A dirwayw 'r poethgryd eirias Od yw serch, nawdd Duw o'i swm, Ai cudab yw rhoi codwm A chystudd di fudd i f' ais, : rhiw 5 Cudab, or cudeb, fondness, affection. The word is but seldom used in our day. It belongs to the early period of Welsh literature. Llywarch Hen, the warrior-bard of the sixth century, says :"Cynddelw cadw dithau y Ar a ddêl yma heddiw ; Cudeb am un mab nid gwiw." 'Cynddelw, guard thou the steep against all comers to-day. Affection for one son should not avail.' By 'one son' the old warrior probably means an only surviving son.' Three and twenty of his sons, all invested with golden torques for their prowess in battle, had been slain. The use of the term cudab, and of others equally archaic, proves how conversant our poet was with the ancient literature of Wales, and especially with that of the early bards. 6 Hwrdd, an encounter, an onset, the thrust or butting of a ram's head; also the ' ram ' itself. The action may have given its name to the animal; but more probably the animal gave it to the action. The term reminds us of the adage: "Nerth hwrdd yn ei ben." 7 Ymdderu, to taunt one another. This sudden halt in the bard's remonstrance is highly poetical. His conversation with the Personification he has created is brought to an end by her sudden departure. Calan Ionor hurries from the scene with the fleetness of a torrent that rushes onward to throw itself into the depths of the sea; taking with her, as the poet says, a large portion of his life. His idea is this:-As the rivers run to lose themselves in the expanse of ocean, so our days, as they flow by, are lost in the irrecoverable past. Now noisy, brawling, and turbulent; and now again smooth and placid as an evening's calm, when their "fitful fever" is over, they commingle with the years that are gone and are forgotten. The lines remind us of a passage Rhedaist fal llif rhuadwys I'r môr, ac ni 'th weler mwy; Os ei gwrdd yn f' oes a gaf. in Joshua Marsden's poem of reconciliation and peace with his "What is time?" After interrogating youth and age, rich and poor, earth below and heaven above, he turns round to old Father Time himself for an answer; but "He flew quickly by ;" he could not stay to give the response. Nor is this all. As a man who has gained the summit of a hill, and who, after surveying, on the one side, the rugged steeps and dark valleys through which he has passed, turns to view, on the other, the unknown scenes he has yet to traverse; so the poet turns away from the transient, stealthy, irretrievable past, with its ever recurring sorrows and short-lived joys, to gaze into the dark future before him. But all he sees is a sudden, rapid descent, with an open grave at its base. Awed at the prospect, he earnestly prays that he find may God ere the great change comes. 8 Llif rhuadwy. The first edition has llu rhuadwy. The text is altered on the authority of William Morris. 9 Heb air son, in allusion to the silent flow of time. 1 A phoed hedd cyn fy medd mau. There is much that, at the first view, seems obscure in this and the following lines. But the obscurity is removed by the proper interpretation of rhof. Although the dictionaries are silent, there is no doubt but it is an abbreviation of rhyngof, between'. If the personification of Calan Ionor and the preceding colloquy between her and the poet, be kept in mind, the difficulty vanishes. เ 2 Faith ddwthwn. This phrase is either in apposition with 'fy medd mau'-the bard styling the grave not a long home', but 'a long day'—or it is an epithet applying Y Ni thaeraf annoeth eiriau, Rhof fi a'r byd rhwy fu 'r bai.8 to Calan Ionor; we can hardly regard it as referring to the interval that lay between the poet's prayer and his death. my peace with heaven now, so that I may not fear the grave. And let there be peace too, before the grave-that long day-between me and thee! Should I be permitted to meet another of thy name before my life comes to its close, I will use no opprobrious expression, nor 3 Cyfenw, surname; here, perhaps, 'namesake'. We have given what we deem the poet's meaning in the concluding note. Gam gul, a wrong step, a sinful will I iterate unwise complaints-a sinful work and replete with threa course. 5 Mygwl, mutated from bygwl, tenings of punishment to myself. threatening, menace. 6 Bawaidd os hyn o'm bywyd. He refers to the severe illness by which he had been attacked. This, superadded to his other misfortunes, almost overwhelmed him. 7 Rhwy, too much, too great. 8 The poet's language may be thus paraphrased :—" Let me make If this portion of my life has been evil, too great has been the con joined fault of myself and the world. Be thou deemed faultless; the conjoined fault of myself and the world has been too great!" By another of thy name,' the poet means, we apprehend, another New Year's Day or anniversary of his birthday. DAU BENNILL' GWAWDODYN HIR, I GYFARCH Y CYMMRODORION YN LLUNDAIN PAN Y CYFLWYNWYD IDDYNT ANNERCH-GYWYDD GAN IEUAN BRYDYDD HIR. CALAN Mehefin,2 hin yn hoeni,3 1 We are indebted to the Rev. D. Silvan Evans, the author of our standard English-Welsh Dictionary, for this short and hitherto unpublished poem. Of its genuineness we have no doubt. Who mistakes the oak or the ash, the silver birch or golden laburnum, when they give out their leaves in spring? With equal certainty we trace in every line, and we had almost said in every word, the master hand of the poet. But this esoteric evidence is only a part of our proof. The verses, bearing Goronwy's name, were discovered among the literary papers, and in the handwriting, of Ieuan Brydydd Hir, at Plasgwyn, in Anglesey, the seat of Paul Panton, Esq., who, through the instrumentality of the latter bard, for ned an important collection of Welsh MSS. The Rev. D. Silvan Evans con 4 curs in the opinion we have given as to the authenticity and genuineness of the poem ; and a higher authority on any question connected with Cymric literature we could not have. 2 Calan Mehefin, first day of summer. Mehefin, June; from the prefix me and hefin, summer weather. 3 Hin yn hoeni, the temperature or weather becoming more and more pleasant. ↑ Hyar heli. These words seem to stand in apposition to those that precede them in the line, ‘can trydar adar'. If so, the meaning is, 'the song of birds musical as the waves of ocean'. If taken by themselves as descriptive of early summer, they simply imply that the roughness of the ocean having ceased with winter, its waves chimed a sweet music. Cein rhawd5 cân wasgawd, trawd7 trwy erddi, Canfum ddillynion gysson gerddi 5 Rhawd. Our dictionaries do not agree as to the exact meaning of this word. We fall back, therefore, on Dr. John Davies as the most trustworthy authority. He gives as its equivalent, a crowd', 6 a multitude'. 3 Ceidr, the plural form of ‘cadr’, strong. 4 The ease and smoothness with which these verses flow, as well as Gwasgawd, embowering trees, their high poetical merit, seem to |