She said he was thrown in the Teivy’s stream, The Flower of fair Llandovery; She cross’d o’er the hills to his father’s town, And he bless’d the maid like a child of his own; But Ellen was past recovery. Rhys Prichard wept long o’er his murder’d son, And buried the hapless Ellen; He cursed her brothers—the land of their birth He cursed their mansion, its hall and hearth, And the curse is on Maes-y-velin. Strong was the curse on the savage race, The murderers and their kindred; Their bosoms possess’d by the furies of hell, Oft vented the scream, the curse, and the yell:— All men stood aloof and wonder’d. They quarrell’d and stood forth in mortal strife, Each one opposed to the other; They never, oh never! are doom’d to agree, While dividing poor Ellen’s property— Two murder their elder brother. And yet the murderers still are foes, Furious and unrelenting; Each coveting all his sister’s share: At length one falls in the other’s snare, Ere yet of his crimes repenting. Now lived the survivor, a man forbid, For murder his brow had branded— Shunn’d by all men, none bade him God speed, But solitude work’d wild remorse for his deed, In madness he seized on a poisonous weed, And a suicide’s grave was commanded. Maes-y-velin became a deserted spot, The roof of the mansion tumbled; The lawns and the gardens o’er-ran with weeds, And reptiles, vile emblems of hellish deeds, Bred there—and the strong walls crumbled.— They crumbled to dust, and fell to the earth, And strangers bought Maes-y-velin; Vain, it is said, their attempts to rebuild, Vain was their labour in garden or field, Snakes, toads, baneful weeds alone they yield, Not a stone to another adhering. The possessors fled, and oft others came, But all their aims unavailing; The peasants protest that at midnight hour The spirit of Ellen is seen in her bower, While on Pen-garreg hill stands Llandovery’s Flower, And shrieks burst from Maes-y-velin.