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170
A Vision of Barmouth.
Yes, I saw it; a sketch in a window; and passably done:Just a mountain, with rocks, and dim shadows, and glintings of sun.
Was it that, or a mere summer longing astir in my breast
As I paced the hot street, that has borne me away to the West?
It uprises before me—the well-known, the dearly-loved view,
With its glories of form and its splendours of shadow and hue:
I am there, 'mid the mountains with gorse and with heather aglow,
And the sheen of the water far down in the valley below,
And the Lady-ferns, red-stemmed and green-stemmed, in densest array,
Half choking the bright little runnel that borders the way.
171
And the short springy turf is all flower-bestrewn, as of old;—
Red Geranium, and sweet Lady's-tresses, and Centaury gay,
Scotch-rose with its great ruddy hips, and Thyme's delicate spray:
On the sand-hills 'twixt me and the sea, lo! the tall rushes stand,
And the wind is still tracing its rings with their tips on the sand:
And there in that gorge, where the streamlet has carved out its dell,
Yellow Poppies beneath the old Elder-tree cluster and dwell.
And look how a pathway of gold, as the sun sinks to rest,
Stretches over to yonder long line of fair hills in the West.
Ah me! yet the spot that is fairest and dearest to me
Is a little lone grave by the side of the broad shining sea!
(1885.)
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