The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses. J. C. Manning

wreath enwove,

       With fingers deft, and eyes with tears bedimmed:

       No lovelier face the painter's art e'er limned,

       No poet's thought e'er told of sweeter love

      Than that young mother's, as, with tender grace,

       She kissed the chaplet ere she laid it down

       Upon a tiny hillock, earthy-brown—

       Of first and only child the resting place.

      And then the few stray blossoms that were left

       She kissed and strewed upon the little mound—

       Looked lingering back towards the sacred ground,

       As from the shade she bore her heart bereft.

      As gentle ripples, from the side we lave

       Of placid lake, will reach the other side,

       So, o'er Death's river—silent, dark, and wide—

       Blossoms may bear the kiss that mother gave.

      Or, if in fervent faith she deemed it so,

       The thought to joyless lives a pleasure brings,

       And who shall tell, where doting fondness clings,

       The loss which hearts bereaved can only know?

      And who shall doubt that to such love is given,

       Borne upward, clothed in perfume to the sky,

       The pow'r to reach, in death's great mystery,

       Lost hearts, and add a bliss to those of Heaven?

      Other sad pilgrims came. A mother here

       A duteous daughter mourns, whose days had been

       A ceaseless blessing—an oasis green

       On life's enfevered plain: a brooklet clear,

      That ran the meadows of glad lives along,

       Till, like a stream that meanders to the sea,

       In the dark Ocean of Eternity

       Lost was their source of laughter, light, and song.

      And yonder, clothed in darksome silence, grieves

       A loving daughter near a mother's tomb—

       Down by the stunted wall in willow-gloom

       And shadows thrown by sombre cypress leaves:

      And as, in life, the waving kerchief speaks

       The words of friends departing which the heart

       Is all too full to utter e're we part

       For ever, so the sorrowing daughter seeks

      In thought one recollection more to wave

       To one long dead; and asks in speechless woe

       Primrose and snowdrop on the mound below

       To bear love's messages beyond the grave!

      And in the golden sunshine children come

       With prattling tongue and winsome, rosy face—

       Like blossoms flowering in a lonely place—

       And lay their tributes o'er each narrow home

      Where lies the helpless beacon of their lives

       In darkness quencht—gone ere their infant thought

       Could realise the loss which Death had wrought—

       The stab the stern Destroying Angel gives.

      And o'er each silent grave Love's tributes fall—

       The primrose, cowslip, gentle daffodil—

       The snow-drop, and the tender daisy—till

       God's acre sleeps beneath a flowery pall.

      And now the sun in all its glory came

       And lit the world up with a light divine,

       Casting fresh beauty o'er each sacred shrine:

       Breathing on all things an inspiring flame.

      As if the God of Light had bade it be,

       In sweet reward for pious rite performed;

       As if, with human love and fondness charmed,

       The Lord had smiled with love's benignity.

      For not to this old churchyard where I stand

       Is audience of the dead, through flow'rs, confined

       A nation's heart—a nation's love—combined,

       Make it the sweet observance of the land.

      In humble cot—in proud patrician halls,

       The Floral Festival fills every breast;

       And o'er the grass, where'er the loved ones rest,

       The lowly flow'r with choice exotic falls.

      And as they fall upon the sacred spot,

       Sacred to every heart that strews them there,

       They seem to sing in voices low and clear:

       "Though gone for evermore—forgotten not!

      "Though never more—still evermore—above

       "Eternal will their deathless spirits reign.

       "No more until above to meet again:

       "Till then send up sweet messages of love."

      So sang the blossoms with their odorous breath—

       Or so in fancy sang they unto me;

       "No more—yet evermore, eternally!

       "Though lost, alas! remembered still in death!"

ELEGY

       Table of Contents

      ON THE LATE CRAWSHAY BAILEY, ESQ.,

      "THE IRON KING."

      PRIZE POEM:

      ABERGAVENNY EISTEDDFOD, 1874.

      The programme opened with a competition for the best English Elegy on the late Crawshay Bailey, Esq., for which a prize of 10 pounds was given, and a bardic chair, value 5 pounds, by Mr. William Lewis. There were twelve competitors, and each composition was confined to a limit of 200 lines.

      Sadly the sea, by Mynwy's rugged shore,

       Moans for the dead in many a mournful strain.

       A voice from hearts bereft cries "Come again;"

       But wavelets whisper softly, "Never more!"

      The restless winds take up the solemn cry,

       As though—an age of sorrow in each breath—

       The words, "O, come again," could call back Death

       From the far-off, unseen Eternity.

      "Our dwellings darkened when his life went out:

       "We stand in cold eclipse, for gone the light

       "Which made our cottage-homes so warm and bright;

       "And shadows deepen o'er the world without.

      "Come back—come back!" Upon the mournful wind

       These words fall weirdly as they float along,

       Melting the soul to tears: for lo! the song

       Rises from hearts that seek but ne'er will find:

      Save one more billow on the sea of graves;

       One joyaunt