 | Poems |  |
VAL DE LUZ.
In
Val de Luz, the vale of light,
A hamlet neither fair nor bright
That valley's title bears—
(As honours oft by merit won,
Descend to some ignoble son,
Or wealth to worthless heirs.)
A hamlet neither fair nor bright
That valley's title bears—
(As honours oft by merit won,
Descend to some ignoble son,
Or wealth to worthless heirs.)
A narrow street of squalid huts,
Fierce visaged men and fiercer sluts
With eyes and elf-locks black,
And earth-brown features, grinning scorn,
The passing stranger seem'd to warn,
“Beware of an attack!”
Fierce visaged men and fiercer sluts
With eyes and elf-locks black,
And earth-brown features, grinning scorn,
The passing stranger seem'd to warn,
“Beware of an attack!”
174
Such hints are spurs, but yet the last
Ill-omen'd shed was scarcely past
When check'd was every bridle!
What halts us here?—a torrent strong,
A mighty flood of glorious song—
(It wafts me back to Rydal.)
Ill-omen'd shed was scarcely past
When check'd was every bridle!
What halts us here?—a torrent strong,
A mighty flood of glorious song—
(It wafts me back to Rydal.)
The nightingale of lusty lungs,
The bird that has the gift of tongues,
The key to every breast,
'Twas he that, as we rode along,
Waylaid us with a flood of song
That held us in arrest.
The bird that has the gift of tongues,
The key to every breast,
'Twas he that, as we rode along,
Waylaid us with a flood of song
That held us in arrest.
No wanderer thro' a dark pine wood
To brigand mandate ever stood
More suddenly than we;
Stopt by a bird in open day,
An attic bird that ambush'd lay
Behind an olive tree!
To brigand mandate ever stood
More suddenly than we;
Stopt by a bird in open day,
An attic bird that ambush'd lay
Behind an olive tree!
| Poems | |