3
What country was not trodden by thy feet,
Nor bared its bosom
And fragrance to the life it leapt to greet?
From field and upland or where waters meet
Was stolen, the virgin dew, the veilèd blossom.
Its native tongue
On stranger lips, in every climate hung.
4
Pursuer of shy paths, all hunted things
All creatures lonely,
Gypsy and fox and hawk with slanted wings;
These drank with thee at the same cosmic springs,
These were thy teachers and thy playmates only.
Nature gave up
To them and thee alike, her hidden cup.
Who brought its glory back to cloistered Wales,
And wrung their treasure
From sacred books and dim sequestered vales?
Who found the gold in haunted heights and dales,
And showed a wondering world its pride and pleasure?
Divine and strong
Stood out the altar, with its flame of song.
6
Thy bardlike power, the passion of thy thirst
For something greater,
Awoke old Cymric melodies the first;
Till all the mountains into music burst,
And their lost glory crowned the recreator.
Outpoured as wine
Thy magic words made every shade a shrine.
7
Priest of the portals into the Unknown,
Taught by no college,
And free of every fountain but thine own;
A waif, an exile, by the breezes blown
Hither and thither to fresh fields of knowledge,
That giant form,
Fearless, and still no moment, rode the storm.