Irish forms of
verse are blended and amalgamated, has with a few unimportant variations
maintained its ground to the present time. It contains three primary
measures, termed respectively, englyn, cywydd, and awdl. Of the englyn,
there are five kinds; of the cywydd, four; and of the awdl, fifteen.
Each particular species of englyn, cywydd, and awdl has its appropriate
name, which it is needless to give here. These three primary metres,
with their modifications, make together twenty-four measures, which
embrace the whole system of Welsh versification, in which, as somebody
has observed, each line, word, and letter, are so harmonized by
consonancy, chained so accurately, woven so closely and correctly, that
it is impossible to extract one word or even letter without causing a
hideous gap. Whoever has ventured to compose out of these measures,
since the time of their establishment, has been considered by the Welsh
scholar as unworthy of the name of poet.

The earliest recorded poet of the Cymry, after the days of Gwyddon
Ganhebon and the other personages mentioned with him in the triad, is
Merddin, Beirdd Emrys Wledig, or Merddin, Bard of Prince Emrys. He
flourished about the middle of the fifth century, the period when the
Saxons arrived in Britain, under the command of Hengist and Horsa.
Besides poetry he was skilled in mathematics, and is said by the Welsh to
have been the architect of Stonehenge. He has been surnamed Ambrosius,
which is the Latin modification of the name of his patron Emrys. He is
the Merddin, or Merlin, who has had to father so many of the prophecies
which since his death have been produced. None of his poems are extant.

During the period which elapsed between the first coming of the Saxons,
and the expulsion of the British from the Southern and Eastern parts of
the island, lived Aneurin, Taliesin, Llewarch Hen, and Merddin, surnamed
Wyllt or the Wild, all celebrated poets, the latter of whom has generally
been confounded with Merddin Ambrosius. Aneurin was a chief of the
Ottadinian Britons, and his principal poem is the one styled Gododin, a
word which probably means that which relates to the Ottadini. It is
descriptive of the battle of Cattraeth, fought between the Britons and
the Saxons, in which the former were so completely worsted that only
three, amongst whom was Aneurin himself, escaped with their lives. The
poem is composed in lines remarkably short, consisting in general of only