THE SICK MAN’S DREAM.
Dans le solitaire bourgade,
Revant à ses maux tristement,
Languissait un pauvre malade,
D’un long mal qui va consumant.—Millevoye.
It was a dream, a pleasant dream, that o’er my spirit came,
When faint beneath the lime-trees’ shade I flung my weary frame:
I stood upon a mountain’s brow, above the haunts of men,
And, far beneath me, smiling, lay my lovely native glen.
I watch’d the silv’ry Severn glide, reflecting rock and tree,
A gentle pilgrim, bound to pay her homage to the sea;
And waking many a treasured thought, that slumb’ring long had lain:
Some mountain minstrel’s harp poured forth a well remember’d strain.
I rais’d my voice in thankfulness, and vowed no more to roam,
Or leave my heart’s abiding-place, my beauteous mountain home.
Alas! how different was the scene that met my waking glance!
It fell upon the fertile plains, the sunny hills of France.
The Garonne’s fair and glassy wave rolls onward in its pride;
It cannot quench my burning thirst for thee, my native tide;
And, for the harp that bless’d my dream with mem’ries from afar,
I only hear yon peasant maid, who strikes the light guitar:
The merry stranger mocks at griefs he does not understand,
He cannot—he has never seen my own fair mountain land.
They said Consumption’s ruthless eye had mark’d me for her prey:
They bade me seek in foreign climes her wasting hand to stay;
They told me of an altered form, an eye grown ghastly bright,
And called the crimson on my cheek the spoiler’s hectic blight.
Oh! if the mountain heather pined amidst the heaven’s own dew,
Think ye the parterre’s wasting heat its freshness could renew?
And thus, ’mid shady glens and streams, was my young life begun,
And now, my frame exhausted sinks beneath this southern sun.
I feel, I feel, they told me true; my breath grows faint and weak,
And, brighter still, this crimson spot is glowing on my cheek;
My hour of life is well nigh past, too fleetly runs the sand:
Oh! must I die so far from thee, my dear lov’d mountain land?
THE FAIRY’S SONG.
“Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy!”—Shakspeare.
I am a wand’rer o’er earth and sea,
The trackless air has a path for me;
Ye may trace my steps on the heather green,
By the emerald ring, where my foot hath been;
Ye may hear my voice in the night wind’s sigh,
Or the wood’s low moan when a storm is nigh.
My task is to brighten the rainbow’s hue,
To sprinkle the flowers with glit’ring dew,
To steep in crimson the evening cloud,
And wrap the hills in their misty shroud;
To track the course of a wandering star,
And marshal it back to its home afar.
I am no child of the murky night,
But a being of music, and joy, and light;
If the fair moon sleep in her bower o’er long,
I break on her rest with my mirthful song;
And when she is shining o’er hill and heath,
I dance in the revels of Gwyn ab Nûdd. [{65}]
Few are the mortals whose favoured feet
May tread unscathed where the fairies meet;
Wo to the tuneless tongue and ear,
And the craven heart, that has throbbed with fear,
If I meet them at night, on the lonely heath,
As I haste to the banquet of Gwyn ab Nûdd.
But joy to the minstrel, whose deathless song
On the breeze of the mountain is borne along,
And joy to the warrior, whose heart and hand
Are strong in the cause of his native land;
For them we are twining our fairest wreath,
They are welcome as moonlight to Gwyn ab Nûdd!
WALTER SELE.
O’er Walter’s bed no foot shall tread,
Nor step unhallow’d roam;
For here the grave hath found a grave,
The wanderer a home.
This little mound encircles round
A heart that once could feel;
For none possess’d a warmer heart
Than gallant Walter Sele.
The primrose pale, from Derwen vale,
Through spring shall sweetly bloom,
And here, I ween, the evergreen
Shall shed its death perfume;
The branching tree of rosemary
The sweet thyme may conceal;
But both shall wave above the grave
Of gallant Walter Sele.
They brand with shame my true love’s name,
And call him traitor vile,
Who dar’d disclose to Charlie’s foes
The secret postern aisle;
But though, alas! that fatal pass
He rashly did reveal,
He ne’er betray’d his maniac maid,—
My gallant Walter Sele!