Explore "Blodeuwedd" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ Not to that demon's son, whom Arthur erst, / For necromancy, at Caerleon, first / Graced greatly, Merlin, -- not to him alone / Did those lost learnings of white magic, known / As sorcery and witchcraft, then belong. / Taliesin, now, hath told us in a song / Of one at Arvon, Math of Gwynedd; lord / Of some vague cantrevs of the North; whose sword / Beat back and slew a southern king, through wrath / And puissance of Gwydion, whose path / Thence on, with love, he honored.
/ Now this Math / Was learned in wondrous witchcraft: as he willed, / He wrought the invisible visible, and filled / The sight with seeming shapes, which it believed / Realities, nor knew it was deceived. / For, at his word, the winds were wan with tents, / And armies rose of airy elements; / And brassy blasts of war from bugles brayed, / And armored hosts in battle clanged and swayed, / And at a word were not. And at his nod, / Steeds, rich-accoutered, whinnying softly, trod / The dedal earth; and hounds, of greater worth, / And wirier, too, than dogs of mortal birth, / Rose up, like forest fungus, from the earth / Around th' astonished stag, or flying doe, / Let Math but wish it or his trumpet blow. / But only things that had their counterpart / On earth could he make real through his art.