The Glens are Old

The glens are old:

And they have called to other ears

Than ours

In backward swinging long-forgotten years

In which the evening gold

Has faded from the withered flowers,

And smiles that grew

On lovely faces, and the tears

That fell like dew,

Are vanished with man’s stateliest towers.

 

Strange faces then,

And unfamiliar voices, all

To those

Belonging who before us fell in thrall

To the magic of the glen.

And every tree that therein grows,

Pale ash and beech,

Stout sycamore and chestnut tall,

Dark elm, could each

If so designed long histories disclose.

 

I love each dell,

And think therein I have a friend

To hold

In my affection, deathless, without end;

But thinking, it is well

For me to know these hollows fold

More friends than me,

And in some way they comprehend

My threnody !

The glens are old, so very old.

 

Mona’s Herald     9.1.62