John Ceiriog Hughes was born September 25, 1832. He was for many years clerk in the Goods Station, London Road, Manchester, and was afterwards stationmaster on the Cambrian Line at Llanidloes, Towyn and Caersws successively. He died at Caersws April 23rd, 1887. He published during his lifetime ‘Oriau’r Hwyr,’ 1860; ‘Oriau’r Bore,’ 1862; ’Cant o Ganeuon,’ 1863; ‘Y Bardd a’r Cerddor,’ 1863; ‘Oriau Ereill,’ 1868; and ‘Oriau’r Haf,’ 1870. These are now published by Messrs. Hughes and Son, Wrexham, and ought to be in the possession of every Welshman, and of everyone desirous of learning Welsh. A posthumous volume was published in 1888, ‘Oriau Olaf’ (Isaac Foulkes, Liverpool).

Songs of Wales.

Songs of Wales live in our ears
Through the swiftly passing years;
Moaning stormwinds as they blow
Murmur songs of long ago;
Voices of our dead ones dear
In our country’s airs we hear.

Whispering leaves in every grove
Murmur low the songs we love,
Sings the sea ’neath roaring gales
Snatches of the songs of Wales,
And to Kymric ears they sound
Through creation all around.

Myfanwy.

Myfanwy! thy fair face is seen
In primrose and clover and rose,
In the sunshine, unsullied, serene,
And the starlight’s untroubled repose.
When rises fair Venus on high,
And shines ’twixt the heaven and the sea,
She is loved by the earth and the sky,
But thou art, Myfanwy, far brighter, far fairer to me,
A thousand times fairer to me.

Would I were the breezes that blow
Through the gardens and walks of thy home,
To murmur my love as I go
And play with thy locks as I roam!
For changeful the breezes and bleak
Now balmy, now chilly they blow
Yet they, love, are kissing thy cheek,
O heart of my heart, not changeful my love towards thee
Eternal my love towards thee!

Liberty.

See, see where royal Snowdon rears
Her hoary head above her peers
To cry that Wales is free!
O hills which guard our liberties,
With outstretched arms to where you rise
In all your pride, I turn my eyes
And echo, “Wales is free!”
O’er Giant Idris’ lofty seat,
O’er Berwyn and Plynlimon great
And hills which round them lower meet,
Blow winds of liberty.
And like the breezes high and strong,
Which through the cloudwrack sweep along
Each dweller in this land of song
Is free, is free, is free!

Never, O Freedom, let sweet sleep
Over that wretch’s eyelids creep
Who bears with wrong and shame.
Make him to feel thy spirit high,
And like a hero do or die,
And smite the arm of tyranny,
And lay its haunts aflame.
Rather than peace which makes thee slave,
Rise, Europe, rise, and draw thy glaive,
Lay foul oppression in its grave,
No more the light to see.
Then heavenward turn thy grateful gaze
And like the rolling thunder raise
Thy triumph song of joy and praise
To God that thou art free!

Climb the hillside.

Climb the hillside in the morning
When the radiant dawn is seen
Blushing shyly on the mountains
Like a maiden of thirteen.
“Quench the lamps of right,
Fill the earth with light
Wander o’er the lofty hills,
Fringe each brightening fold
Of the clouds with gold,”
This the hest shy dawn fulfils.

Climb the hillside in the evening
When the sun is sinking low
You shall see day’s radiant monarch
Falling bloodstained ’neath the foe.
Dark and darker yet
Grow day’s cerements wet,
Creeps a haze across the main,
Mounts the moon on high,
Eve climbs up the sky,
Lamps of God to light again.

Change and permanence.

Still the mountains with us stay,
Still the winds across them roar,
Still is heard at dawn of day
Song of shepherd as of yore.
Still the countless daisies grow
On the hills, beneath the rocks,
But new swains, strange shepherds now
On our mountains feed their flocks.

Cymru’s customs day by day
Change with changing fortune’s wheel,
Friends of youth have passed away,
Strangers now their places fill;
After many a stormy day
Alun Mabon’s dead and gone,
But the old tongue still holds sway,
And the dear old airs live on.

Homewards

From day to day, the golden sun
His chariot ne’er restraineth,
From night to night the pale white moon
Now waxeth and now waneth,
From hour to hour the bright stars turn
In distances unending,
And all the mighty works of God,
Are ever homeward tending.

The tiny streamlet on the hill
Its wandering way pursueth,
The mighty river far below
Adown the valley floweth,
The winds roam ever in the sky,
The clouds are onward driving,
And towards some quiet shore at home
The raging sea is striving.

Daybreak.

Yonder on fair Snowdon’s height,
Ere breaks the light,
Stars that through the darkness swim
Are sinking in the distance dim.

See! the day its spears hath hurled
From the Eastern world;
And each shaft is flaming red
As though the night had dying bled.

Matin song of skylark gay
Proclaims the day;
Fled the dragons of the dark
And quenched the firefly’s glimmering spark.

White its head now Snowdon rears,
The sun appears!
Day and brightness, lo, he brings
To pauper’s cot and hall of kings.

The White Stone.

Though far from my poor, feeble hand,
My country’s harp of gold,
Though far from that dear home I stand,
Where it was played of old,
My mother tongue hath yet a spell
And inward voice, which bids me tell
My tale in song that Wales loves well,
Whatever aliens hold.

A tiny streamlet wandering strayed
Beneath our garden wall,
Where one of my forefathers made
A mimic waterfall.
Above the spot the willows weep,
Where down its height the water poured,
And on the bank beside the deep
Fair apple trees keep ward.

Across the pool where fell the spate
A bridge of wood was thrown;
And marble-like, to bear its weight,
There stood a big white stone.
Here all my boyhood’s hours sped by,
Here would I sit contentedly,
And on this stone as happy I
As king upon his throne!

Where’er in this wide world I be,
Where’er I yet may roam,
The great white stone I ever see,
And hear the stream at home.
And when to strangers I confess
That in my dreams I thither fly,
They pardon me, for all men bless
Each childish memory.

Far off, far off are childhood’s days,
And starry as the sky,
Nor lives the man but loves to raise
His head with wistful eye
Towards the days that are no more:
And as I turn towards that shore,
For me one star burns evermore
My childhood’s dear white stone.

The Traitors of Wales.

You know the fate of Caractacus,
A name immortal for each of us,
Before whose face Rome’s legions dread
For nine long years in terror fled.

How to Brigantum’s town one day,
All unattended, he took his way,
And to the fair queen’s palace came
Cartismandua was her name.

Then cried the queen, “For many a year
To me and mine thou hast been dear:
Safe mayest thou dwell in this my land,”
And she kissed the scars on his strong right hand.

Then, with her own white royal hand,
She losed his hauberk’s metal band,
And in her fairest chamber laid
His bow of steel and his flashing blade.

With dainties quickly the board is laid,
And mead the sweetest ever made,
Beaming with joy is every face,
And mirth and feasting fill the place.

The royal harpist sweeps the strings,
And brave Caradoc’s deeds he sings,
His foes deriding, and most of all
Ostorius, the Roman general.

But evening fell that fatal night
That darkened all our nation’s light:
In sleep his head Caradoc laid,
And woke a captive, bound, betrayed.

Aregwedd she, of winsome smile,
Who broke the strength of Britain’s Isle,
And gave the Samson of our land
Delilah-like to the Roman’s hand.

A triad of triads, yea, thrice three score,
Of traitors our land has borne and more,
And traitors many within the sound
Of the Western sea may yet be found.

If e’er from love or hate you try
To trace a Welshman’s pedigree,
There is a book for you ’tis meant,
A bluebook of high Parliament.

For in this book incorporate
A thousand facts, brought up to date,
Prove that each father, mother, son,
In Wales is baseborn every one!

It further shows there’s scarce a wight
In all wild Wales knows how to write!
That none of those who only talk
Their native tongue know cheese from chalk.

That ‘Eisteddfodau’ Welshman teach
To spurn the thrice blest English speech:
Welsh books there are none, save what quacks
Sell the poor churls as almanacks.

That therefore that most grievous sin
Yclept Dissent is rife therein;
But if ‘the English’ were more prized,
Wales might some day be civilized!

Ring out, O bells proclaim our glee
That a real nation we yet may be,
When English blessings reach us here
Mountains of beef and floods of beer!

Fraud and treason garbed as grace
In the Blue Book find a place,
And in the ‘Triads of Treachery’
Let these ‘Three Spies’ remembered be.

A Mother’s Message.

Her visit was ended and back to her home
Far away my dear mother was going;
But now that the hour for parting was come
With sorrow her heart was o’erflowing.
Oh pale grew her cheeks and fast fell her tears,
Her faltering counsels delaying,
Then low fell these words on my listening ears,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”

Not a word of the devil, his plans and his wiles,
His lies and his love of deceiving,
Not a word of the world with its follies and smiles
She said when her son she was leaving.
I know on my journey she wished me all bliss,
I know that for me she was praying,
But all that I heard her lips utter was this,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”

Like the sea as it plays on a dangerous rock
Is the spirit that now is in motion,
Around me are men who at Heaven make mock,
And I’m but a drop in the ocean.
My feet are oft hasting the broad path along
But while on the precipice straying
I am saved by the message so tender, so strong,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”

’Sin not’ in the skies though this sentence I read,
In letters of fire engraven,
Though roared the loud thunder in accents of dread,
‘Transgress not the laws of high Heaven,’
Though slowed the swift lightning to one solid flame,
My feet from ungodliness staying,
Far stronger the words from my mother which came,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”

Mountain Rill.

Mountain rill, that darkling, sparkling,
Winds and wanders down the hill,
’Mid the rushes, whispering, murmuring,
Oh that I were like the rill!

Mountain ling, whose flower and fragrance
Sorest longing to me bring
To be ever on the mountains
Oh that I were like the ling!

Mountain bird, whose joyous singing
On the wholesome breeze is heard,
Flitting hither, flitting thither
Oh that I were like the bird!

Mountain child am I, and lonely
Far from home my song I sing;
But my heart is on the mountain
With the birds amid the ling.

Llewelyn’s Grave.

The earth has sunk low on the grave of Llewelyn,
The rainpools lie o’er it unruffled and still;
The moon at her rising, the sun at his setting,
Blush red as they look o’er the slope of the hill.
O Cymru, my land, dost know of this ill?
And where is the patriot hiding his face?
The tears of the cloudwrack know well where he lieth,
The birds of the mountain can tell of the place.

By chance comes a Welshman and carelessly gazes,
Where fell the last hero who fought for his sake;
The breezes are moaning, the earth is complaining,
That the heart of old Cymru is feeble and weak.
’Tis aliens only their pilgrimage make
Where low lies our prince by the side of his glaive.
Thank God for the tears which are falling from heaven,
And the grass that grows green by the edge of the grave.

The Strand of Rhuddlan.

Frowned the dark heavens on the cause of the righteous,
Bondage has swept our free warriors away,
Vain were our prayers as our dreams had been baseless,
Sword of the foeman has carried the day.
Hid be thy strand ’neath the snows everlasting,
Frozen the waters that over thee break!
Come to defend, O thou God of all mercies,
Cause of the righteous and home of the weak.

Slain is our leader, and he who has slain him,
Prince of the foemen, will reign in his stead.
Fallen our harp with the fall of Caradoc,
Ay! let it fall as he fell and lay dead!
Yet can I look on the field of the slaughter,
God was not mocked, nor was freedom denied.
Better than that ’twas to die there on Rhuddlan
Better to sink in the free flowing tide.

The Steed of Dapple Grey.

Caradoc calls his warriors,
And loud the bugles blow;
On rushed the brave Silurians,
And fell beneath the foe.
Back shrank his men retreating,
But on her steed of dapple grey
There rides the stately queen that way
Her spouse, Caradoc, meeting.

There’s tumult in the dingle,
As sinks the sun o’erhead;
And many a stalwart hero
Lies for his country dead.
One host the waters cover,
But on her steed of dapple grey
There rides the stately queen that day
To seek her royal lover.

Then saw the Romans only
A steed of dapple grey;
But saw the Britons riding
Their stately queen that way.
The bugles sound the rally!
The Britons backward turn to fight,
The Romans backward reel in flight,
Before that last grim sally.

A Lullaby.

Sleep, sleep, sleep!
All nature now is steeping
Her sons in sleep, their eyelids close,
All living things in sweet repose
Are sleeping, sleeping.

Sleep, baby, sleep!
Peace o’er thee watch be keeping,
If from my bosom thou art torn,
Low in the grave I’ll lie forlorn,
Sleeping, ah, sleeping.