# Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Elegy of the Warriors

This poem is written by “Maelog” (Arthur James Johnes).
THE ELEGY OF THE WARRIORS OF MORWYNION.
The subject of the following poem is an incursion into the vale in which the lake is situated, by one of those bands of Scandinavian freebooters, who, under the name of Norsemen, were long the terror of the shores of Great Britain, and of all the western coasts of Europe. The origin and habits of these freebooters are eloquently explained in the following passage from Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons: “The sea-kings of the North were a race of beings whom Europe beheld with horror. Without a yard of territorial ​property—with no wealth but their ships—no force but their crews—and no hope but from their sword, they swarmed upon the boisterous ocean, and plundered in every district they could approach. It is declared to have been a law or custom in the North, that one of the male children should be selected to remain at home to inherit the government. The rest were exiled to the ocean to wield their sceptre amid the turbulent waters. The consent of the northern societies entitled all men of royal descent—who assumed piracy as a profession—to enjoy the name of kings, though they possessed no territory. The sea-kings had the same honour, but they were only a portion of those pirates or vikingr who in the ninth century were covering the ocean. Not only the children of the kings, but every man of importance equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire property by force. Piracy was not only the most honourable occupation, and the best harvest of wealth—it was not only consecrated to public estimation by the illustrious who pursued it, but no one was esteemed noble—no one was respected, who did not return in the winter to his home with ships laden with booty.”
History teems with pictures of the ferocity by which their mode of warfare was distinguished; wherever they went they ravaged the country with fire and sword—and in the hour of victory they spared neither age nor sex.
The individual incursion that forms the subject of the following poem is purely imaginary. It is however perfectly certain that the coasts of Wales were frequently exposed to the ravages of these marauders, which affords, it is conceived, a sufficient historical basis for the frail poetical superstructure that has been erected upon it.
The setting sun’s last glimpse is on Thy fairy depths—Morwynion! Thy wilderness of breakers white— Now dark, now eddying into light—
Seems, mid yon rugged mountain forms, (Like heav’n’s bow mid primeval storms) Of better hopes the token— Seems to a rifled land the trace Of peace, of glory, and of grace, When all around is broken! The earthquake, with its iron shock— That heaves the plain, that rends the rock, Flings the thick city like a cloud— All transiently thy face has ploughed! When tower and tent with death are teeming— Calm as the heav’ns around thee gleaming Sleeps thy unruffled lake, No record on its virgin spray Of storm or earthquake past away— No ripple on its mirror torn, Save what the passing mountain horn Might with its echoes wake, Or breath of deer that pants to slake The fever of the noontide hours, In thy pure waters—Llyn of flowers!— Still art thou calm, and clear, and bright— E’en in this hour of death and flight, When ey’ry flow’ret on thy brink Is doomed of war’s red tide to drink; As if thy waters did inherit A peaceful gloom—a pensive spirit From the lovely dead that rest Sepulchred within thy breast—
As the bright procession wound Yonder distant summits round, Like a long mist wreath it past Gently wafted by the blast— As it drew in dazzling rank Nearer—nearer—to thy bank— In thy wild expanse it sank! Sank—like snow-flakes in the sun Softly—brightly—one by one! Sank—like moonbeams on the sea Sadly—sweetly—gleamily! Oh, pure and bloodless as thy wave— Ere morning o’er the mountains rose— Was each fantastic mound and cave That round thy billows blackly close. At dawn the note of battle sounded— Blithe from his couch each warrior bounded, To guide his courser’s swelling form, And arching neck, and eye of fire, And godlike ecstasy of ire, On the fierce children of the storm, That dwell with axe and shield On Ocean’s dreary field— And pitch their winged tents Amid the elements! It was a beauteous sight at dawn, When cheerily as to the chase From each sequestered valley drawn, And sylvan nook, and upland lawn, Those fated youths of Gwyneth’s race Swept cloud-like down each rocky way, As if to greet the new-born day,
Where morning ever loveliest shone In thy blue depths, Morwynion! It was a sadly glorious sight— As one by one the warriors past All tremblingly—all sternly bright An image on the lake was cast— And horse and horseman glimmered red, Like passing phantoms of the dead, As if that mirror of the morning Were rife with signs of grief and warning!— Gorgeous shapes, sublime array, Youth—hope—valour, where are they That at dawn united shone On thy banks, Morwynion? Ask the vision of the night Whither it has ta’en its flight— Ask the shadow where it flies When the sunbeam quits the skies— Ask the rent sepulchral stone For the epitaph that’s flown— Ask not from the dead Where the pride of life is fled!— Nobler than life’s power or pride Is the death that they have died! Not a rank and not a man Have retreated back a span Since the crash of war began; There they rest in goodly rows— All unbroken by their foes, Like the clouds at ev’ning’s close, Like the surges of the sea, Graceful, wild, yet orderly!
Oh magnificent repose: Youth—hope—valour, what have they Like to death’s sublime array?
* ↑ Cambrian Quarterly Magazine, vol. i. p. 425.
* ↑ ‘Llyn’—a lake.
* ↑ An allusion to the legend before narrated, that the maidens of Flower Aspect’s court, under the influence of terror, walked backward into the lake, and were all drowned.
* ↑ North Wales.