LADY GWENNY
| County by county
for beauty and bounty Go search! and this pound to a penny, When you've one woman to show us as human And lovely as our Lady Gwenny; For she has the scorn for all scorners, And she has the tear for all mourners, Yet joying with joy, With no crabb'd annoy To pull down her mouth at the corners. Up with the lark in the pasture you'll meet with her, Songs like his own sweetly trilling, Carrying now for some poor folk a treat with her, Small mouths with lollypops filling: And while, as he stands in a puzzle, She strokes the fierce bull on his muzzle, The calves and the lambs Run deserting their dams In her kind hands their noses to nuzzle. Now with her maidens a sweet Cymric cadence She leads, just to lighten their sewing; Now at the farm, her food basket on arm, She has set all the cock'rels a-crowing. The turkey-cock strutting and strumming, His bagpipe puts by at her humming, And even the old gander, The fowl-yard's commander, He winks his sly eye at her coming. Never to wandering minstrel or pondering Poet her castle gate closes: Ever her kindly cheer—ever her praise sincere Falls like the dew on faint roses. And when her Pennillions rhyming [138] She mates to her triple harp's chiming, In her green Gorsedd gown— The half of the town Up the fences to hear her are climbing. Men in all fashions have pleaded their passions— The scholar, the saint, and the sinner, Pleaded in vain Lady Gwenny to gain,— For only a hero shall win her: And to share his strong work and sweet leisure He'll have no keen chaser of pleasure, But a loving young beauty With a soul set on duty, And a heart full of heaven's hid treasure. |