SONNET III.
ON LEAVING WALES.
Why bursts the tear, as, Cambria, now I leave
Thy wild variety of dale and hill,
Where fancy, fond intruder, lingers still?
Why do these parting sighs my bosom heave?
’Tis that, alas! I ne’er may view again
Those haunts, those solitary scenes I love;
But through this vale of tears forsaken rove,
And taste the sad vicissitudes of pain:
’Tis that I sadly breathe a warm adieu
To long-lost scenes of mutual amity;
’Tis that I turn, my absent friend, to thee,
“Think on past pleasures, and solicit new!”
For thee my fervent prayers to heaven ascend,
And may we meet again as friend to friend.
SONNET IV.
TO THE WELSH HARP.
Loved instrument! again repeat those sounds,
Those plaintive airs, that through my senses steal
With melancholy sweet. Their pow’r I feel
Soothing my sadness, healing sorrow’s wounds.
Gently thou lull’st my sufferings to repose,
Inclin’st my heart to every virtuous deed;
Removing from my mind each dark’ning shade
That clouds my days, increasing all my woes.
Now swelling with the breeze, along thy vales,
Romantic Cambria! the strain I hear,
Then dying soft away, comes o’er my ear
In whispers soft, still wafted by thy gales!
Loved instrument! again repeat those sounds,
Soothing my sadness, healing sorrow’s wounds.
SONNET V.
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY MOON-LIGHT, ON THE SEA-SHORE AT TENBY.
I love to mark the silver-curling spray
Just kiss the pebbled shore; the zephyr blows,
And ocean slumbers in serene repose;
While the moon’s beams in quiv’ring radiance play
Upon its surface: yet ere long, that tide
May heave its foaming billows to the shore,
And the sea boil in one tempestuous roar.
See here thy picture, man! reason, thy guide,
Can lull each gust of passion into rest!
Her aid divine, her energy once lost,
In what a sea of angry tumults tost,
Raves the mad whirlwind of thy troubled breast!
Blind passion then can reason’s aid refute,
And degradate the man to worse than brute.
SONNET VI.
ON SEEING LLANGOLLEN VALE.
O thou, too captious of each airy scheme,
Fancy! thou dear delusive traitor, say,
Are not thy charms the phantoms of a day,
That mock possession, like a fleeting dream?
Here could I spend, if such had been my lot,
Quiet my life; nor should the shiv’ring poor
Depart unfed, unaided, from my door.
“Content is wealth,” the emblem of my cot.
Here, by the brook, that gently babbles by,
Should stand my garden; there, the blushing rose
And woodbine should their sweetest scent disclose.
But ah! farewell these dreams;—my big full eye
Swells with the bursting tear—I think, how few
The road to real happiness pursue!