THE MEETING OF THE SHIPS. Two barks met on the deep mid-sea, A few bright days of summer glee And voices of the fair and brave Moonlight on that lone Indian main Cloudless and lovely slept ; While dancing step, and festive strain THE MEETING OF THE SHIPS. 219 And hands were linked, and answering eyes With kindly meaning shone ; -Oh! brief and passing sympathies, Like leaves together blown! A little while such joy was cast Till the loud singing winds at last Like trumpet music rose. And proudly, freely on their way The parting vessels bore ; -In calm or storm, by rock or bay, Never to blend in victory's cheer, To aid in hours of woe: And thus bright spirits mingle here, Such ties are formed below! THE ROCK OF CADER IDRIS. A LEGEND OF WALES. It is an old tradition of the Welch Bards, that on the summit of the mountain Cader Idris, is an excavation resembling a couch; and that whoever should pass a night in that hollow, would be found in the morning either dead, in a state of frenzy, or endowed with the highest poetical inspiration. This song one of a "Selection of Welch Melodies, arranged by John Parry, and published by Mr. Power." is THE ROCK OF CADER IDRIS. A LEGEND OF WALES. I lay on that rock where the storms have their dwelling, The birth-place of phantoms, the home of the cloud; Around it for ever deep music is swelling, The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud. 'Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming, Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled their moan; Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulphs faintly gleaming, And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone. I lay there in silence-a Spirit came o'er me; Man's tongue hath no language to speak what I saw; Things glorious, unearthly, pass'd floating before me, And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe! I viewed the dread beings, around us that hover, Tho' veil'd by the mists of mortality's breath; And I called upon darkness the vision to cover, For a strife was within me of madness and death. I saw them—the powers of the wind and the ocean, The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms; Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion, I felt their dim presence,-but knew not their forms! |