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

O Cambrian Tempe! oft with transport hail'd,
I leave thee now, as I did ever leave
Thee, and thy peerless mistresses, with heart
Where lively gratitude and fond regret
For mastery strive, and still the mastery gain
Alternate. Oft renew'd must be the strife
When, far from this loved region, and from all
That now its ancient witchery revives;
Revives, with spells more potent erst than knew

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Your white-rob'd Druids on their Deva's bank
Aweful to frame; when the loud mystic song,
And louder clang of their unnumber'd harps,
Drown'd e'en the river's thunder, where she throws
All, all her waters in one rocky chasm,
Narrow, but fathomless, and goads them on
Roaring and foaming, while Llangollen's steeps
Rebellow to the noise. Ye, who now frame
Your talismans resistless, O! receive,
Ye mild Enchantresses, my warm adieu!

Time, that for me hath pass'd full many a year
On broad and withering pinion, may have quench'd
By the rude wafture of his dusky wing,
Fancy's clear fires;—Enthusiasm may waste
In her own fruitless energies, and pine,
Vainly may pine for the exhausted powers
Of bankrupt language, bankrupt of the skill
To please, with varied praise, the taste made coy
By riot of encomium; but yet
The benediction of increasing love,
Bless'd pair, receive with no ungracious ear!

When first your Eden in this hallow'd vale
Stole on these eyes; its solemn graces first
Imprest my senses, pliant to their wish,
The muse of landscape came, and to my hand
Her pallet, glowing in ideal hues,

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With smiles extended. Straight my doubtful pen
Eager I dipt, and, not unfaithful, rose
Some features of the scene. Yet, even then,
In Friendship's primal hours, my soul perceiv'd
Feelings, that more defied expression's power
To speak them truly, than to paint the charms
Of those distinguish'd bowers;—their mountains vast,
Here pale and barren, and there dark with woods;
Yon mural rocks, whose surface still defies
All change of seasons, though they deign to yield,
At intervals, their grey and wannish hue
Purpling to orient suns, and catching oft
The occidental amber; sylvan glades,
Bright fields, and shadowy lawn, whose concave bound
No beam of noon can pierce. Far to the left,
Beyond those walks which the tall branching trees
O'er-arching, darken; past the sunny field
On whose warm breast they open, lo! the shed
On mossy pillars propt, and its screen'd seat
Beneath its slant, thatch'd roof: Ah! pause we there,
For there we wander to the latest verge
Of a lone clamouring brook, which down its slop'd
And craggy channel struggles; for the stones,
Pointed and huge, ceaseless impede and vex

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Its passage to the base of the rude mound
That rises opposite this shelter'd seat,
And instant rises. Dark the mound and rude,
But not inflexible. Its rocky steep
No longer spurns, as it had often spurn'd,
The mountain shrubs and trees, when infant roots,
O'er balanced by exterior boughs, possest
No strength to penetrate that rocky steep,
And wind its darkling fissures; till at length,
Art, with unwearied hand, had form'd a shield
Against the brook, that undermines when calm,
When violent, tears; 'gainst the repellant cliff,
And force it to receive in its rude breast
Each stranger-scion;—so, with lucky skill,
The guardian sisters wove their net-work firm
With tough, yet pliant withy, from the base
To flood-mark rising; upright and transverse
Bars, crossing each the other, forming each
Their vacant inch dividual. Therefore now
Nor waters mine the root, nor tear the branch;
Nor cliff, so late impenetrable, checks
Th' insinuating fibres on their course,
Their thousand arms diverging far and wide,
And to the centre piercing; while the boughs
Bend their green heads o'er the chaf'd brawling stream,
Around the huge stones eddying; fearless now,
Conscious of deep-struck root, e'en when thick rain,

349

Heavy and loud, has, 'mid the tempest's roar,
Fall'n vertical; and when the madden'd brook
No longer meets from tranquil human eye
The gaze contemplative. Appall'd we shrink
From the tumultuous flood, that tumbles down
Fearfully deep, and often hurling up
The yeasty billow, while the tide below
Thunders and groans. Remorseless in its rage,
But quickly spent, while under calmer skies,
Or 'mid the balmy drop of quiet rain,
Shallow it rushes, and innoxious raves.
Innoxious, said I? Pardon, clamorous brook!
Thy general course, rage madly as thou may'st
Beneath a storm'd horizon, kind is found
And ministrant to man, for pass we yet
A little way along thy turfy bank,
And we shall view, well pleased, thy useful waves
Leap o'er a clattering mill-wheel, high above
In the brook's hilly channel, 'mid whose brakes,
Thick and entangled, gleams the snowy foam.

See, higher yet on the still rising slope,
Another hub-bub tenement obtains
Ability from this oft violent stream
To yield the first, best nutriment we gain.

Haste to the scene, benignant powers of life,
Mild Lachesis, and gay Hygeia, haste,

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From day to day propitious!—on that bank,
Mossy and canopied with gadding boughs,
Spin firm the vital thread! and brim the cup
With juice salubrious! breathing soft, the while,
Dear Eleanora, and her Zara's name.

Since this poem was written, all the native romance of the river at this spot, has been destroyed by a detestable cotton-mill.