Llwyd, Morgan

(1619-1659)

   Welsh poet born in Maentwrog, Merionethshire. In the English Civil Wars he served as a chaplain in the Parliamentary army and is identified with the first Dissenting church in Wales. Toward the end of his life, owing to his strained relations with the Presbyterians, who were dominant in the parish, he ceased to be vicar of Wrexham. He was buried in the "Dissenters' Graveyard" in Rhos-ddu Road near Wrexham. Llyfr y Tri Aderyn (The Book of the Three Birds, 1653) is an important original 17th century Welsh classic in two parts, on the theory of government and on religious liberty. The book is in the form of a discourse conducted among the eagle (Oliver Cromwell, or the secular power), the raven (the Anglicans, or organized religion), and the dove (the Nonconformists, or the followers of the inner light). Some of his poems: "1648," "Awake, O Lord, Awake Thy Saints," "Charles, the last king of Britain," "Come Wisdome Sweet," "The Summer."

   Sources: Anglo-Welsh Poetry, 1480-1980. Raymond Garlick and Roland Mathias, eds. Poetry Wales Press, 1984. Anglo-Welsh Poetry, 1480-1990. Raymond Garlick and Roland Mathias, eds. Poetry Wales Press, 1993. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Llyfr Y Tri Aderyn. M. Wynn Thomas, ed. University of Wales Press, 1983. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659. David Norbrook, ed. Penguin Books, 1992.