class="indexpageno" id="pgepubid00010">19

THE BEACH BY MOEL YNYS

21

THE MARSH BEHIND BORTH

24

CHAPEL AND SCHOOL-HOUSE FROM MIDDLE GROUND

30

I.
THE PROLOGUE.

   O swallow, with resistless wing, that hold’st the air in fee,
   O swallow, with thy joyous sweep o’er earth and sunlit sea,
O swallow, who, if night were thine, would’st wheel amongst the stars,
            Why linger round the eaves?
   Unhappy! free of all the world hast knit thy soul to clay?
   And glued thy heart up on the wall, thou swiftest child of day?
Claim, glorious wing, thy heritage; break, break thy prison bars,
            Nor linger round the eaves.

   Sweep, glorious wings, adown the wind; fly, swallow, to the west;
   Before thee, life and liberty; behind, a ruined nest.
Blow, freshening breeze, sweep, rapid wing, for all the winds are thine,
            The nest is only clay.
   The rapid wings were stretched in flight, the swallow sped away,
   And left its nest beneath the eaves, the much-loved bit of clay,
Turned with the sun, to go where’er the happy sun might shine,
            And passed into the day.

II.
THE SUMMONS.

A thousand year is nought to prayer,
   One day, so God it will:
So the chapel fair, in God’s clear air,
   Looks calmly from its hill;

And true and bold the schoolhouse old
   Before it sentinel,
With close at hand a trusty band
   Of comrades guards it well.

Each morn they meet, the young, young feet,
   They lightly come and go,
A changeful stream, that still doth seem
   The same, and still doth flow.

The stream shall run while shines the sun,
   And still the buttressed stone
Shall hear the beat of young, young feet,
   And count them all its own.

The fair sun shone, but ghastly and wan
   There came a spectral dream;
The stone stood fast, but a dim fear passed
   Through buttress, and roof, and beam:

With sad, sad heart life did depart,
   A ghostly silence fell;
With sad, sad heart they turned to depart,
   And—farewell, home, farewell.