You know (what more can earthly science know?)
That all must die: by Revelation's ray
Illum'd, you trust the ashes plac'd below
These flow'ry tufts shall rise to endless day.

What if you deem, by hoar tradition led,
To you perchance devolv'd from Druids old*,
That parted souls at solemn seasons tread

The circles that their shrines of clay enfold?—

What if you deem they some sad pleasure take
These poor memorials of your love to view;
And scent the perfume, for the planter's sake,
That breathes from vulgar rosemary and ruet?

* Devolv'd from Druids old.]—It is a common belief in Wales that the spirits of the dead hover about the graves where their bodies are laid.-Churches and church-yards are believed by some to be the only places where the ghosts of the departed may venture to appear, as in consecrated ground; every where else they would be assailed by devils. This is rather a Papistical than a Druidical superstition, hence the idea that ghosts haunt churches and church-yards more than other places.

+ Scent the perfume-That breathes from vulgar rosemary and rue.]—This is not correct: rue is never planted on the grave of a beloved person, for it is an ill-scented plant; it is planted by wags now and then on the grave of a disliked person.

Unfeeling

Unfeeling Wit may scorn, and Pride may frown;
Yet Fancy, empress of the realms of song,
Shall bless the decent mode; and Reason own
It may be right, for who can prove it wrong?

RICHARD

RICHARD LLWYD,

THE BARD OF SNOWDEN,

TO HIS COUNTRYMEN.

YE*, whom Britain's earliest day
Saw among her meadows play,
Unconscious yet that Ocean's waves
Form'd the isle it loves and laves ;-

Lords of realms as yet unknown,
A blest creation all your own;
A region yet by blood unstain'd,

Where Peace, unbroke, unruff'd, reign'd;

Ere yet the icy rocky North*

Had pour'd her hungry myriads forth;
The hordes that ravaged guiltless lands,
And forc'd to arms your pastoral bands.

Decreed to share a restless doom,
A world, in vain, resisted Rome:
Yet Claudius heard, on Empire's throne,
A voice then greater than his own.

Led by rapine, fraud, and spoil,
Saxons, Normans, trod your soil;
And Bards in strains of sorrow tell
That Britain's offspring fought and fell.

Lost your own paternal plains,
Florid fields and wide domains,

Fair Cambria saw with beckoning eyes,
And bade ERYRI's ramparts rise.

* Invasions of the Danes and Norwegians.

See an elegant version of the speech of Caractacus before Claudius, in the Juvenilia of my accomplished friend, J. H. L. Hunt, Esq.

The ridge of Snowdonia.

Here,

Here, amid her cliffs of snow,
Ages saw you brave the foe;

Till Concord came, with efforts blest,

And sooth'd Contention's roar to rest!

United now to Britain's throne,

Your sires* return, resume their own:
Chiefs of your country's ancient days
Britannia's wider sceptre sways!

O'er Britain's fair extended face,

One brave, one rich, and potent race,—

High in honour-high in fame,

The first of nations-BOASTS YOUR NAME!

BRITONS, hear! that name's a host,
And forms a bulwark round your coast:
And Fame shall tell, in records fair,
You're worthy of the name you bear!

* The restoration of the British line in Henry the VIIth., of the House of

Tudor.

The