Sonnets Round the Coast :: :: University of Virginia Library

Earth has its seasons, lo! the forests burn
To winter ash, or flutter into green;
But thou, with heart unchangeable, hast seen
No fresh-born colour with the spring return.
Thy snows are strewn with strangest unconcern
On August waves, thy moving fields are green
In cold mid-winter: centuries intervene,
Stars set, but none thy long year's changes learn.
Across the unimpressionable plains
Of water seasonless, the seasons move;
Though that proud equatorial flame, the sun
Stoops still to send new summer through thy veins
Not ever yet thy ocean face was won
To tell which way the glancing swallows rove.

II. AT BARMOUTH.

Sweet is the house that breathes the ocean air,
High o'er the sunny beach and tide of green:
If you would enter, you must push between
Valerian's coral fringe, and mount a stair
Wet with the honey-dew; there, simple fare
Is swiftly spread; there, wearied, you may lean
On couches fit for sea-dreams; freshly clean,
The rooms are bright with hospitable care.
Thence you may view how Mawddach to the sun
Gleams, how the moon o'er Turra rises slow,
And cool at evening watch the wan sea fall:
But if you choose to climb the crystal wall
Of Bermo's crag, aloft the rock-steps run
To where the heather and the foxgloves grow.

III. THE ABERMAW.

As if beyond the height where Mawddach dreams,
From Diphwys, Arran, or the Giant's chair,
The deep blue fountains of the middle air
Had broke, and swept in countless sunny streams
To flood of diamond azure, Aber gleams—
Sings through the bridge without a sign of care,
And slips by Bermo's island-shoal of prayer,
Till one great turquoise, flood with ocean seems.
River of Heaven, the men who drank the Dee
Fought bravely, bravely fought Glendower's men,
Remembering thee and green Dolgelly's dales;
Thou art as free and beautiful as then,
And like a lover, the unconquered sea
Follows thee daily to the heart of Wales.

IV. LOW TIDE IN THE ESTUARY, BARMOUTH.

The river failed as if a wizard's wand
Had smote it; where dark Idris mirrored lay,
Behind his woody skirts and range of grey,
Was unreflecting waste and wrinkled sand;
No life, no light, but here and there a band
Of hyacinthine blue, that stole away,
Like to a guilty thing, toward the bay,
And left the boats heeled helpless on the strand.
Then from the central sea a whisper came,
The salt white water swam as smooth as oil,
Swept o'er the shoals of sun and flickering gold.
Other, but inconceivably the same,
Incessant, but without a sign of toil,
Renewing all, the generous tide was rolled.

V. BARMOUTH SHORE.

A WALK TO LLANABER.

The sea was moveless azure in the bay,
Yet the blue sea of Heaven was white with foam,
As if the winds for mischief's sake would roam
To steal the sense of too great calm away.
Great Turra stretched a marvellous inlay
Of wall and wood towards the Giant's home;
And Hebog's hill, Carnarvon's bride, had come
Across the waters in her veil of grey.
I left the rushy hillocks, and I strolled
Along the purple shore that pulsed with heat,
To where Llanaber's fathers o'er the tide
Sleep till the tides are not;—a death-bell tolled—
Rest for the weary-hearted ones is sweet,
Dear God! to-day 'twere bitter to have died!

VI. A RETROSPECT FROM MAWDDACH CRAG.

Once more I sit on Mawddach's craggy height
And hear the green grasshopper at his fun;
Mad fellow he, with hawkweed for his sun,
Whose stars by day—he knows not any night—
Are clustered saxifrages. His delight
Fills me: my days far inland back have run,
I feel as if some wizard hand had spun
My cares, my age, my sorrow, out of sight.
But as I gaze, the emerald tide beneath
Shrinks, and to clouded azure seems to turn,
And from the depths the barren sands arise;
And I—again the tears are in mine eyes—
I know my years are flowing out to death,
Are leaving sand and shallow, and I mourn.

VII. BARMOUTH BRIDGE.

Not for thy beauty, with thy thousand feet
Stretched over idle sand and stormy tide—
Not for thy voice, though ever at thy side
Eolian whispers in the gale are sweet—
Do men revere thee; but because the fleet
Fire-breathing chariots safely o'er thee glide,
And ere thy long, low, thunder-roll has died,
The news of half the world is in the street.
Yet, Barmouth Bridge, tho' Arthog's wood by thee,
And Turra's sunny slope and torrent streams,
Seem presences that dance across thy span,
I count thee dear for this—the gentlest man
Who ever wove the sonnet from his dreams
Thought of thy wonders rising from the sea.

VIII. COTTAGES OF ST. GEORGE, BARMOUTH.

Master of men, who love this land too well
To say and do not—they who climb this height,
And after toil find peasants' rest at night,—
They know your purpose; these your name will tell
With gladness, for their lives have felt the spell
Of this grey rock, and their grey eyes are bright,
Their hearts like eagles, light as air is light;
High-souled, above the sordid earth they dwell.
They have no greed of wealth, the saxifrage
Has starred the cottage roof with guiltless gold,
And far beneath the liquid sapphire shines;
Their heads are hoar, but when in silver lines
The old sea breasts the bar with noble rage,
They feel its vigour through their bosoms rolled.

IX. THE TORRENT WALK, DOLGELLY.

Across the bridge and thro' the huddled town,
Along the oak-clad river bank we passed,
Our eyes perforce were ever backward cast
To where dark Moel looked in grandeur down;
But still The Torrent claimed us for its own,
And those grey Arrans eastward held us fast,
Till sudden, at the tale of blood aghast,
We fronted Offryn, and its hideous frown.
We turned to thread a hollow murmuring vale,
From step to step a streamlet downward sprung,
Now laughing white, now solemn pool on pool;
No more distressed for Cymric Offryn's tale,
From sun to shadow, and from heat to cool,
We heard a torrent speak our English tongue.

X. HARLECH.

Above the waves shine out the milk-white sands,
High o'er the sands a headland rock, o'ergrown
With ivy, wears a castle for its crown,
And gold with soft sea-lichen, Harlech stands.
Sighs of a captive maid, the fierce commands
Of Collwyn, mad with Gwynedd, and the frown
Of Owain Glyndwr struggling for his own,
And Anjou's Margaret wringing anguished hands,—
These, Harlech, at thy bidding start from sleep.
But most, when winds are hushed, and tides are low,
From thy round-towered sanctuary steals
A tramp of men, a clash of armèd heels,
And by the music's mellow march I know
How, four years long, great David held the keep.

XI. BRONWYN THE FAIR.

HARLECH.

Small wonder that the child of Brân the blest,
Grew into grace no prince's wealth could dower,
Seeing her hair shone yellow as the flower
That gilds the plain in summer, and her breast
Was white as is the sand that curls its crest
Seaward to bar the ocean; from her tower
Her blue eyes saw blue tides that changed each hour,
And golden heaved the waters to the west.
But whether June had laid the land in gold,
Or winter swept its silver to the green,
When larks leapt up to shake the air with glee,
Or hoarsely on the beach the wave was rolled,
Her being drank all beauty from the scene—
Yet one thing lacked: wave, air, bird, flowers were free.

XII. THE BURIED CITY OF CARDIGAN BAY.

When son of Seithyn—be his name accursed—
Because he could not brook the drunkard's shame
Yet would be drunkard, felt his blood aflame
Against the king who made him chief and first;
And so from banquet stole, and let the thirst
Of that old sea share with him drunkard's name,
He deemed the depths would bury his ill fame,
And fearlessly Caer Gwyddno's dams he burst.
The moon was full, flowed in the salt sea tide,
O'er farm and byre the bitter waters ran,
Reconquered all man's war from ocean won,
But still the breezes sigh, as Gwyddno sighed,
And still along the shores of Cardigan
The storm-waves hiss a curse for Seithyn's son.