The Bard

This print was made as a frontispiece for Edward Jones's "Musical and Poetical Relations of the Welsh Bards." The imagery comes from Thomas Gray's "The Bard: A Pindaric Ode" which tells how the invading army of Edward I of England pushed the Welsh bard onto a cliff. Here we see the windblown figure continuing to play his harp as soldiers stand far below by the river Conway:
On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre;
"Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave,
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.