Classic Poem

Thou Summer! father of delight,
With thy dense spray and thickets deep;
Gemm'd monarch, with thy rapt'rous light.
Rousing thy subject glens from sleep!
Proud has thy march of triumph been,
Thou prophet, prince of forest green!
Artificer of wood and tree,
Thou painter of unrivalled skill,
Who ever scatters gems like thee,
And gorgeous webs on park and hill?
Till vale and hill with radiant dyes
Become another Paradise!
And thou hast sprinkled leaves and flow'rs,
And goodly chains of leafy bow'rs;
And bid thy youthful warblers sing
On oak and knoll, the song of spring,
And black-birds' note of ecstacy
Burst loudly from the woodbine tree,
Till all the world is thronged with gladness—
Her multitudes have done with sadness!
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
Of fair Glamorgan—ocean's band—
Sweet margin of the sea!
To dear Glamorgan, when we part,
Oh bear a thousand times my heart!
My blessing give a thousand times,
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.
Radiant with corn and vineyards sweet,
The 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!
And where the generous wine cup swells;
With trees that bear a luscious pear,
So thickly clustering everywhere,
That the fair country of my love
Looks dense as one continuous grove!
Her lofty woods with warblers teem,
Her fields with flow'rs that love the stream;
Her valleys varied crops display,
Eight kinds of corn, and three of hay;
Bright parlour, with her trefoiled floor!
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:
The districts round her border spread
From her have drawn their daily bread—
Her milk, her meat, her varied stores,
Have been the life of distant shores!
And court and hamlet food have found
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!
Her morns with bliss and splendour light,
And fondly kiss her mansions white;
Fling wealth and verdure o'er her bow'rs!
And for her gather all thy flow'rs!
Glance o'er her castles, white with lime,
With genial glimmerings sublime;
Plant on the verdant coast thy feet,
Her lofty hills, her woodlands greet.
Oh! lavish blossoms with thy hand
O'er all the forests of the land;
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
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
(The jewel of the forest's gloom!),
And trefoils wove in pavement green,
With sad humility to grace
His golden Ivor's resting-place.