The Hall of Cynddylan is lonely and bare,

No banquet, no guest, not a footstep is there!

Oh! where are the warriors who circled its board?--

The grass will soon wave where the mead-cup was pour'd.



The Hall of Cynddylan is loveless to-night,

Since he is departed whose smile made it bright:

I mourn, but the sigh of my soul shall be brief,

The pathway is short to the grave of my chief!







THE GRAVE OF KING ARTHUR. {94a}





I called on the sun, in his noonday height,

By the power and spell a wizard gave:

Hast thou not found, with thy searching light,

The island monarch's grave?



"I smile on many a lordly tomb,

Where Death is mock'd by trophies fair;

I pierce the dim aisle's hallow'd gloom;

King Arthur sleeps not there."



I watched for the night's most lovely star,

And, by that spell, I bade her say,

If she had been, in her wand'rings far,

Where the slain of Gamlan lay. {94b}



"Well do I love to shine upon

The lonely cairn on the dark hill's side,

And I weep at night o'er the brave ones gone,

But not o'er Britain's pride."



I bent o'er the river, winding slow

Through tangled brake and rocky bed:

Say, do thy waters mourning flow

Beside the mighty dead?



The river spake through the stilly hour,

In a voice like the deep wood's evening sigh:

"I am wand'ring on, 'mid shine and shower,

But that grave I pass not by."



I bade the winds their swift course hold,

As they swept in their strength the mountain's bre'st:

Ye have waved the dragon banner's fold,

Where does its chieftain rest?



There came from the winds a murmured note,

"Not ours that mystery of the world;

But the dragon banner yet shall float

On the mountain breeze unfurl'd."



Answer me then, thou ocean deep,

Insatiate gulf of things gone by,

In thy green halls does the hero sleep?

And the wild waves made reply:



"He sleeps not in our sounding cells,

Our coral beds with jewels pearl'd;

Not in our treasure depths it dwells,

That mystery of the world.



"Long must the island monarch roam,

The noble heart and the mighty hand;

But we shall bear him proudly home

To his father's mountain land."