JOHN DYER

GRONGAR HILL

SILENT nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man;

Painting fair the form of things,

While the yellow linnet sings;

Or the tuneful nightingale

Charms the forest with her tale;

Come, with all thy various dues,

Come and aid thy sister Muse;

Now, while Phœbus riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,

Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells

Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,

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Sate upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head;

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood,

Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his chequered sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves, and grottoes where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale,

As circles on a smooth canal:

The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,

And lessen as the others rise:

Still the prospect wider spreads,

Adds a thousand woods and meads;

Still it widens, widens still,

And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now, I gain the mountain's brow,

What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show,
In all the hues of Heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering to the skies!

Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,

And glitters on the broken rocks!

Below me trees unnumbered rise, Beautiful in various dyes:

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,

The yellow beech, the sable yew,

The slender fir that taper grows,

The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs.
And beyond the purple grove,

Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!

Gaudy as the opening dawn,

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Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,

His sides are clothed with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,

That cast an awful look below;

Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,

And with her arms from falling keeps;

So both a safety from the wind

On mutual dependence find.

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'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Hugh heaps of hoary moulded walls.
Yet Time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,

Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state;

But transient is the smile of Fate!

A little rule, a little sway,

A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers how they run,

Through woods and meads, in shade and sun,
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,

Wave succeeding wave they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To disperse our cares away.

Ever charming, ever new,

When will the landscape tire the view!

The fountain's fall, the rivers flow,
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky!
The pleasant seats, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each give each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide;
How close and small the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadows cross the eye!
A step methinks may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the Future's face,
Eyed through Hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits soft and fair,

Clad in colours of the air,

Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;

Still we tread the same coarse way,

The present's still a cloudy day.

O may I with myself agree,

And never covet what I see;

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Content me with an humble shade,

My passions tamed, my wishes laid;