Greater part of the summer he had no
other roof than the foliage, and that the voices of birds and
animals were more familiar to his ears than was the voice of man.
During the summer months, indeed, in the early part of his life, he
was, if we may credit him, generally lying perdue in the woodland
or mountain recesses near the habitation of his mistress, before or
after her marriage, awaiting her secret visits, made whenever she
could escape the vigilance of her parents, or the watchful of her
husband, and during her absence he had nothing better to do than to
observe objects of nature and describe them. His ode to the Fox,
one of the most admirable of his pieces, was composed on one of
these occasions.
Want of space prevents the writer from saying as much as he could
wish about the genius of this wonderful man, the greatest of his
country's songsters, well calculated by nature to do honour to the
most polished age and the most widely-spoken language. The bards
his contemporaries, and those who succeeded him for several hundred
years, were perfectly convinced of his superiority, not only over
themselves, but over all the poets of the past; and one, and a
mighty one, old Iolo the bard of Glendower, went so far as to
insinuate that after Ab Gwilym it would be of little avail for any
one to make verses -
"Aed lle mae'r eang dangneff,
Ac aed y gerdd gydag ef."
"To Heaven's high peace let him depart,
And with him go the minstrel art."
He was buried at Ystrad Flur, and a yew tree was planted over his
grave, to which Gruffydd Gryg, a brother bard, who was at one time
his enemy, but eventually became one of the most ardent of his
admirers, addressed an ode, of part of which the following is a
paraphrase:-
"Thou noble tree, who shelt'rest kind
The dead man's house from winter's wind;
May lightnings never lay thee low;
Nor archer cut from thee his bow,
Nor Crispin peel thee pegs to frame;
But may thou ever bloom the same,
A noble tree the grave to guard
Of Cambria's most illustrious bard!"
CHAPTER LXXXVII
Start for Plynlimmon - Plynlimmon's Celebrity - Troed Rhiw Goch.
THE morning of the fifth of November looked rather threatening.
As, however, it did not rain, I determined to set off for
Plynlimmon, and, returning at night to the inn, resume my journey
to the south on the following day. On looking into a pocket
almanac I found it was Sunday. This very much disconcerted me, and
I thought at first of giving up my expedition. Eventually,
however, I determined to go, for I reflected that I should be doing
no harm, and that I might acknowledge the sacredness of the day by
attending morning service at the little Church of England chapel
which lay in my way.
