Unruffled be thy gentle breast,
Without one fear to break thy rest,
Till thou art safely wafted o’er
To bold Arvonia’s[1] tow’ring shore.
O! could I guard thy lovely form
Safe through yon desert of the storm[2],
Where fiercely rage encount’ring gales,
And whirlwinds rend th’ affrighted vales:
Sons of the tempest, cease to blow,
Sleep in your cavern’d glens below;
Ye streams that, with terrific sound,
Pour from your thousand hills around,
Cease with rude clamours to dismay
A gentle pilgrim on her way!
Peace! rude Traeth Mawr[3]; no longer urge
O’er thy wild strand the sweeping surge:
’Tis Morvyth on thy beach appears,
She dreads thy wrath—she owns her fears;
O! let the meek repentant maid
Securely through thy windings wade.
Traeth Bychan[4], check thy dreadful ire,
And bid thy foamy waves retire,
- ↑ ‘Arvonia,’ Carnarvonshire.
- ↑ ‘Desert of the storm,’ the Snowdon mountains in Carnarvonshire, supposed to be the highest in Britain.
- ↑ ‘Traeth Mawr’ (Anglicè, ‘Great Strand’), in Carnarvonshire, noted for its quicksands, and the sudden flowing of its tides; the passage over it is very dangerous, and not to be attempted without a guide, which, however, the pilgrims to St. David’s did in those days.
- ↑ ‘Traeth Bychan’ (Little Strand), in Merionethshire, a place equally dangerous.
