| |
| THOU Summer! father of delight, | |
| With thy dense spray and thickets deep; | |
| Gemmed monarch, with thy rapturous light | |
| Rousing thy subject glens from sleep! | |
| Proud has thy march of triumph been, | 5 |
| Thou prophet, prince of forest green! | |
| Artificer of wood and tree, | |
| Thou painter of unrivalled skill, | |
| Who ever scattered gems like thee, | |
| And gorgeous webs on park and hill? | 10 |
| Till vale and hill with radiant dyes, | |
| Became another Paradise! | |
| And thou hast sprinkled leaves and flowers, | |
| And goodly chains of leafy bowers, | |
| And bid thy youthful warblers sing | 15 |
| On oak and knoll the song of spring, | |
| And blackbird’s note of ecstasy | |
| Burst loudly from the woodbine tree, | |
| Till all the world is thronged with gladness, | |
| Her multitudes have done with sadness! | 20 |
| O summer, do I ask in vain? | |
| Thus in thy glory wilt thou deign | |
| My messenger to be? | |
| Hence from the bowels of the land | |
| Of wild, wild Gwyneth to the strand | 25 |
| Of fair Glamorgan,—ocean’s band, | |
| Sweet margin of the sea! | |
| To dear Glamorgan, when we part, | |
| O, boar a thousand times my heart! | |
| My blessing give a thousand times, | 30 |
| And crown with joy her glowing climes! | |
| Take on her lovely vales thy stand, | |
| And tread and trample round the land, | |
| The beauteous shore whose harvest lies | |
| All sheltered from inclement skies! | 35 |
| Radiant with corn and vineyards sweet, | |
| And lakes of fish and mansions neat, | |
| With halls of stone where kindness dwells, | |
| And where each hospitable lord | |
| Heaps for the stranger guest his board, | 40 |
| And where the generous wine-cup swells; | |
| With trees that bear the luscious pear, | |
| So thickly clustering everywhere, | |
| That the fair country of my love | |
| Looks dense as one continuous grove!— | 45 |
| Her lofty woods with warblers teem, | |
| Her fields with flowers that love the stream, | |
| Her valleys varied crops display, | |
| Eight kinds of corn, and three of hay; | |
| Bright parlor, with her trefoiled floor! | 50 |
| Sweet garden spread on ocean’s shore! | |
| Glamorgan’s bounteous knights award | |
| Bright mead and burnished gold to me; | |
| Glamorgan boasts of many a bard, | |
| Well skilled in harp and vocal glee; | 55 |
| The districts round her border spread, | |
| From her have drawn their daily bread; | |
| Her milk, her wheat, her varied stores, | |
| Have been the life of distant shores! | |
| And court and hamlet food have found | 60 |
| From the rich soil of Britain’s southern bound. | |
| And wilt thou then obey my power, | |
| Thou Summer, in thy brightest hour? | |
| To her thy glorious hues unfold | |
| In one rich embassy of gold! | 65 |
| Her morns with bliss and splendor light, | |
| And fondly kiss her mansions white; | |
| Fling wealth and verdure o’er her bowers, | |
| And for her gather all thy flowers! | |
| Glance o’er her castles, white with lime, | 70 |
| With genial glimmering sublime; | |
| Plant on the verdant coast thy feet, | |
| Her lofty hills, her woodlands sweet; | |
| O, lavish blossoms with thy hand | |
| O’er all the forests of the land, | 75 |
| And let thy gifts like floods descending | |
| O’er every hill and glen be blending; | |
| Let orchard, garden, vine, express | |
| Thy fulness and thy fruitfulness,— | |
| O’er all the land of beauty fling | 80 |
| The costly traces of thy wing! | |
| And thus mid all thy radiant flowers, | |
| Thy thickening leaves and glossy bowers, | |
| The poet’s task shall be to glean | |
| Roses and flowers that softly bloom, | 85 |
| (The jewels of the forest’s gloom!) | |
| And trefoils wove in pavement green, | |
| With sad humility to grace | |
| His golden Ivor’s resting-place. | |
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