Mother, in whom I find no flaw but one,
That you are Saxon!--but this fault of race
Fell not on me nor yet, I fear, your grace
Of English speech, else had more smoothly run
These echoes of Welsh Lyrics, and your son
Need not have flinched before the critic's face.
Such as they are, from your far Yorkshire home
Perchance they may in fancy bid you come,
Pondering past memories, to my native land,
Once more to see fair Mawddach from the bridge,
To mark how Cader rises, ridge on ridge,
Or, where Llanaber guards our dead, to stand.

_July_, 1896.




PREFACE.


The words "First Series" which appear on the Title Page are intended to
show, firstly, that I do not at all consider the present collection in
any sense a representative anthology of the Welsh Lyrics of the Century,
and secondly, that if this effort meets with approval, I hope to bring
out two or three further instalments, one of them, if possible, being
from poems written in the "_mesurau caethion_." My aim, in fact, is to
publish by degrees a collection of translations which might eventually be
gathered together in a single volume (with a general introduction and
critical notices on each author) so as to form a more or less adequate