The Poetical Works of Anna Seward :: :: University of Virginia Library

Luxuriant Vale, thy country's early boast,
What time great Glendour gave thy scenes to Fame;
Taught the proud numbers of the English host,
How vain their vaunted force, when Freedom's flame
Fir'd him to brave the myriads he abhorr'd,
Wing'd his unerring shaft, and edg'd his victor sword.

Here first those orbs unclosing drank the light,
Cambria's bright stars, the meteors of her foes;

What dread and dubious omens mark'd the night,
That lour'd ere yet his natal morn arose!
The steeds paternal, on their cavern'd floor,
Foaming, and horror-struck, “fret fetlock-deep in gore.”

Plague, in her livid hand, o'er all the isle,
Shook her dark flag, impure with fetid stains;
While “Death, on his pale horse,” with baleful smile,
Smote with its blasting hoof the frighted plains.
Soon thro' the grass-grown streets, in silence led,
Slow moves the midnight cart, heapt with the naked dead.

Yet in the festal dawn of Richard's reign,
Thy gallant Glendour's sunny prime arose;
Virtuous, tho' gay, in that Circean fane,
Bright Science twin'd her circlet round his brows;

Nor could the youthful, rash, luxurious king
Dissolve the hero's worth on his Icarian wing.

Sudden it drops on its meridian flight!—
Ah! hapless Richard! never didst thou aim
To crush primeval Britons with thy might,
And their brave Glendour's tears embalm thy name.
Back from thy victor-rival's vaunting throng,
Sorrowing, and stern, he sinks Llangollen's shades among.

Soon in imperious Henry's dazzled eyes,
The guardian bounds of just dominion melt;
His scarce-hoped crown imperfect bliss supplies,
Till Cambria's vassalage be deeply felt.
Now up her craggy steeps, in long array,
Swarm his exulting bands, impatient for the fray.

Lo! thro' the gloomy night, with angry blaze,
Trails the fierce comet, and alarms the stars;
Each waning orb withdraws its glancing rays,
Save the red planet, that delights in wars.
Then, with broad eyes upturn'd, and starting hair,
Gaze the astonish'd crowd upon its vengeful glare.

Gleams the wan morn, and thro' Llangollen's Vale
Sees the proud armies streaming o'er her meads.
Her frighted echos warning sounds assail,
Loud, in the rattling cars, the neighing steeds;
The doubling drums, the trumpet's piercing breath,
And all the ensigns dread of havoc, wounds, and death.

High on a hill as shrinking Cambria stood,
And watch'd the onset of th'unequal fray,
She saw her Deva, stain'd with warrior-blood,
Lave the pale rocks, and wind its fateful way
Thro' meads, and glens, and wild woods, echoing far
The din of clashing arms, and furious shout of war.

From rock to rock, with loud acclaim, she sprung,
While from her Chief the routed legions fled;
Saw Deva roll their slaughter'd heaps among,
The check'd waves eddying round the ghastly dead;
Saw, in that hour, her own Llangollen claim
Thermopylæ's bright wreath, and aye-enduring fame.

Thus, consecrate to glory.—Then arose
A milder lustre in its blooming maze;
Thro' the green glens, where lucid Deva flows,
Rapt Cambria listens with enthusiast gaze,

While more enchanting sounds her ear assail,
Than thrill'd on Sorga's bank, the love-devoted Vale.

'Mid the gay towers on steep Din's Brinna's cone,
Her Hoel's breast the fair Mifanwy fires.—
O! Harp of Cambria, never hast thou known
Notes more mellifluent floating o'er the wires,
Than when thy Bard this brighter Laura sung,
And with his ill-starr'd love Llangollen's echoes rung.

Tho' Genius, Love, and Truth inspire the strains,
Thro' Hoel's veins tho' blood illustrious flows,
Hard as th' Eglwyseg rocks her heart remains,
Her smile a sun-beam playing on their snows;

And nought avails the Poet's warbled claim,
But, by his well-sung woes, to purchase deathless fame.

Thus consecrate to Love, in ages flown,—
Long ages fled Din's-Brinna's ruins show,
Bleak as they stand upon their steepy cone,
The crown and contrast of the Vale below,
That, screen'd by mural rocks, with pride displays
Beauty's romantic pomp in every sylvan maze.

Now with a vestal lustre glows the Vale,
Thine, sacred Friendship, permanent as pure;

In vain the stern authorities assail,
In vain persuasion spreads her silken lure,
High-born, and high-endow'd, the peerless twain,
Pant for coy Nature's charms 'mid silent dale, and plain.

Thro' Eleanora, and her Zara's mind,
Early tho'genius, taste, and fancy flow'd,
Tho' all the graceful arts their powers combin'd,
And her last polish brilliant life bestow'd,
The lavish promiser, in youth's soft morn,
Pride, pomp, and love, her friends, the sweet enthusiasts scorn.

Then rose the fairy palace of the Vale,
Then bloom'd around it the Arcadian bowers;
Screen'd from the storms of Winter, cold and pale,
Screen'd from the fervours of the sultry hours,

Circling the lawny crescent, soon they rose,
To letter'd ease devote, and Friendship's blest repose.

Smiling they rose beneath the plastic hand
Of energy, and taste;—nor only they,
Obedient Science hears the mild command,
Brings every gift that speeds the tardy day,
Whate'er the pencil sheds in vivid hues,
Th' historic tome reveals, or sings the raptured Muse.

How sweet to enter, at the twilight grey,
The dear, minute Lyceum of the dome,
When, thro' the colour'd crystal, glares the ray,
Sanguine and solemn 'mid the gathering gloom,
While glow-worm lamps diffuse a pale, green light,
Such as in mossy lanes illume the starless night.

Then the coy scene, by deep'ning veils o'erdrawn,
In shadowy elegance seems lovelier still;
Tall shrubs, that skirt the semi-lunar lawn,
Dark woods, that curtain the opposing hill;
While o'er their brows the bare cliff faintly gleams,
And, from its paly edge, the evening-diamond streams.

What strains Æolian thrill the dusk expanse,
As rising gales with gentle murmurs play,
Wake the loud chords, or every sense intrance,
While in subsiding winds, they sink away!
Like distant choirs, “when pealing organs blow,”
And melting voices blend, majestically slow.

“But ah! what hand can touch the strings so fine,
“Who up the lofty diapason roll
“Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine,
“Then let them down again into the soul!”
The prouder sex as soon, with virtue calm,
Might win from this bright pair pure Friendship's spotless palm.

What boasts tradition, what th' historic theme,
Stands it in all their chronicles confest

Where the soul's glory shines with clearer beam,
Than in our sea-zon'd bulwark of the west,
When, in this Cambrian Valley, Virtue shows
Where, in her own soft sex, its steadiest lustre glows?

Say, ivied Valle Crucis, time-decay'd,
Dim on the brink of Deva's wandering floods,
Your riv'd arch glimmering thro' the tangled glade,
Your grey hills towering o'er your night of woods,
Deep in the Vale's recesses as you stand,
And, desolately great, the rising sigh command,

Say, lonely, ruin'd pile, when former years
Saw your pale train at midnight altars bow;
Saw Superstition frown upon the tears
That mourn'd the rash irrevocable vow,
Wore one young lip gay Eleanora's smile?
Did Zara's look serene one tedious hour beguile?

For your sad sons, nor Science wak'd her powers;
Nor e'er did Art her lively spells display;
But the grim idol vainly lash'd the hours
That dragg'd the mute, and melancholy day;

Dropt her dark cowl on each devoted head,
That o'er the breathing corse a pall eternal spread.

This gentle pair no glooms of thought infest,
Nor Bigotry, nor Envy's sullen gleam
Shed withering influence on the effort blest,
Which most should win the other's dear esteem,
By added knowledge, by endowment high,
By Charity's warm boon, and Pity's soothing sigh.

Then how should Summer-day or Winter-night,
Seem long to them who thus can wing their hours!
O! ne'er may pain, or sorrow's cruel blight,
Breathe the dark mildew thro' these lovely bowers,
But lengthen'd life subside in soft decay,
Illumed by rising Hope, and Faith's pervading ray.

May one kind ice-bolt, from the mortal stores,
Arrest each vital current as it flows,
That no sad course of desolated hours
Here vainly nurse the unsubsiding woes!
While all who honour Virtue, gently mourn
Llangollen's vanish'd Pair, and wreath their sacred urn.

According to the records of Lewis Owen, the year 1349 was distinguished by the first appearance of the pestilence in Wales, and by the birth of Owen Glendour. Hollingshed relates the marvellous tale of his father's horses, being found that night in their stables, standing up to the middle in blo d. The Bard, Iolo Goch, mentions a comet, which marked the great deeds of Glendour, when he was in the meridian of his glory.—See Mr Pennant's Tour.

Isaiah.

Richard the Second.

Henry the Fourth.

Vaucluse, the celebrated valley near Avignon, in which Petrarch composed his beautiful sonnets to Laura.

In 1390, Castel Dinas-Brân, now a bare ruin, was inhabited by the lovely Lady Mifanwy Vechan, of the house of Tudor Trevor. She was beloved by the Bard Hoel. See Mr Pennant's Tour, adorned by a pleasing translation in English verse, of one of Hoel's poems in her praise, and complaining of her coldness. The ruins of Castel Dinas-Brân, are on a conoid mountain of laborious access. It rises in the midst of Llangollen Valley.

Rocks of the Eagles. They are opposite Castel Dinas-Brân. The Rev. Mr Roberts of Dinbren asserts, that the word Eglwyseg, has that interpretation. Mr Pennant derives it from the name of a gentleman, to whose memory the neighbouring column was erected; though, in another part of his Tour, he mentions Leland's testimony, that a pair of eagles built annually in the Eglwyseg rocks, and that a person was let down in a basket to take the young, with another basket over his head, to protect him from the fury of the parent-birds. This tradition favours Mr Roberts' etymology. That Gentleman has lately added largely to his paternal house, situated on a noble mountain in Llangollen Valley. The house stands near its craggy summit, and looks as if it had been scooped out of the rocks. A very narrow valley, containing two sloping copses, and a few bright little fields, with a woody lane winding between them, divides Mr Roberts' mountain from the opposite elevation of Castel Dinas-Brân. The south-east front of the house looks immediately into this narrow valley; the barren, and very singular Eglwyseg rocks on the left, and Castel Dinas-Brân in front. Between the base of the latter, and the sloping foot of his own mountain, Mr R. has the bird's-eye prospect of Llangollen Town, and a part of the Vale.—The author of this Poem, is indebted to the friendly hospitality of Mr and Mrs Roberts, for an opportunity of contemplating the beauties of their own scene, and of the celebrated Valley of Llangollen.

Right Honourable Lady Eleanor Butler, and Miss Ponsonby, now seventeen years resident in Llangollen Vale, and whose guest the author had the honour to be during several delightful days of Summer.

The Library, fitted up in the Gothic taste, the painted windows of that form. In the elliptic arch of the door, there is a prismatic lantern of variously tinted glass, containing two large lamps with their reflectors. The light they shed resembles that of a volcano, gloomily glaring. Opposite, on the chimney-piece, a couple of small lamps, in marble reservoirs, assist the prismatic lantern to supply the place of candles, by a light more consonant to the style of the apartment, the pictures it contains of absent friends, and to its aërial music.

Evening star.

These lines with inverted commas, are from Thomson's Castle of Indolence.

The picturesque ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey, one of the most striking objects in this Valley. They are particularly described by Mr Pennant, and there are engravings of them in his Tour.

Superstition.