ing his situation. In the poem entitled ‘The Bard’s Last Song,’ he describes the altered state of his feelings:—
Ivor is gone—my friend and guide,
And Nest—my patroness—his bride!
Morvyth, my soul’s delight is fled—
All moulder in their clay-cold bed!
And I oppressed with woe remain,
Victim to age and ling’ring pain!
Davyth ap Gwilym continued true to his muse even in his last moments. One of his poems—perhaps the only one—written on this impressive occasion, remains. It is entitled, ‘The Death-bed Lay of the Bard,’ and may, perhaps, more justly be regarded as his ‘last song,’ than the poem of that designation above quoted. It is full of remorse and penitence for his past life, accompanied by a strain of genuine piety, as may be perceived from the following version, however unequal in poetical merit to the original:—
My shapeless sin with dread I view,
And tremble at the reck’ning due;
I dread my folly’s long career,
But, more than all, my God I fear!
Mysterious Being, prone to save,
Thy pardon for the past I crave;
The time arrives, death’s awful time,
And with it come the stings of crime!
God is the world, the pious know;
Without Him all were waste below,
Without Him ’twere a desert state,
One cheerless void, all desolate!
