thy country’s bounds, and far Didst roll from her the refluent wave of war, Till, ’neath the swelling flood, The low fat Lloegrian plains were sunk in blood. I see thee when thy lonely widowed heart Grew weary of its pain, In one last desperate onset vain Hurl thyself on thy country’s deadly foes; From north to south the swift rebellion sped, The castles fell, the land arose; Wales reared once more her weary war-worn head Through triumph and defeat, a chequered sum, Till the sure end should come, The traitorous ambush, and the murderous spear; Still ’mid the cloistered glories of Cwmhir, I hear the chants sung for the kingly dead, While Cambria mourned thy dear dishonoured head. Strong son of Wales! thy fate Not without tears, our Cymric memories keep; Our faithful, unforgetting natures weep The ancestral fallen Great. Not with the stalwart arm After our age-long peace, We serve her now, nor keen uplifted sword, But with the written or the spoken word Would fain her power increase; The Light we strive to spread Is Knowledge, and its power Comes not from captured town or leaguered tower. A closer brotherhood Unites the Cymric and the Anglian blood, Yet separate, side by side they dwell, not one, Distinct till Time be done.