"O King!" said the bard, "the music hath left the harp."

"Ha!" murmured Gryffyth, "and Hope the earth! Bard, answer the son of
Llewellyn. Oft in my halls hast thou sung the praise of the men that
have been. In the halls of the race to come, will bards yet unborn
sweep their harps to the deeds of thy King? Shall they tell of the
day of Torques, by Llyn-Afangc, when the princes of Powys fled from
his sword as the clouds from the blast of the wind? Shall they sing,
as the Hirlas goes round, of his steeds of the sea, when no flag came
in sight of his prows between the dark isle of the Druid [167] and the
green pastures of Huerdan? [168] Or the towns that he fired, on the
lands of the Saxon, when Rolf and the Nortbmen ran fast from his
javelin and spear? Or say, Child of Truth, if all that is told of
Gryffyth thy King shall be his woe and his shame?"

The bard swept his hand over his eyes, and answered:

"Bards unborn shall sing of Gryffyth the son of Llewellyn. But the
song shall not dwell on the pomp of his power, when twenty sub-kings
knelt at his throne, and his beacon was lighted in the holds of the
Norman and Saxon. Bards shall sing of the hero, who fought every inch
of crag and morass in the front of his men,--and on the heights of
Penmaen-mawr, Fame recovers thy crown!"

"Then I have lived as my fathers in life, and shall live with their
glory in death!" said Gryffyth; "and so the shadow hath passed from my
soul." Then turning round, still propped upon his elbow, he fixed his
proud eye upon Aldyth, and said gravely, "Wife, pale is thy face, and
gloomy thy brow; mournest thou the throne or the man?"