A Stream, to mingle with your favourite Dee,
Along the Vale of Meditation[397] flows;
So styled by those fierce Britons, pleased to see
In Nature's face the expression of repose;
Or haply there some pious hermit chose 5
To live and die, the peace of heaven his aim;
To whom the wild sequestered region owes,
At this late day, its sanctifying name.
Glyn Cafaillgaroch, in the Cambrian tongue,
In ours, the Vale of Friendship, let this spot 10
Be named; where, faithful to a low-roofed Cot,
On Deva's banks, ye have abode so long;
Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb,
Even on this earth, above the reach of Time!
FOOTNOTES:
[396] Plass Newidd is close to Llangollen, a small cottage a quarter of a mile to the south of the town. The ladies referred to in the Fenwick note, Lady Eleanor Butler and the Hon. Miss Ponsonby, formed a romantic attachment; and, having an extreme love of independence, they withdrew from society, and settled in this remote and secluded cottage. Lady Butler died in 1829, aged ninety, and Miss Ponsonby in 1831, aged seventy-six, their faithful servant, Mary Caroll, having predeceased them. The three are buried in the same grave in Llangollen Churchyard, and an inscription to the memory of each is carved on a triangular pillar beside their tomb.
In a letter to Sir George Beaumont from Hindwell, Radnorshire, Wordsworth gives an account of this tour in North Wales.... "We turned from the high-road three or four miles to visit the 'Valley of Meditation' (Glyn Myvyr), where Mr. Jones has, at present, a curacy with a comfortable parsonage. We slept at Corwen, and went down the Dee to Llangollen, which you and dear Lady B. know well. Called upon the celebrated Recluses, who hoped that you and Lady B. had not forgotten them.... Next day I sent them the following sonnet from Ruthin, which was conceived, and in a great measure composed, in their grounds." Compare Sir Walter Scott's account of his visit to these Ladies in 1825 (Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. viii. pp. 48, 49).—Ed.
[397] Glyn Myvyr.—W. W. The word is misspelt in most of the editions.—Ed.
TO THE TORRENT AT THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE,[398] NORTH WALES, 1824
Composed 1824.—Published 1827
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
How art thou named? In search of what strange land,
From what huge height, descending? Can such force
Of waters issue from a British source,[399]
Or hath not Pindus fed thee,[400] where the band
Of Patriots scoop their freedom out, with hand 5
Desperate as thine? Or come the incessant shocks
From that young Stream,[401] that smites the throbbing rocks
Of Viamala? There I seem to stand,
As in life's morn; permitted to behold,
From the dread chasm, woods climbing above woods, 10
In pomp that fades not; everlasting snows;
And skies that ne'er relinquish their repose;
Such power possess the family of floods
Over the minds of Poets, young or old!