Wicklow Winds

George Francis Savage-Armstrong (1845–1906)

From “Wicklow”

YES, this is Wicklow; round our feet

And o’er our heads its woodlands smile;

Behold it, love—the garden sweet

And playground of our stormy isle.

*****

Is it not fair—the leafy land?

Not boasting Nature’s sterner pride,

Voluptuous beauty, scenes that stand

By minds immortal deified.

*****

Fair when the woodland strains and creaks

As loud the gathering whirlwinds blow,

And through the smoke-like mists the Peaks

In warm autumnal purples glow;

When madly toss the bracken’s plumes

Storm-swept upon the seaward steep,

As far below them foams and fumes

On beach and cliff the wrathful deep,

Till cloud and tempest, creeping lower,

Old Djouce’s ridges swathe in night,

And down through all his hollows pour

The foaming torrents swoln and white;

Or when o’er Powerscourt’s leafless woods,

With crests that down the tempest lean,

Bend, braving winter’s fiercest moods,

The pines in all their wealth of green.