Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
The River Conway
By Michael Drayton (1563–1631)A
The Muse her former course doth seriously pursue.
From Penmen’s craggy height to try her saily wings,
Herself long having bathed in the delicious springs
(That trembling from his top through long-worn crannies creep,
To spend their liquid store on the insatiate deep),
She meets with Conway first, which lieth next at hand,
Whose precious orient pearl that breedeth in her sand
Above the other floods of Britain doth her grace:
Into the Irish sea which making out her race,
Supplied by many a mere (through many several rills
Into her bosom poured), her plenteously she fills.
O goodly river! near unto thy sacred spring
Prophetic Merlin sat, when to the British king
The changes long to come auspiciously he told.
Most happy were thy nymphs, that wondering did behold
His graver wrinkled brow, amazed, and did bear
The dreadful words he spake, that so ambiguous were.
Thrice happy brooks, I say, that (every way about)
Thy tributaries be: as is that town, whereout
Into the sea thou fall’st, which Conway of thy name
Perpetually is called, to register thy fame.
For thou, clear Conway, heard’st wise Merlin first relate
The Destinies’ decree, of Britain’s future fate;
Which truly he foretold proud Vortiger should lose,
As when him from his seat the Saxons should depose;
The forces that should here from Armoric arrive,
Yet far too weak from hence the enemy to drive;
And to that mighty king, which rashly undertook
A strong-walled tower to rear, those earthly spirits that shook
The great foundation still, in dragons’ horrid shape,
That dreaming wizard told; making the mountain gape
With his most powerful charms, to view those caverns deep;
And from the top of Brith, so high and wondrous steep,
Where Dinas Emris stood, showed where the serpents fought,
The white that tore the red; from whence the prophet wrought
The Britons’ sad decay then shortly to ensue.