“ ‘O gift of the everlasting!
O wonderful and hidden mystery!
Many secrets have been vouchsafed to me.
I have been long acquainted with the wisdom of the trees;
Ash and oak and elm have communicated to me from my boyhood,
The birch and the hazel and all the trees of the green wood have not been dumb.
There is a cauldron rimmed with pearls of whose gifts I am not ignorant.
I will speak little of it; its treasures are known to Bards.
Many went on the search of Caer-Pedryfan,
Seven alone returned with Arthur, but my spirit was present.
Seven are the apple trees in a beautiful orchard.
I have eaten of their fruit, which is not bestowed on Saxons.
I am not ignorant of a Head which is glorious and venerable.
It made perpetual entertainment for the warriors; their joys would have been immortal.
If they had not opened the door of the south, they could have feasted forever,
Listening to the song of the Fairy Birds of Rhiannon.
Let not anyone instruct me concerning the Glassy Isle,
In the garments of the saints who returned from it were rich odours of Paradise.
All this I knew and yet my knowledge was ignorance,
For one day, as I walked by Caer-rhiu in the principal forest of Gwent,
I saw golden Myfanwy, as she bathed in the brook Tarógi.
Her hair flowed about her. Arthur’s crown had dissolved into a shining mist.
I gazed into her blue eyes as it were into twin heavens.
All the parts of her body were adornments and miracles.
O gift of the everlasting!
O wonderful and hidden mystery!
When I embraced Myfanwy a moment became immortality!’2
“And yet I daresay this ‘golden Myfanwy’ was what people call ‘a common girl,’ and perhaps she did rough, hard work, and nobody thought anything of her till the Bard found her bathing in the brook of Tarógi. The birds in the wood said, when they saw the nightingale: ‘This is a contemptible stranger!’
“June 24. Since I wrote last in this book the summer has come. This morning I woke up very early, and even in this horrible place the air was pure and bright as the sun rose up and the long beams shone on the cedar outside the window. She came to me by the way they think is locked and fastened, and, just as the world is white and gold at the dawn, so was she. A blackbird began to sing beneath the window. I think it came from far, for it sang to me of morning on the mountain, and the woods all still, and a little bright brook rushing down the hillside between dark green alders, and air that must be blown from heaven.
There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar.
Dewi and Tegfeth and Cybi preside over that region;
Sweet is the valley, sweet the sound of its waters.There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar;
Its voice is golden, like the ringing of the saints’ bells;
Sweet is the valley, echoing with melodies.There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar;
Tegfeth in the south won red martyrdom.
Her song is heard in the perpetual choirs of heaven.There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar;
Dewi in the west had an altar from Paradise.
He taught the valleys of Britain to resound with Alleluia.There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar;
Cybi in the north was the teacher of Princes.
Through him Edlogan sings praise to heaven.There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar
When shall I hear again the notes of its melody?
When shall I behold once more Gwladys in that valley?’3
“When I think of what I know, of the wonders of darkness and the wonders of dawn, I cannot help believing that I have found something which all the world has lost. I have heard some of the fellows talking about women. Their words and their stories are filthy, and nonsense, too. One would think that if monkeys and pigs could talk about their she-monkeys and sows, it would be just like that. I might have thought that, being only boys, they knew nothing about it, and were only making up nasty, silly tales out of their nasty, silly minds. But I have heard the poor women in the town screaming and scolding at their men, and the men swearing back; and when they think they are making love, it is the most horrible of all.
“And it is not only the boys and the poor people. There are the masters and their wives. Everybody knows that the Challises and the Redburns ‘fight like cats,’ as they say, and that the Head’s daughter was ‘put up for auction’ and bought by the rich manufacturer from Birmingham—a horrible, fat beast, more than twice her age, with eyes like pig’s. They called it a splendid match.
“So I began to wonder whether perhaps there are very few people in the world who know; whether the real secret is lost like the great city that was drowned in the sea and only seen by one or two. Perhaps it is more like those shining Isles that the saints sought for, where the deep apple orchards are, and all the delights of Paradise. But you had to give up everything and get into a boat without oar or sails if you wanted to find Avalon or the Glassy Isle. And sometimes the saints could stand on the rocks and see those Islands far away in the midst of the sea, and smell the sweet odours and hear the bells ringing for the feast, when other people
