The Meeting of the Bards

Where met our bards of old?--the glorious throng,They of the mountain and the battle-song?They met--oh! not in kingly hall or bower,But where wild Nature girt herself with power:They met where streams flash’d bright from rocky caves;They met where woods made moan o’er warriors’ graves,And where the torrent’s rainbow spray was cast,And where dark lakes were heaving to the blast,And midst the eternal cliffs, whose strength defiedThe crested Roman, in his hour of pride;And where the Carnedd, on its lonely hill,Bore silent record of the mighty still;And where the Druid’s ancient Cromlech frown’d,And the oaks breathed mysterious murmurs round.

There throng’d th’ inspired of yore!--on plain or height,In the sun’s face, beneath the eye of light,And, baring unto heaven each noble head,Stood in the circle, where none else might tread.Well might their lays be lofty!--soaring thoughtFrom Nature’s presence tenfold grandeur caught:Well might bold freedom’s soul pervade the strainsWhich startled eagles from their lone domains,And, like a breeze in chainless triumph, wentUp through the blue resounding firmament.Whence came the echoes to those numbers high?’Twas from the battle-fields of days gone by,And from the tombs of heroes, laid to restWith their good swords, upon the mountain’s breast;And from the watch-towers on the heights of snow,Sever’d by cloud and storm from all below;And the turf-mounds, once girt by ruddy spears,And the rock-altars of departed years.--Thence, deeply mingling with the torrent’s roar,The winds a thousand wild responses bore;And the green land, whose every vale and glenDoth shrine the memory of heroic men,On all her hills awakening to rejoice,Sent forth proud answers to her children’s voice.

For us, not ours the festival to hold,Midst the stone circles hallow’d thus of old;Not where great Nature’s majesty and mightFirst broke all glorious on our infant sight;Not near the tombs, where sleep our free and brave,Not by the mountain-llyn, the ocean-wave,In these late days we meet--dark Mona’s shore,Eryri’s cliffs resound with harps no more!

But as the stream, (though time or art may turnThe current, bursting from its cavern’d urn,From Alpine glens or ancient forest bowers,To bathe soft vales of pasture and of flowers,)Alike in rushing strength or sunny sleep,Holds on its course, to mingle with the deep;Thus, though our paths be changed, still warm and free,Land of the bard! our spirit flies to thee!To thee our thoughts, our hopes, our hearts belong,Our dreams are haunted by thy voice of song!Nor yield our souls one patriot-feeling lessTo the green memory of thy loveliness,Than theirs, whose harp-notes peal’d from every height,In the sun’s face, beneath the eye of light!

I come, I come! ye have call’d me long--I come o’er the mountains with light and song!Ye may trace my step o’er the wakening earthBy the winds which tell of the violet’s birth,By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowersBy thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,And the ancient graves and the fallen fanesAre veil’d with wreaths on Italian plains;--But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have look’d on the hills of the stormy North,And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,The fisher is out on the sunny sea,And the reindeer bounds o’er the pastures free,And the pine has a hinge of softer green,And the moss looks bright where my foot hath been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,And call’d out each voice of the deep blue sky;From the night-bird’s lay through the starry time,In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,To the swan’s wild note by the Iceland lakes,When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain,They are sweeping on to the silvery main,They are flashing down from the mountain brows,They are flinging spray o’er the forest boughs,They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!

Come forth, O ye children of gladness! come!Where the violets lie may be now your home.Ye of the rose-lip and dew-bright eye,And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly!With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,Come forth to the sunshine--I may not stay.Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,And youth is abroad in my green domains.

But ye!--ye are changed since ye met me last!There is something bright from your features pass’d!There is that come over your brow and eyeWhich speaks of a world where the flowers must die!--Ye smile! but your smile hath a dimness yet:Oh! what have you look’d on since last we met?

Ye are changed, ye are changed!--and I see nothereAll whom I saw in the vanish’d year!There were graceful heads, with their ringletsbright,Which toss’d in the breeze with a play of light;There were eyes in whose glistening laughter layNo faint remembrance of dull decay!

There were steps that flew o’er the cowslip’s head,As if for a banquet all earth were spread;There were voices that rang through the sapphire sky,And had not a sound of mortality!Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains pass’d?Ye have look’d on death since ye met me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o’er you now--Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!Ye have given the lovely to earth’s embrace--She hath taken the fairest of beauty’s race,With their laughing eyes and their festal crown:They are gone from amongst you in silence down!

They are gone from amongst you, the young and fair,Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!But I know of a land where there falls no blight--I shall find them there, with their eyes of light!Where Death midst the blooms of the morn may dwell,I tarry no longer--farewell, farewell!

The summer is coming, on soft winds borne--Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!For me, I depart to a brighter shore--Ye are mark’d by care, ye are mine no more;I go where the loved who have left you dwell,And the flowers are not Death’s. Fare ye well, farewell!

“This indefinable feeling of languor and depression produced by theinfluence of spring, will be well understood by many a gentle heart.Never do the

‘Fond strange yearnings from the soul’s deep cellGush for the faces we no more shall see,’