Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Listen, men and maidens fair,
Who to Barmouth do repair,
Seeking health and pastime there,
Basking in its sunny air,
While of grievances a pair
With a sad heart I declare.

First of all, you are aware
That no prospect can compare
(Search the land through everywhere)
With the river view so rare.
How then could those Vandals dare
To block out the sweet view there
By that wall all gaunt and bare
Built along the road so fair?
'Tis enough to make men swear,
And fair maidens tear their hair,
As on tip-toe, in despair,

104

Vainly they attempt to stare
O'er the stones so rude and square.
Men of Barmouth! if you care
For the wealth of beauty rare
Which your glades and mountains wear,
Surely from your wall so bare
Two feet you might rightly spare:—
That would just the wrong repair.

But another wrong I bear
In my bosom, rankling there.
Listen, men and maidens fair,
And with me my sorrows share.
Why, oh! why, I ask, whene'er,
Rising from my easy chair,
I would breathe the balmy air,
Pacing on your thoroughfare,
Seeking to dispel dull care
With the sight of all things fair,—
Why must every rocky lair
On its cloven surface bear—
Not the dainty Maidenhair,
Not the Sea-Fern—would it were!—
But (it is too bad, I swear!)
Posters—hideous, vulgar, square,
That with sallow sickening glare,
Blurring nature, flaunt and flare
On the grey rocks everywhere?

105

Men of Barmouth! hear my prayer:
If a worthy pride you share
In your country, do and dare!
From that wall, so gaunt and bare
Four and twenty inches pare:
And from all the rock-slabs there
Those atrocious posters tear;
Nor in future let them bear
Ought the eye of taste to scare
Save this—

Bill-stickers, Beware!