38
MORVYTH’S PILGRIMAGE.
Till from thy threat’ning dangers freed,
My charmer trips the flow’ry mead;
Then bid again with sullen roar
Thy billows lash the sounding shore!
Abermo[1], from thy rocky bay
Drive each terrific surge away:
Though sunk beneath thy billows lie
Proud fanes, that once assail’d the sky[2],
Dash’d by thy foam, yon vestal braves
The dangers of thy bursting waves.
O! Cyric[3], see my lovely fair
Consign’d to thy paternal care;
Rebuke the raging seas, and land
My Morvyth on yon friendly strand.
Dyssynni[4], tame thy furious tide,
Fix’d at thy source in peace abide;
- ↑ ‘Abermo,’ a dangerous rocky bay in Merionethshire.
- ↑ ‘Proud fanes, that once assail’d the sky.’ A very large tract of fenny country on this coast, called Cantre’r Gwaelod (i. e. the Lowland Canton), was, about the year 500, overflowed by the sea, occasioned by the carelessness of those who kept the flood-gates, as we are informed by Taliesin, the famous bard, in a poem of his still extant. There were, it is said, many large towns, a great number of villages, and palaces of noblemen, in this canton, and amongst them the palace of Gwyddno Garanhir, a petty prince of the country. There were lately (and I believe are still) to be seen in the sands of this bay, large stones with inscriptions on them, the characters Roman, but the language unknown. This disastrous circumstance is recorded by many other ancient Welsh writers.
- ↑ ‘Cyric,’ the patron saint of the Welsh mariners.
- ↑ ‘Dyssynni,’ a river in Merionethshire, running through a beautiful country.
