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VII.

THE RIVER CLWYD IN NORTH WALES.

O Cambrian river, with slow music gliding
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruined towers;
Now midst thy reeds and golden willows hiding,
Now gleaming forth by some rich bank of flowers;
Long flowed the current of my life's clear hours
Onward with thine, whose voice yet haunts my dream,
Though time and change, and other mightier powers,

Far from thy side have borne me.

stream!

Thou, smooth

Art winding still thy sunny meads along,

Murmuring to cottage and grey hall thy song,
Low, sweet, unchanged: My being's tide hath passed
Through rocks and storms; yet will I not complain,
If thus wrought free and pure from earthly stain,
Brightly its waves may reach their parent-deep at last.

VIII.

ORCHARD BLOSSOMS.

Doth thy heart stir within thee at the sight
Of orchard blooms upon the mossy bough?
Doth their sweet household smile waft back the glow
Of childhood's morn?—the wondering fresh delight
In earth's new colouring, then all strangely bright,
A joy of fairy-land ?-Doth some old nook,
Haunted by visions of thy first-loved book,

Rise on thy soul, with faint-streaked blossoms white
Showered o'er the turf, and the lone primrose-knot,
And robin's nest, still faithful to the spot,

And the bee's dreamy chime?-O gentle friend! The world's cold breath, not Time's, this life bereaves Of vernal gifts-Time hallows what he leaves,

And will for us endear spring-memories to the end.

IX.

TO A DISTANT SCENE.

Still are the cowslips from thy bosom springing,
O far-off grassy dell?—and dost thou see,
When southern winds first wake the vernal singing,

The star-gleam of the wood anemone?

Doth the shy ring-dove haunt thee yet-the bee Hang on thy flowers as when I breathed farewell To their wild blooms? and round my beechen tree Still, in green softness, doth the moss-bank swell?

-Oh! strange illusion by the fond heart wrought, Whose own warm life suffuses nature's face!

-My being's tide of many-coloured thought
Hath passed from thee, and now, rich, leafy place!
I paint thee oft, scarce consciously, a scene,

Silent, forsaken, dim, shadowed by what hath been.

X.

THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH TREES.

Trees, gracious trees! how rich a gift ye are,
Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes!
How doth the thought of home, in lands afar,
Linked with your forms and kindly whisperings rise!
How the whole picture of a childhood lies
Oft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep!
Till gazing through them up the summer skies
As hushed we stand, a breeze perchance may creep
And old sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world
Where memory coils and lo! at once unfurled
The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight,
Spreads clear! while gushing from their long-sealed urn
Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers re-

turn,

And a lost mother's eye gives back its holy light.

XI.

THE SAME.

And ye are strong to shelter !—all meek things,
All that need home and covert, love your shade!
Birds of shy song, and low-voiced quiet springs,
And nun-like violets, by the wind betrayed.
Childhood beneath your fresh green tents hath played
With his first primrose-wealth :-there love hath

sought

A veiling gloom for his unuttered thought;
And silent grief, of day's keen glare afraid,
A refuge for her tears; and oft-times there
Hath lone devotion found a place of prayer,
A native temple, solemn, hushed, and dim;
For wheresoe'er your murmuring tremors thrill
The woody twilight, there man's heart hath still

Confessed a spirit's breath, and heard a ceaseless

hymn.

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