University of Virginia Library

Thy tower, St. Asaph! when the noon-bright heaven
With crystal arch o'er-canopied thy walls
And the breeze caroll'd like a bird of air,
I trod; beneath me, Arcady revived
Burst on the wonder of my ravish'd eye!
Painting ne'er form'd, nor poetry conceived
A paradise of more bewitching scene:
Leftward the river'd Vale of Cluid lay
Magnificent, with woods and trees adorn'd;
Where castled halls and princely mansions stood,
And towns remote, and cots, and hamlet-spires,
With white-faced homes in blossom'd trees embower'd,
'Mid meadows greenly-bright, and mountain-forms
Whose wavy outline on the sky was mapp'd,—
All on the gaze a mass of beauty pour'd
Beyond what Pòussin in Italian dreams described!
In calm sublimity of conscious strength
The Hills reposed; but when some cloudy shade
Form'd into life, a floating semblance fell
With dim surprisal on their meadow'd sides,
And chequer'd them with ever-changing hue.
Bright ran the river, with melodious speed
Contented; fit for fairy barks to sail,
Or Infancy beside its banks to roam
And gaily prattle to the new-blown flowers,—
So timidly the modest waters flow'd:
And yet, when rains and mountain-floods descend,
The demon-spirit of the water frowns!
In roaring swiftness o'er the prostrate fields
The exaggerated river foams along,
And ruins as it rolls! like some proud mind
That when unwrong'd in meek retirement dwells,
But, injured,—how the buried fire outbreaks,
And maddens round it withering and fierce!
Upon my right, in ivy-tress'd array,
Sublime in ruin, Rhyddlan Castle frown'd;
And, gazing there, the heart religious grew,
To think how glory, pomp, and all the world adores,
A dream becomes for moralist to scan!
Home of the Warrior! where the banner waved,
And Towers! where Cambrian kings and chieftains reign'd,
Whose halls within, the harp of Cymru rang,
While melodies, from Freedom's soul evoked
Pour'd tides of feeling over Princes' hearts,
In thy decay how eloquent thou stand'st!
Gigantic Emblem for the mind to read
How perishing is glory! while the Sea
In loud eternity of water beats
Grandly as ever on thy throbbing shore.

From thee, dread Monument of vanish'd days,
Baronial relic of the fierce and free,
Mine eye retreated; far as sight could roam,
Pictured on clouds, in outlined magic lay
The Peaks of Snowdon; silver-bright they shone,
And seem'd the very walls of Heaven! so fair,
So dazzling-white their towering beauty rose,
Like sculpture out of snow by sunshine carved.

Stranger! if ever pent in cities loud,
For many a month thy yearning eye has dream'd
Of Nature, throned amid the green romance
Of woods and waterfalls, thy heart might beat
In thrilling answer to the strain I sing,
Hadst thou beside me, from the sacred tower
This beauteous Vale beheld:—or ere I left,
One long, enamour'd, and delicious gaze
It bade me fasten on the faultless scene;
The sunshine in its golden lull reposed
On tree and mountain: cot and castle gleam'd,
And field and flower their blending graces show'd;
But when the breeze, in wingèd life arose,
How richly all the stirring Landscape flamed!
'Till the glad meads like emerald-sunshine flash'd,
So lustrously that living verdure play'd!

Soft be the winds that visit thy domain
And fair the flowers which gem thy matchless vale
St. Asaph! long may yon cathedral-tower
A sanctity around thy region shed!
For never, while a pulse of memory beats,
Can I that hour of thrilling awe forget
When first amid the gazing crowd I knelt,
A white-robed Novice; while with trembling lip
And soul that to its centre shook, and pray'd,
I vow'd to feed and watch the fold of Christ!