Too, too secure in youthful pride,
By them, my friend, my Hoel, died,
Great Cian's son: of Madoc old
He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold;
Alone in nature's wealth array'd,
He ask'd and had the lovely maid.

To Cattraeth's vale in glitt'ring row
Twice two hundred warriors go:
Every warrior's manly neck
Chains of regal honour deck,
Wreath'd in many a golden link :
From the golden cup they drink
Nectar that the bees produce,
Or the grape's extatic juice.

Flush'd with mirth and hope they burn:
But none from Cattraeth's vale return,

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20

V. 7. Cian] In Jones. Relics, it is spelt Kian.'

1

"The

V. 11. In the rival poem of Taliessin mentioned before, this circumstance is thus expressed: "Three, and threescore, and three hundred heroes flocked to the variegated banners of Cattraeth; but of those who hastened from the flowing mead-goblet, save three, returned not. Cynon and Cattraeth with hymns they commemorate, and me for my blood they mutually lament." See Jones. Relics, vol. ii. p. 14. great topic perpetually recurring in the Gododin is, that the Britons lost the battle of Cattraeth, and suffered so severely, because they had drunk their mead too profusely. The passages in the Gododin are numerous on this point." See Sharon Turner's Vindication of the Anc. British Poems, p. 51.

V. 14. See Sayer's War Song, from the Gaelic, in his Poems, p. 174.

V. 17. See Fr. Goldsmith. Transl. of Grotius. Joseph Sophompaneas. p. 9. "Nectar of the Bees," and Euripid. Bacchæ. v. 143. ῥεῖ δὲ μελισσᾶν νέκταρι.

Save Aëron brave, and Conan strong,
(Bursting through the bloody throng,)
And I, the meanest of them all,
That live to weep and sing their fall.

HAVE ye seen the tusky boar,*
Or the bull, with sullen roar,
On surrounding foes advance?
So Caradoc bore his lance.

CONAN's name, † my lay, rehearse,
t
Build to him the lofty verse,
Sacred tribute of the bard,
Verse, the hero's sole reward.
As the flame's devouring force;
As the whirlwind in its course;

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V. 20. In the Latin translation: "Ex iis autem, qui nimio potu madidi ad bellum properabant, non evasere nisi tres."

V. 21. Properly Conon,' or, as in the Welsh, 'Chynon.'

V. 23. In the Latin translation: "Et egomet ipse sanguine rubens, aliter ad hoc carmen compingendum non superstes fuissem." M.. "Gray has given a kind of sentimental modesty to his Bard which is quite out of place." Quarterly Review.

*This and the following short fragment ought to have appeared among the Posthumous Pieces of Gray; but it was thought preferable to insert them in this place, with the preceding fragment from the Gododin. See Jones. Relics, vol. i. p. 17.

G

9

In Jones. Relics, vol. i. p. 17, it is Vedel's name; and in turning to the original I see Rhudd Fedel,' as well as in the Latin translation of Dr. Evans, p. 75.

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V. 2. "He knew himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme." Milt. Lycidas. Luke.

As the thunder's fiery stroke,
Glancing on the shiver'd oak;
Did the sword of Conan mow
The crimson harvest of the foe.

SONNET

ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST.

[See W. S. Landori Poemata, p. 186.]

In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And redd'ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join,

Or cheerful fields resume their green attire:
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,

A different object do these eyes require:
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.

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5

V. 9. "Primosque et extremos metendo stravit humum, sine clade victor." Hor. Od. iv. 14, 31.

V. 1. Milt. P. L. v. 168, "That crown'st the smiling morn.” Luke.

V. 2. Lucret. vi. 204, "Devolet in terram liquidi color aureus ignis." Luke.

V. 3. Milt. P. L. iv. 602, "She all night long her amorous descant sung." Luke.

V. 8. "And in my ear the imperfect accent dies."

Dryden. Ovid. Rogers. V. 12. Spens. B. Id. cant. iii. st. 5: "On these Cupido winged armies led, of little loves." Luke.

V. 14. A line similar to this occurs in Cibber's Alteration of Richard the Third, act ii. sc. 2:

Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men:
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;

To warm their little loves the birds complain : I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

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EPITAPH ON MRS. JANE CLERKE. [See Woty's Poetical Calendar, part viii. p. 121. Nicoll's Select Poems, vol. vii. p. 331.]

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,
A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps:
A heart, within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell.

This lady, the wife of Dr. John Clerke, physician at Epsom, died April 27, 1757; and was buried in the church of Beckenham, Kent.

"Oh! therefore do we plaine,

And therefore weepe, because we weepe in vaine."

"So we must weep, because we weep in vain."

"Solon, when he wept for his son's death, on one saying to

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him, Weeping will not help,' answered: Ai avrò dè TOUTO δακρύω, ὅτι οὐδὲν ἀνύττω· I weep for that very cause, that weeping will not avail.'" See Diog. Laert. vol. i. p. 39. ed. Meibomii. It is also told of Augustus. See also Fitzgeffry's Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake, B. 99.

See also Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. x. p. 139, and Bamfylde's Sonnets, p. 6. ed. Park.

V. 1. "This weeping marble had not ask'd a tear." Pope. Epitaph on Ed. D. of Buckingham. And Winds. For. "There o'er the martyr-king the marble weeps," 313. "Orat te flebile Saxum." Burn. Anthol. Lat. vol. ii. p. 282.

Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death resign'd,

She felt the wound she left behind.

Her infant image, here below,
Sits smiling on a father's woe:
Whom what awaits, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?
A pang, to secret sorrow dear;
A sigh; an unavailing tear;
Till time shall every grief remove,
With life, with memory, and with love.

Var. V. 7-10. In agony, &c.]

"To hide her cares her only art,
Her pleasure, pleasures to impart,
In ling'ring pain, in death resign'd,
Her latest agony of mind

Was felt for him who could not save
His all from an untimely grave." MS.

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""

V. 6. "And soft humanity that from rebellion fled,” Dryden. Thr. Aug. s. xii. "Bred to the rules of soft humanity,' ditto All for Love, act. ii. sc. i. "Oh! soft humanity in age beloved," Pope. Epitaph ix. "The soft virtue of humanity," A. Smith. Mor. Sent. v. i. p. 310.