And the third over sea from Normandy
With mighty toil,—the curse attend her.’
Then comes the conflict; the ‘dragon of Mon’ was waiting:—
‘A rhagddaw rhewys dwys dyfysgi
A rhewin a thrin a thranc cymri.
Ar gad gad greudde,
Ar gryd giyd graendde,
Ac am dâl Moelfre
Mil fanieri.
Ar ladd ladd lachar, ar bar beri,
Ar ffwyr ffwyr ffyrfgawdd, ar fawdd foddi,
A Menei heb drei o drallanw gwaedryar,
A lliw gwyar gwŷr yn heli.’
‘Before him swept the furious tumult
And ruin and strife and loss of glory.
Gory conflict upon conflict,
Anguished shrieking upon shrieking,
And around the head of Mœlfre
Stand a thousand banners.
Fiery slaughter upon slaughter, spear upon spear,
Frenzied onset upon onset, drowning upon drowning.
And Menei without ebb from the overflow of the blood-torrent,
And the hue of men’s gore in the surge.’
In his rendering of these last lines Gray follows close upon the sublimity of the original:—
Checked by the torrent-tide of blood,
Backward Menei rolls his flood.’
But Gwalchmei is hard to equal on his own ground.
We will now leave him. Suffice for the time what has been written, to give some little idea of the pearls that still wait to be brought up to the sight of the world. They are none the less pearls, and of great price, because they have not hitherto glittered before the eyes of the multitude. Another time we may return to Gwalchmei the son of Meilyr.
