I WAS ever valley road so full of sound And mellow sweetness as the league I came Between the mountains to enchanted ground Burnt warm and wondrous by autumnal flame? Along that road I could have sworn I heard Ap Gwilym, lithe and laughing, in the brake, Calling on Morfudd—and for Morfudd's sake Outpouring songs of passion, like a bird. II And then at eve, when drooping dusk drew near, I sat with neighbourly, moss-rooted trees And watched the moon that bathed in Talley mere, And heard, dim-wafted on the downward breeze Across the stubbled fields, from hill to hill, The echoing orisons that still Lie captive in the heart of moor and stream, And saw the singers, darkly as in a dream ... The pilgrim bands who passed the abbey door Chanting their sorrows centuries before. III And to the uplands, where in days of old The Romans ranged the secret hills for gold, I turned and looked—and saw, in moonlight gay, October, that red fox with tail on fire Who makes the woodlands blaze from shire to shire, Turn in his tracks and swiftly steal away. |