The stars of heaven,
The air and the ether,
Every book and fair letter;
Fish in waters fair-flowing,
And song and deed glowing!
Grey sand and green sward
Make your blessing's award!
And all such as with good
Have satisfied stood!
While my own mouth shall bless Thee
And my Saviour confess Thee.
Hail, glorious Lord!

MY BURIAL

(After Dafydd ab Gwilym, the most famous Welsh lyrical poet, 1340-1400)

When I die, O, bury me
Within the free young wild wood;
Little birches, o'er me bent,
Lamenting as my child would!
Let my surplice-shroud be spun
Of sparkling summer clover;
While the great and stately treen
Their rich rood-screen hang over!
For my bier-cloth blossomed may
Outlay on eight green willows!
Sea-gulls white to bear my pall
Take flight from all the billows.
Summer's cloister be my church
Of soft leaf-searching whispers,
From whose mossed bench the nightingale
To all the vale chants vespers!
Mellow-toned, the brake amid,
My organ hid be cuckoo!
Paters, seemly hours and psalm
Bird voices calm re-echo!
Mystic masses, sweet addresses,
Blackbird, be thou offering;
Till God His Bard to Paradise
Uplift from sighs and suffering.

THE LAST CYWYDD

(After Dafydd ab Gwilym)

Memories fierce like arrows pierce;
Alone I waste and languish,
And make my cry to God on high
To ease me of mine anguish.
If heroic was my youth,
In truth its powers are over;
With brain dead and force sped,
Love sets at naught the lover!
The Muse from off my lips is thrust,
'Tis long since song has cheered me;
Gone is Ivor, counsellor just,
And Nest, whose grace upreared me!
Morfydd, all my world and more,
Lies low in churchyard gravel;
While beneath the burthen frore
Of age alone I travel.

Mute, mute my song's salute,
When summer's beauties thicken;
Cuckoo, nightingale, no art
Of yours my heart can quicken!
Morfydd, not thy haunting kiss
Or voice of bliss can save me
From the spear of age whose chill
Has quenched the thrill love gave me.
My ripe grain of heart and brain
The sod sadly streweth;
Its empty chaff with mocking laugh
The wind of death pursueth!
Dig my grave! O, dig it deep
To hide my sleeping body,
So but Christ my spirit keep,
Amen! ab Gwilym's ready!

THE LABOURER

(After Iolo