To the Gull

Maid of dark and glossy tresses,
Humbly I request,
In Dol Aeron’s green recesses,
Thee to be my guest,
At a feast—but not of food
Fit for husbandman’s repast,
Or for Saxon—comrade rude!
Not of flesh that might supply
Nuptial festivity—
Not of mingled wheat and rye,
Meet to break a reaper’s fast:—
On no other sweets we’ll feed
    Than the nightingale and mead!
In that room above thy head,
Birchen boughs their shelter spread,—
Beauteous spot of fairest ground,
For the deer to range around,
For grey Philomel’s clear wail,
And the thrush’s merry tale.
There nine trees together stand,
Mid the woods, (oh! lovely band,)
Twined into a bright retreat,
For the birds of heaven to meet,
Forming round our leafy seat
On the earth a circle fair—
A green steeple in the air—
And, below, a glorious hall,
Made of golden trefoils all.
Noble arbour—verdant nook—
For the maid of modest look;
House by bright clear waters piled—
Waters ne’er by smoke defiled,
Place of ecstacy and song,
Of tall trees and tangled ground;
There the ousels rear their young,
There a fortress may be found—
Verdant turrets that enclose
Faithful lovers from their foes!
Wilt thou, then, or wilt thou not,
Visit me in that bless’d spot?
For thyself thou must declare,
Come—thou must—and meet me there!

Hoarse wave, with crest of curling foam,
Back to thy native ocean roam;
And leave the fords of Dovey free,
That Morvyth separate from me!
No bard before hath loved to tell
Thy glassy tower—thy lordly swell—
Thou branch of ocean’s mighty stem—
Thou sailor’s friend—thou briny gem!
The storm—the rush of hostile ranks,
Jamm’d ’twixt the close and cleftless banks—
The war-steed’s sinewy chest of might—
Are faint to thee, thou billowy height!
No organ, harp, no vocal tone,
Are like thy vast and fearful moan.
To her no other pledge I’ll give,
The snow-white maid for whom I live,
Than call her beauty like the light,
And as thy circling waters bright!
Thou bright round billow, let me pass
Beyond thy ring of azure glass;
For long my love, awaiting me,
Stands by Lanbadarn’s birchen tree.
Of sunken rocks, thou mantle hoar,
Chafed on the wild and rugged shore—
Friend of the sea—knight of the spray—
Oh, did’st thou know, for this delay,
What penalty the bard must pay,
Thou would’st not raise thy gloomy face
Between him and the trysting-place!
What though for Indeg’s charms sublime,
My limbs thy dreadful heights must climb;—
Though death were in thy eddies stern;—
Death and thy hate I’ll rather spurn,
Than back from Morvyth’s shore return!

One glorious morn, beneath the grove,
To Morvyth many a lay I wove:—
“Maid of my heart, O twine,” I said,
“One rural garland for my head;
One verdant manacle, to be
This hour of rapture’s memory!”
“Dear bard, ’twere cruelty to tear
Yon lonely birch’s glossy hair—
Yon anchorite chain’d the cliff along—
I’ll pay with nobler gift thy song.”
My lady’s hand my locks has set
With varied pinnacles of gold—
A proud immortal coronet,
Glean’d from the peacock’s sunny fold!
To join those plumes with magic band,
Were work befitting monarch’s hand—
Those gems of air—those floating flow’rs—
Those lamps to light my bardic hours—
Those tiny palaces o’erspread
With eyes—as of the mighty dead!
Ne’er shall the poet’s forehead lose
The mirror of their living hues.
All things of loveliness have met,
In this my Morvyth’s coronet!

Coronet for summer skies,
I will keep thy green array,
Though in fear my footstep flies.
Fragment of the robes of May!
Charm that freest love from care,
Tent above the forehead fair;
Dawn of rare affection’s art;
Beauteous symbol of the heart;
Girdle for the dresses wove
From the white locks of the grove.

Many a poet in his lay
Told me May would come again;
Truly sang the bards—for May
Yesterday began to reign!
She is like a bounteous lord,
Gold enough she gives to me;
“Gold—such as we poets hoard—
Florins” of the mead and tree,
Hazel flowers and “fleurs-de-lis.”
Underneath her leafy wings,
I am safe from treason’s stings:
I am full of wrath with May,
That she will not always stay!
Maidens never hear of love,
But when she has plumed the grove,—
Giver of the gift of song
To the poet’s heart and tongue.
May! majestic child of heaven,
To the earth in glory given!
Verdant hills, days long and clear,
Come when she is hov’ring near.
Stars, ye cannot journey on
Joyously when she is gone!
Ye are not so glossy bright,
Blackbirds, when she takes her flight.
Sweetest art thou, nightingale;
Poet, thou canst tell thy tale
With a lighter heart, when May
Rules with all her bright array.

Sweet May, ever welcome! the palace of leaves
Thy hand for thy wild band of choristers weaves;
Proud knight, that subduest with glory and power,
Each glen into verdure, to joy every bower;
That makest the wilderness laugh and rejoice,
In the chains of thy love, in thy cuckoo’s shrill voice;
That fillest the heart of the lover with glee,
And bringest my Morvyth’s dear image to me.
    Alas! that dark Winter thy mansions should blight,
With his chill mottled show’rs, and his flickering light;
His moon that gleams wanly through snows falling fast,
His pale mist that floats on the wings of the blast:
With the voice of each river more fearfully loud—
Every torrent all foam, and the heaven all cloud!
Alas! that stern Winter has power to divide
Each lover from hope—from the poet his bride.

Winter, icy, dark, and slow!
Ram that batterest the wood!
Never was there such a foe
To the damsel fair and good,
As the father of the snow,
Fiercely rambling to and fro,
’Mid the hamlets of our land!
Little mercy at his hand
Would that maiden’s truth requite,
Who for poet’s love would dare,
’Mid the snows and harrowing air,
And icicles of night.
* * * * *

At dawn, as to my love I sped,
A treacherous fog my steps misled;
Long through its labyrinths I strayed,
Then thus reviled the child of shade:—
Hence with thy yellow misty bower!
Oh, vanish for one single hour,
Thou cassock! wove by wizard spell—
Smoke of the goblin forge of hell—
Spread like the spider’s filmy roof,
Veil of the skies, the tempest’s woof.
The pathless snow is in thy breast—
In thee secure the felons rest.
On wings obscure, with frosty wreath,
Thou spread’st the brittle boughs of heath;
And as thou float’st, the fairy tribe
Make thy long flaggy skirts their gibe!
Fleece of the rock—cowl of the heav’n,
Thou banish’d wave from ocean driv’n;
Cloud of the crooked mountain tow’r,
Canst thou not burst one single hour?
The swarth excretion of the night
Veil’d path and heath, and mountain height,
With many a dark and mantling wave,
Till heav’n was rayless as a cave.
Hung o’er the rocks a scowling tent,
It wrapp’d heav’n’s dawning battlement:
The woods, the hills, the shore, the sea,
The birchen shrubs, were lost to me.
In endless viewless swamps I fell,
In every dank and dwarfish dell;
A hundred wry-mouthed goblins cast
Mad laughter on me—as I past
An oath of hearty wrath I swore,
Yon mist should never lead me more,
The jest of fiends, through brier and brake,
E’en for my matchless Morvyth’s sake.