-And hence o er hill and vale I go, And sing, unharmed, whate'er I will. She has for me Time's veil withdrawn: The images of things long gone, The shadows of the coming days, Are present to my visioned gaze. And I have heard the words of power, By Ceirion's solitary lake, That bid, at midnight's thrilling hour, Eryri's hundred echoes wake. I to Diganwy's towers have sped, And now Caer Lleon's halls I tread, Demanding justice, now, as then, From Maelgon, most unjust of men. ----T. L. Peacock. LLYN-Y-DREIDDIAD-VRAWD (The Pool of the Diving Friar.) [Illustration: 9176] |Gwenwynwyn withdrew from the feasts of his hall; He slept very little, he prayed not at all; He pondered, and wandered, and studied alone; And sought, night and day, the philosopher's stone. He found it at length, and he made its first proof By turning to gold all the lead of his roof: Then he bought some magnanimous heroes, all fire, Who lived but to smite and be smitten for hire. With these, on the plains like a torrent he broke; He filled the whole country with flame and with smoke; He killed all the swine, and he broached all the wine; He drove off the sheep, and the beeves, and the kine. He took castles and towns; he cut short limbs and lives; He made orphans and widows of children and wives: This course many years he triumphantly ran, And did mischief enough to be called a great man. When, at last, he had gained all for which he had striven, He bethought him of buying a passport to heaven; Good and great as he was, yet he did not well know How soon, or which way, his great spirit might go. He sought the grey friars, who, beside a wild stream, Refected their frames on a primitive scheme; The gravest and wisest Gwenwynwyn found out, All lonely and ghostly, and angling for trout. Below the white dash of a mighty cascade, Where a pool of the stream a deep resting-place made, And rock-rooted oaks stretched their branches on high, The friar stood musing and throwing his fly. To him said Gwenwynwyn, "Hold, father, here's store, For the good of the church, and the good of the poor;" Then he gave him the stone; but, ere more he could speak, Wrath came on the friar, so holy and meek. He had stretched forth his hand to receive the red gold, And he thought himself mocked by Gwenwynwyn the Bold; And in scorn of the gift, and in rage at the giver, He jerked it immediately into the river. Gwenwynwyn, aghast, not a syllable spake; The philosopher's stone made a duck and a drake; Two systems of circles a moment were seen, And the, stream smoothed them off, as they never had been. Gwenwynwyn regained, and uplifted, his voice: "Oh friar, grey friar, full rash was thy choice; The stone, the good stone, which away thou hast thrown, Was the stone of all stones, the philosopher's stone!" The friar looked pale, when his error he knew; The friar looked red, and the friar looked blue;