The brave, the magnanimous, the amiable, the generous, and the energetic Are as stepping-stones to the bard.
He has made love, and he has been scorned; the sad tunes of
Old unhappy far off-things And battles long ago
[Illustration: SWALLOW FALLS, BETTWS-Y-COED]
are accordingly most dear to him, and in his gayest moments he will murmur some sad melody like "The Marsh of Rhuddlan" or "My Johnny was a shoemaker." I have heard him repeat this strange poem of Taliesin's as if he were a reincarnation of the bard:
Primary chief bard am I to Elphin, And my original country is the region of the summer stars; Idno and Heinin called me Merddin, At length every King will call me Taliesin. I was with my Lord in the highest sphere, On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell; I have borne a banner before Alexander; I know the names of the stars from north to south.... I have been with my Lord in the manger of the ass; I strengthened Moses through the water of Jordan; I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene; I have obtained the muse from the cauldron of Ceridwen; I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin; I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn; For a day and a year in stocks and fetters, I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin. I have been fostered in the land of the Deity, I have been teacher to all intelligences, I am able to instruct the whole universe, I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth: And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish....
And it falls strangely from this wandering voice that calls itself a man. It is comic and it is terrible. He alone seems to feel the true sadness of them: flatterers and low comic persons tell him that he is but a vessel come into the world to be filled with all the sorrows that have been. Truly, all that has passed, is.
Nevertheless, we love him for his gross natural self, for so we think his only convincing affectation, the only one which he displays with some consistency by the fireside; and we know, as the world does not know, how costly and passionate affectations are.
I should like to win some charity for Morgan Rhys, the descendant of a prince, a bard and a tin-plater. Charity it must be; for, in truth, he is something of a Celt in the bad, fashionable sense of that strange word, and is somewhat ridiculous beside the landlord of the "Cross Inn." An orphan, he lived as the only child in the large house of a distant relative, reading everything, playing half-heartedly at games, yet now and then entering into them with such enthusiasm that he did what he liked and won a singular reputation. He went seldom to a chapel, and when he went, did something more than escape boredom, by the marvellous gift of inattention which enabled him to continue his own chain of thought or fancy from beginning to end of the service. He was quite unhindered by hymn, prayer, or sermon, and accepted what he heard, as elderly persons accept fairies, without even curiosity. The death of others made him helpless for a time, but he did not reason about the fact: his own death he at all times contemplated without fear; what he feared, if anything, was the fear of death.