Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

  In his crystal Ark,

  Whither sail’d Merlin with his band of Bards,

  Old Merlin, master of the mystic lore? — XI. p. 106.

  The name of Merlin has been so canonized by Ariosto and our diviner Spenser, that it would have been a heresy in poetry to have altered it to its genuine orthography.

  Merddin was the Bard of Emrys Wledig, the Ambrosius of Saxon history, by whose command he erected Stonehenge, in memory of the Plot of the Long Knives, when, by the treachery of Gwrtheyrn, or Vortigern, and the Saxons, three hundred British chiefs were massacred. He built it on the site of a former circle. The structure itself affords proof that it cannot have been raised much earlier, inasmuch as it deviates from the original principle of Bardic circles, where no appearance of art was to be admitted. Those of Avebury, Stanton Drew, Keswick, &c., exemplify this. It is called by the Welsh Gwaith Emrys, the work of Ambrosius. Drayton’s reproach, therefore, is ill founded:

  Ill did those mighty men to trust thee with their story,

  Thou hast forgot their names who reared thee for their glory.

  The Welsh traditions say that Merddin made a House of Glass, in which he went to sea, accompanied by the Nine Cylveirdd Bards, and was never heard of more. This was one of the three disappearances from the Isle of Britain. Merddin is also one of the three principal Christian Bards of Britain: Merddin Wyllt and Taliesin are the other two. — Cabrian Biography.

  A diving House of Glass is also introduced in the Spanish Romance of Alexander, written, about the middle of the 13th century, by Joan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga.

  Unas facianas suelen les gentes retraer,

  Non yaz en escrito, e es grave de creer;

  Si es verdat e non. yo non he y que veer,

  Pero no lo quiero en olvido poner.

  Dicen que por saber que facen los pescados,

  Como viven los chicos entre los mas granados,

  Fizo cuba de vidrio con puntos bien cerrados,

  Metios en ella dentro con dos de sus criados.

  Estos furon catados de todos los meiores,

  Por tal que non oviessen dona los traectores,

  Ca que el o que ellos avrien aguardadores,

  Non farien a sus guisas los males revoltores. Fu de bona betume la cuba aguisada,

  Fu con bonas cadenas bien presa e calzada,

  Fu con priegos firmes a las naves pregada,

  Que fonder non se podiesse e estodiesse colgada.

  Mando que quinze dias lo dexassen hy durar,

  Las naves con todesto pensassen de test andar,

  Assaz podrie en esto saber e mesurar,

  Metria en escrito los secretes del mar.

  La cuba fue fecha en quel Rey acia,

  A los unos pesaba, a los otros placia:

  Bien cuidaban algunos que nunca ende saldria,

  Mas destaiado era que en mar non moriria.

  Andabal bon Rey en su casa cerrada,

  Seia grant corazon en angosta posada;

  Veia toda la mar de pescados poblada,

  No es bestia nel sieglo que non fus y trobada.

  Non vive en el mundo nenguna creatura

  Que non cria la mar semejante figura;

  Traen enemizades entre si por natura,

  Los fuertes d los flacos danles mala ventura.

  Estonce vio el Rey en aquellas andadas

  Como echan los unos a los otros celadas

  Dicen que ende furon presas e sossacadas,

  Furon desent aca por el sieglo usadas. Tanto se acogien al Rey los pescados

  Como si los ovies el Rey por subiugados,

  Yenien fasta la cuba todos cabezcolgados,

  Tremian todos antel como mozos moiades.

  Juraba Alexandre per lo su diestro llado,

  Que nunca fura domes meior accompannado;

  De los pueblos del mar tovose por pagado,

  Contaba que avie grant emperio ganado.

  Otra faciana vio en essos pobladores,

  Vio que los maiores comien a los menores,

  Los chicos a los grandes tenienos por sennores,

  Maltraen los mas fuertes a los que son menores.

  Diz el Rey, soberbia es en todolos iugares,

  Forcia es enna tierra e dentro ennos mares:

  Las aves esso mismo non se catan por pares,

  Dios confunda tal vicio que tien tantos lugares.

  Nacio entre los angelos 6 fizo muchos caer.

  Arramolos Dios per la tierra, e dioles grant poder,

  La mesnada non puede su derecho aver,

  Ascondio la cabeza, non osaba parecer.

  Quien mas puede mas face, non de bien, mas de mal,

  Quien mas a aver mas quier, e morre por ganal;

  Non veeria de su grado nenguno so igual:

  Mal peccado, nenguno no es a Dios leal. Las aves e las bestias, los omes, los pescados,

  Todos son entre si a bandos derramados;

  De vicio e de soberbia son todos entregados,

  Los flacos de los fuertes andan desafiados.

  Se como sabel Rey bien todesto osmar,

  Quisiesse assimismo it derechas iulgar,

  Bien debie un poco su lengua refrenar,

  Que en tant fieras grandias non quisiesse andar.

  De su gradol Rey mas oviera estado

  Mas a sus criazones faciesles pesado;

  Temiendo la ocasion que suel venir privado,

  Sacaronlo bien ante del termino passado.

  The sweet flow of language and metre in so early a poem is very remarkable; but no modern language can boast of monuments so early and so valuable as the Spanish. To attempt to versify this passage would be laborious and unprofitable. Its import is, that Alexander, being desirous to see how the fish lived, and in what manner the great fish behaved to the little ones, ordered a vessel of glass to be made, and fastened with long chains to his ships, that it might not sink too deep. He entered it with two chosen servants, leaving orders that the ships should continue their course, and draw him up at the end of fifteen days. The vessel had been made perfectly water-tight. He descended, and found the fish as curious to see him as he had been to see the fish. They crowded round his machine, and trembled before him as if he had been their conqueror, so that he thought he had acquired another empire. But Alexander perceived the same system of tyranny in the water as on the land, the great eat the little, and the little eat the less; upon which tyranny he made sundry moral observations, which would have come with more propriety from any other person than from himself. However, he observed the various devices which were used for catching fish, and which, in consequence of this discovery, have been used in the world ever since. His people were afraid some accident might happen, and drew him up long before the fifteen days were expired.

  The poet himself does not believe this story. “People say so,” he says; “but it is not in writing, and it is a thing difficult to believe. It is not my business to examine whether it be true or not; but I do not choose to pass it over unnoticed.” The same story was pointed out to me by Mr. Coleridge in one of the oldest German poems; and, what is more remarkable, it is mentioned by one of the old Welsh bards. Davies’s Celtic Researches, p. 196. Jests, and the fictions of romance and superstition, seem to have travelled everywhere.

  Flathinnis. — XI. p. 106.

  Flath-innis, the Noble Island, lies surrounded with tempests in the Western Ocean. I fear the account of this paradise is but apocryphal, as it rests upon the evidence of Macpherson, and has every internal mark of a modern fiction.

  In former days, there lived in Skerr * a magician † of high

  * Skerr signifies, in general, a rock in the ocean.

  † A magician is called Druidh in the Gaelic. renown. The blast of wind waited for his commands at the gate; he rode the tempest, and the troubled wave offered itself as a pillow for his repose; his eye followed the sun by day; his thoughts travelled from star to star in the season of night; he thirsted after things unseen; he sighed over the narrow circle which
surrounded his days; he often sat in silence beneath the sound of his groves; and he blamed the careless billows that rolled between him and the Green Isle of the West.

  One day, as the Magician of Skerr sat thoughtful upon a rock, a storm arose on the sea. A cloud, under whose squally skirts the foaming waters complained, rushed suddenly into the bay; and from its dark womb at once issued forth a boat, with its white sails bent to the wind, and hung around with a hundred moving, oars; but it was destitute of mariners, itself seeming to live and move. An unusual terror seized the aged magician: he heard a voice, though he saw no human form. “Arise! behold the boat of the heroes! arise, and see the Green Isle of those who have passed away!”

  He felt a strange force on his limbs: he saw no person, but he moved to the boat. Immediately the wind changed; in the bosom of the cloud he sailed away. Seven days gleamed faintly round him; seven nights added their gloom to his darkness; his ears were stunned with shrill voices; the dull murmurs of winds passed him on either side; he slept not, but his eyes were not heavy; he ate not, but he was not hungry. On the eighth day, the waves swelled into mountains; the boat was rocked violently from side to side; the darkness thickened around him; when a thousand voices at once cried aloud, The isle! the isle! The billows opened wide before him; the calm land of the departed rushed in light on his eyes.

  “It was not a light. that dazzled, but a pure, distinguishing, and placid light, which called forth every object to view in their most perfect form. The isle spread large before him, like a pleasing dream of the soul, where distance fades not on the sight, where nearness fatigues not the eye. It had its gently sloping hills of green: nor did they wholly want their clouds; but the clouds were bright and transparent, and each involved in its bosom the source of a stream,-a beauteous stream, which, wandering down the steep, was like the faint notes of thebhalf-touched harp to the distant ear. The valleys were open and free to the ocean; trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were scattered on the green declivities and rising ground; the rude winds walked not on the mountain; no storm took its course through the sky. All was calin and bright; the pure sun of autumn shone from his blue sky on the fields. He hastened not to the west for repose, nor was he seen to rise from the east: he sits in his mid-day height, and looks obliquely on the Noble Isle.

  In each valley is its slow-moving stream: the pure waters swell over the bank, yet abstain from the fields; the showers disturb them not, nor are they lessened by the heat of the sun. On the rising hill are the halls of the departed, — the high-roofed dwellings of the heroes of old.’

  The departed, according to the tale, retained, in the midst of their happiness, a warm affection for their country and living friends. They sometimes visited the first; and by the latter, as the Bard expresses it, they were transiently seen in the hour of’peril, and especially on the near approach of death. It was then that at midnight the death-devoted, to use the words of the Tale, were suddenly awakened by a strange knocking at their gates; it was then that they heard the indistinct voice of their departed friends calling them away to the Noble Isle; “a sudden joy rushed in upon their minds, and that pleasing melancholy which looks forward to happiness in a distant land.” Macpherson’s Introduction to the History of Great Britain.

  “The softer sex among the Celtae,” he adds, “passed with their friends to the fortunate isles. Their beauty increased with the change; and, to use the words of the Bard, they were ruddy lights in the Island of Joy.”

  Where one emerald light

  Through the green element for ever shines. — XI. p. 107.

  I have supplied Merlin with light when he arrived at his world of mermankind, but not for his submarine voyage; let Paracelsus do this.

  “Urim and Thummim were the Philosopher’s stone; and it was this which gave light in the Ark.

  “For God commanded Noah to make a clear light in the Ark, which some take for a window; but since the text saith, Day and night shall no more cease; it seems it did then cease; and therefore there could be no exterior light.

  “The Rabbis say that the Hebrew word Zohar, which the Chaldees translate Neher, is only to be found in this place. Other Hebrew Doctors believe it to have been a precious stone hung up in the Ark, which gave light to all living creatures therein. This the greatest Carbuncle could not do, nor any precious stone which is only natural. But the Universal Spirit, fixed in a transparent body, shines like the sun in glory; and this was the light which God commanded Noah to make.” — Paracelsus’ Urim and Thummim.

  Rhys ab Grufydd ab Rhys. — XlI. p. 110.

  Was one of the bravest, wisest, most liberal, and most celebrated of the princes of South Wales. He is thus praised in the Pentarchia:

  Quis queat heroena calamo describere tantum,

  Quantus ut ipse fuit, modeo civibus Hectoris instar,

  Fortis in hostiles modo tarmas instar Achillis.

  Ultus avos patrise fere sexaginta per annos,

  Quot fusas acies. quot castra recepta, quot urbes,

  Spes patrise, columen pacis, lux urbis et orbis,

  Gentis honos, decus armorum, fulmenque duelli,

  Quo neque pace prior, neque fortior alter in armis.

  In Hearne’s Collection of Curious Discourses are these funeral verses upon Lord Rhys, as preserved by Camden:

  Nobile Cambrensis cecidit diadema decoris,

  Hoc est Rhesus obiit, Cambria tota gemit.

  Subtrahitur, sect non moritnr, quia semper habetur

  Ipsius egregium nomen in orbe novum.

  Hic tegitur, sect detegitur, quia fama perennis

  Non sinit illustrem voce latere ducem.

  Excessit probitate modcum, sensu probitatem,

  Eloquio sensum, moribus eloquium. Rhys ap Gryffith, say the Chronicles, was no less remarkable in courage than in the stature and lineaments of his body, wherein he exceeded most men. Royal Tribes.

  Beavers. — XII. p. 111.

  When Giraldus Cambrensis wrote, that is, at the time whereof the poem treats, the only beavers remaining in Wales or England were in the Towy. Inter universos Cambrise, seu etialn Loegrik fluvios, solus hic (Teivi) castores habet.

  The beaver is mentioned also in the laws of Hoel Dha; and one of those dark, deep resting-places or pits of the, river Conway, which the Spaniards call the remanzsos del rio, is called the Beavers’ Pool.

  The Great Palace, like a sanctuary,

  Is safe. — XII. p. 114.

  Dinas Vawr, the Great Palace. It was regarded as an asylum.

  Goauan of Powys-land. — XII. p. 116.

  Properly Gwgan; but I have adapted the orthography to an English eye. This very characteristic story is to be found, as narrated in the poem, in Mr. Yorke’s curious work upon the Royal Tribes of Wales. Gwgan’s demand was for five pounds, instead of ten marks: this is the only liberty I have taken with the fact, except that of fitting it to the business of the poem by the last part of Rhys’s reply. The ill-humor in which the Lord of Dinvawr confesses the messenger had surprised him, is mentioned more bluntly by the historian: “Gwgan found him in a furious temper, beating his servants and hanging his dogs.” I have not lost the character of the anecdote by relating the cause of his anger, instead of the effects.

  The Bay whose reckless waves

  Roll o’er the Plain of Gwaelod. — XIII. p. 120.

  A large tract of fenny country, called Cantrev y Gwaelod, the Lowland Canton, was, about the year 500, inundated by the sea; for Seithenyn, in a fit of drunkenness, let the sea through the dams which secured it. He is therefore distinguished, with Geraint and Gwrtheyrn, under the apellation of the Three Arrant Drunkards. This district, which forms the present Cardigan Bay, contained sixteen principal towns of the Cymry, the inhabitants of which, who survived the inundation, fled into the mountainous parts of Meirion and Arvon, which were till then nearlv uncultivated. Gwyddno Garanhir, one of the petty princes, whose territories were thus destroyed, was a poet. There were lately (and I believe, s
ays Edmund Williams, are still) to be seen in the sands of this bay large stones with inscriptions on them, the characters Roman, but the language unknown.” — E. Williams’s Poems. Cambrian Biography.

  The two other arrant drunkards were both princes. The one set fire to the standing corn in his country, and so occasioned a famine; Gwrtheyrn, the other, is the Vortigern of Saxon history, thus distinguished for ceding the Isle of Thanet, in his drunkenness, as the price of Rowena. This worthless king is also recorded as one of the three disgraceful men of the island, and one of the three treacherous conspirators, whose families were for ever divested of privilege. Cambrian Biography.

  Bardsey. — XIII. p. 121.

  “This little island,” says Giraldus, “is inhabited by certain monks of exceeding piety, whom they call Culdees (Calibes vel Colideos). This wonderful property it hath, either from the salubrity of its air, which it partakes with the shores of Ireland, or rather from some miracle by reason of the merits of the saints, that diseases are rarely known there; and seldom or never does any one die till worn out by old age. Infinite numbers of saints are buried there.”

  On his back,

  Like a broad shield, the Coracle was hung. — XIII. p. 195.

  “The Coracles are generally five feet and a half long, and four broad; their bottom is a little rounded, and their shape nearly oval. These boats are ribbed with light laths or split twigs in the manner of basket work, and are covered with a raw hide or strong canvas, pitched in such a mode as to prevent their leaking; a seat crosses, just above the centre, towards the broader end. They seldom weigh more than between 20 and 30 pounds. The men paddle them with one hand, while they fish with the other; and, when their work is completed, they throw the coracles over their shoulders, and, without difficulty, return with them home.