I Thought On The Times
When The Beal Fire Blazed On This Height, On The Neighbouring
Promontory, On The Cope-Stone Of Eryri, And On Every High Hill
Throughout Britain On The Eve Of The First Of May.
I thought on
the day when the bands of Suetonius crossed the Menai strait in
their broad-bottomed boats,
Fell upon the Druids and their
followers, who with wild looks and brandished torches lined the
shore, slew hundreds with merciless butchery upon the plains, and
pursued the remainder to the remotest fastnesses of the isle. I
figured to myself long-bearded men with white vestments toiling up
the rocks, followed by fierce warriors with glittering helms and
short broad two-edged swords; I thought I heard groans, cries of
rage, and the dull, awful sound of bodies precipitated down rocks.
Then as I looked towards the sea I thought I saw the fleet of
Gryffith Ab Cynan steering from Ireland to Aber Menai, Gryffith,
the son of a fugitive king, born in Ireland, in the Commot of
Columbcille, Gryffith the frequently baffled, the often victorious;
once a manacled prisoner sweating in the sun, in the market-place
of Chester, eventually king of North Wales; Gryffith, who "though
he loved well the trumpet's clang loved the sound of the harp
better"; who led on his warriors to twenty-four battles, and
presided over the composition of the twenty-four measures of
Cambrian song. Then I thought -. But I should tire the reader
were I to detail all the intensely Welsh thoughts which crowded
into my head as I stood on the Cairn of the Grey Giant.
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