I'll cast my heavy burden down, Remembering Jesus' pains; Guilt high as towering mountain tops Here turns to joyful strains. * * * * * He stretched His pure white hands abroad, A crown of thorns He wore, That so the vilest sinner might Be cleansed forevermore; Williams was called "The Sweet Singer of Wales" and "The Watts of Wales" because he was the chief poet and hymn-writer of his time, but the lady he married, Miss Mary Francis, was _literally_ a singer, with a voice so full and melodious that the people to whom he preached during his itineraries, which she sometimes shared with him, were often more moved by her sweet hymnody than by his exhortations. On one occasion the good man, accompanied by his wife, put up at Bridgend Tavern in Llangefin, Anglesea, and a mischievous crowd, wishing to plague the "Methodists," planned to make night hideous in the house with a boisterous merry-making. The fiddler, followed by a gang of roughs, pushed his way to the parlor, and mockingly asked the two guests if they would "have a tune." "Yes," replied Williams, falling in with his banter, "anything you like, my lad; 'Nancy Jig' or anything else." And at a sign from her husband, as soon as the fellow began the jig, Mrs. Williams struck in with one of the poet-minister's well-known Welsh hymns in the same metre,-- _Gwaed Dy groes sy'n c' odi fyny_ Calvary's blood the weak exalteth More than conquerors to be,[38] --and followed the player note for note, singing the sacred words in her sweet, clear voice, till he stopped ashamed, and took himself off with all his gang. [Footnote 38: A less literal but more hymn-like translation is: Jesu's blood can raise the feeble As a conqueror to stand; Jesu's blood is all-prevailing O'er the mighty of the land: Let the breezes Blow from Calvary on me. Says the author of _Sweet Singers of Wales_, "This refrain has been the password of many powerful revivals."] Another hymn-- _O' Llefara! addfwyn Jesu_, Speak, O speak, thou gentle Jesus, --recalls the well-known verse of Newton, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds." Like many of Williams' hymns, it was prompted by occasion. Some converts suffered for lack of a "clear experience" and complained to him. They were like the disciples in the ship, "It was dark, and Jesus had not yet come unto them." The poet-preacher immediately made this hymn-prayer for all souls similarly tried. Edward Griffiths translates it thus: Speak, I pray Thee, gentle Jesus, O how passing sweet Thy words, Breathing o'er my troubled spirit, Peace which never earth affords, All the world's distracting voices, All th' enticing tones of ill, At Thy accents, mild, melodious Are subdued, and all is still.