A FAREWELL TO WALES,
FOR THE MELODY CALLED “THE ASH GROVE,” ON LEAVING THAT COUNTRY WITH MY CHILDREN.
The sound of thy streams in my spirit I bear—
Farewell, and a blessing be with thee, green land!
On thy hearths, on thy halls, on thy pure mountain air,
On the chords of the harp, and the minstrel’s free hand,
From the love of my soul with my tears it is shed,
As I leave thee, green land of my home and my dead!
I bless thee!—yet not for the beauty which dwells
In the heart of thy hills, on the rocks of thy shore;
And not for the memory set deep in thy dells,
Of the bard and the hero, the mighty of yore;
And not for thy songs of those proud ages fled—
Green land, poet-land of my home and my dead!
I bless thee for all the true bosoms that beat
Where’er a low hamlet smiles up to thy skies;
For thy cottage-hearths burning the stranger to greet,
For the soul that shines forth from thy children’s kind eyes!
May the blessing, like sunshine, about thee be spread,
Green land of my childhood, my home, and my dead!
[“It was about this time (1828) that ‘The Farewell to Wales’ was written.
‘I bless thee for all the true bosoms that beat
Where’er a low hamlet smiles up to thy skies;
For thy cottage-hearths burning the stranger to greet,
For the soul that shines forth from thy children’s kind eyes.’
Mrs Hemans always spoke of this ‘land of her childhood, her home, and her dead,’ with interest and affection. When she sailed from its shore, she covered her face in her cloak, desiring her boys to tell her when the hills were out of sight, that she might then look up. She would often, too, refer to the pain she had suffered—in addition to the sorrow of parting from her kindred and friends, for the first time since her birth, to make actual acquaintance with the daily cares of life—upon taking leave of the simple and homely peasantry of the neighbourhood, by whom she was beloved with that old-fashioned heartiness which yet lingers in some of the nooks and remote places of England. Many of them rushed forward to touch the posts of the gate through which the poetess had passed; and when, three years afterwards, she paid a visit to St Asaph, came and wept over her, and entreated her to return and make her home among them again.”—Chorley’s Memorials of Mrs Hemans, p. 206-7.]