THE

KISS,

from the

BRITIS H.

Y Cusan.

Moes gusan bychan dibechod, digriv Mal degryn o wirod,

Medrusaidd medru osod,

Er mwyn Duw, ar vy min dôd!

Give me the playful harmless kiss, That little boon, melifluous bliss, Thou well canst lay it on my lip, The drop, for God sake, let me sip!

OWEN

OF

LLANGOED.

Founded on fact.

To Fleetwood Williams, Esq.

OF

LIVERPOOL

ཡ

Where is the Muse that loves the good,
The plaintive strain to offer;

But to the bright benignant breast,

That feels for all that suffer.

"Tis this that prompts her now to bring,

To thee, a noiseless story;

For Fame confines her brazen trump,

To deeds of martial glory.

She flies on every breeze that blows,
To spread her loud narration,
Nor Seas resist, nor Alps repel,
The true, or false, inflation.

To her, the Muse consigns the names,
That court Ambition's bubbles;
And sings the hamlet's humbler cares,
A peasant's joys and troubles.

Where Courda* once, in days of yore,
Taught Faith a cell to rear;
A cottage stands, beneath the cliff,
To Owen's feeling's dear.

To every heart, how dear is home,
(If worth that heart possesses)
It still renews our earliest joys,

A parent's fond caresses.

* Llangoed, or more properly, Llan Gourda, from Courda, one of the antient Collidees, or Culdeys (so called from Colendo Deo) its patron Saint; a parish situate in the eastern extremity of Anglesey.

A brother, sister's, dear embrace,
The love-increasing battle,

The little play-things, still preserved,
The first-engaging prattle.

Six Olive branches gather'd round,
This crowded Cottage table,

Till Time declar'd, that Owen, now,
To guard the flocks was able.

The Muse records the sorrowing day
When Owen went, though willing,
To earn his bread, a little man,
A new importance feeling.

The tears ran down his mother's cheeks,
His father saw them-sighing;

His play-mates shook his little hands,
And all the group-were crying!

The rushy cap now crown'd his pate,
The mystic crook, his sceptre ;

The flocks and fields, his people, realms,
And Nature sole preceptor.

With pastoral pipe,* this infant Pan,
Commenc'd his new vocation;
Completed soon, his present views,
A shepherd's education.

The linnets lov'd his dulcet voice,
The larks drew near in numbers,
And thought they wak'd the morning sun,
From night's protracted slumbers.

They met at noon his brightest blaze,
They join'd their grateful voices;
Thus Nature, in the sweetest strain,
Through all her realms rejoices.

* In possession of the Pib gorn, or pastoral-pipe-a crook covered with characters intelligible only to themselves a conick cap, made of rushes-and the Ria ro or cry-acquired-a Shepherd is completely such. In Anglesey and other parts of Wales, this is still the employment of the children of labourers, till they are capable of becoming husbandry servants.