Page:Footprints of former men in far Cornwall.djvu/25

 Thou heedest not! thy dream is of the shore;
    Thy heart is quick with life,—on! to the sea!
 How will the voice of thy far streams implore
    Again amid these peaceful weeds to be!

 My soul! my soul! a happier choice be thine;
    Thine the hushed valley and the lonely sod:
 False dream, far vision, hollow hope resign,
    Fast by our Tamar spring—alone with God!"

Then arrived, to people this bleak and lonely boundary with the thoughts and doctrines of the Cross, the piety and the legend of St. Morwenna. This was the origin of her name and place.

There dwelt in Wales in the ninth century a Keltic king, Breachan^[1] by name it was from him that the words "Brecon" and "Brecknock" received origin; and Gladwys was his wife and queen. They had, according to the record of Leland, the scribe, children twenty-and-four. Now either these were their own daughters and sons, or they were, according to the usage of those days, the offspring of the nobles of their land, placed for loyal and learned nurture in the palace of the king, and so called the children of his house.

Of these Morwenna was one. She grew up wise, learned, and holy above her generation; and it was evermore the strong desire of her soul to bring the barbarous and pagan people

1. Breachan figures as a saint on a window in St. Neot's church, called "The Young Women's Window," erected in 1529 at the cost of the maidens of the village. Mr. Baring-Gould says that "Brychan" lived in the fifth century, and that Morwenna was probably his grand-daughter.