As comes the sun from out the darkling-night,
And strikes, as did the patriarch of old,
Life's barren rocks, which flush with green and gold,
And pour out waters glad with living light,
So, crowned with blessings, in the far-off days,
Like Midas, Mynwy's monarch touched the earth,
Wrought golden plenty where once reigned a dearth,
And raised an empire he alone could raise.
No service his, of slavery, to bind
With tyrant fancy vassals to his will:
All hearts beat quick with sympathetic thrill
For one who loved the humblest of their kind.
His kingdom rang with fealty from the free—
Such blessed faith as faith itself ensures.
His reign alone that sway which e'er secures
A subject's true and trustful sympathy.
So love men's love begat in bounteous flow;
It blossomed round his path as flowers bloom,
Filling his life with such a rare perfume
Of heart's devotion kings can seldom know.
His master-mind, with almost boundless reach,
Planned work so vast that mankind, wondering still,
Could scarcely compass his gigantic will
Which grasped great things as ocean clasps the beach.
His home of homes was where the Cyclops forged
Their bolts, as though for Jove to hold his own:
His fondest study where, through ages grown,
The silent ores old Cambria's mountains gorged.
Mammoth machines that, with incessant whirl,
Rolled onward ever on their ponderous way:
Gigantic marvels, deafening in their play,
And swift, industrious, never-ending swirl.
All these he loved, as men alone can love
The things that win their love: to him they shone
Instinct with living beauty all their own,
Touched with a light divine as from above.
For them, and with them, toiled he day by day
In true companionship: they were his Friends,
Bound by the tie whose influence never ends,
By faithful bonds which never pass away.