k of the world; with the 'arm
clothed in white samite' reaching in from a world beyond,--that
Otherworld to which the wounded Arthur, barge-borne over the
nightly waters by the Queens of Faerie, went to heal him of his
wounds, and to await the cyclic hour for his retum. He is the
symbol of--what shall we say?--civilization, culture, or the
spiritual sources of these, the light that alone can keep them
sweet and wholesome; that light has died from the broken Roman
world, and passes now west-ward through the Gates of the Sunset:
through Wales, through Ireland, the Laya-Center; into the
Hidden, the Place of the Spirit; into Avallon, which is Ynys
Afallen, the 'Isle of Apple-trees';--whence to return in its
time:--_Rex quondam, rexque futurus._

There is a poem by Myrddin Gwyllt, traditionally of the sixth
century, about that Garth of Apple-trees; which he will have a
secret place in the Woods of Celyddon, the Occult Land, and not
an island in the sea at all; and in this poem it has always
seemed to me that one gets a clue to the real and interesting
things of history. He claims in it to be the last of the
white-robed Guardians of the Sacred Tree, the fruit of which
none of the black-robed,--no 'son of a monk,'--shall ever
enjoy. There has been a battle, in which the true order
of the world has gone down; but there Myrddin stays to guard
the 'Tree' against the 'Woodmen,'--whom also he seems to
identify with the 'black-robed' and the priests Myrddin
Gwyllt, by the by, is one of the two figures in Welsh tradition
who have combined to become the Merlin of European tradition;
the other was Myrddin Emrys the magician. I take great risks,
gentlemen but wish to give you a taste, as I think the sound
of some lines from the original may, and doubt any translation
can, of the old and haughty sense of mystery and grandeur
embodied in the poem; because it is this feeling, perhaps
the last echo of the Western Mysteries, that is so characteristic
of the literature that claims to come down to us from this age:

Afallen beren, bren ailwyddfa,
Cwn coed cylch ei gwraidd dywasgodfa;
A mi ddysgoganaf dyddiau etwa
Medrawd ac Arthus modur tyrfa;
Camlan darwerthin difiau yna;
Namyn saith ni ddyraith o'r cymanfa.

Afallen bere, beraf ei haeron,
A dyf yn argel yn argoed Celyddon;
Cyt ceiser ofer fydd herwydd ei hafon,
Yn y ddel Cadwaladr at gynadl Rhyd Theon,
A Chynan yn erbyn cy