waiting till the ebb was sufficiently low to permit people to pass
over the traeth, or sand, which, from ages the most remote, had
been used as the means of communication between the mainland and
the Isle of Mona or Anglesey. Grounding their hopes upon that
couplet, people were continually expecting to see a bridge across
the Menai: more than two hundred years, however, elapsed before
the expectation was fulfilled by the mighty Telford flinging over
the strait an iron suspension bridge, which, for grace and beauty,
has perhaps no rival in Europe.

The couplet is a remarkable one. In the time of its author there
was nobody in Britain capable of building a bridge, which could
have stood against the tremendous surges which occasionally vex the
Menai; yet the couplet gives intimation that a bridge over the
Menai there would be, which clearly argues a remarkable foresight
in the author, a feeling that a time would at length arrive when
the power of science would be so far advanced, that men would be
able to bridge over the terrible strait. The length of time which
intervened between the composition of the couplet and the
fulfilment of the promise, shows that a bridge over the Menai was
no pont y meibion, no children's bridge, nor a work for common men.
Oh, surely Lleiaf was a man of great foresight!

A man of great foresight, but nothing more; he foretold a bridge
over the Menai, when no one could have built one, a bridge over
which people could pass, aye, and carts and horses; we will allow
him the credit of foretelling such a bridge; and when Telford's
bridge was flung over the Menai, Lleiaf's couplet was verified.
But since Telford's another bridge has been built over the Menai,
which enables things to pass which the bard certainly never dreamt