character, at his home in Llanbadarn. His ashes repose at Ystrad Flur, or Strata Florida, in the county of Cardigan, the burial-place of the ancient princes of South Wales; and his tomb has not wanted the congenial tribute of the muse. Some kindred spirit has recorded on it his friendship for the poet, and his regret for his loss, in an epitaph, of which the translation that follows will afford some idea:—
Gwilym, bless’d with song divine,
Sleeps’t thou, then, beneath this tree;
’Neath this yew, whose foliage fine
Shades alike thy song and thee?
Mantling yew-tree, he lies near,
Gwilym, Teivi’s nightingale[1],
And his song too slumbers here,
Tuneless ever through the vale!
But the commemoration of his fame has not been confined to an anonymous herald. Three of our poet’s most illustrious bardic contemporaries have
- ↑ In the original ‘Eos Teivi:’ Eos Dyved, however, or the Demetian Nightingale, was the designation by which our bard was frequently known. The following is the epitaph, of which a translation is here given:—
‘Davydd, gwiw awenydd gwrdd,’
Ai yma’th roed dan goed gwyrdd?
Dan laspren hoyw ywen hardd,
Lle ’i claddwyd, y cuddiwyd cerdd.
‘Glas dew ywen, glân Eos—Deivi,
Mae Davydd yn agos!
Yn y pridd mae’r gerdd ddiddos;
Diddawn in’ bob dydd a nos!’
