| |
| RUGGED land of the granite and oak, | |
| I depart with a sigh from thy shore, | |
| And with kinsman’s affection a blessing invoke | |
| On the maids and the men of Arvôr. | |
| |
| For the Irish and Breton are kin, | 5 |
| Though the lights of antiquity pale | |
| In the point of the dawn where the partings begin | |
| Of the Bolg and the Kymro and Gael. | |
| |
| But, though dim in the distance of time | |
| Be the low-burning beacons of fame, | 10 |
| Holy Nature attests us, in writing sublime | |
| On heart and on visage, the same. | |
| |
| In the dark-eye-lashed eye of blue-gray, | |
| In the open look, modest and kind, | |
| In the face’s fine oval reflecting the play | 15 |
| Of the sensitive, generous mind; | |
| |
| Till, as oft as by meadow and stream | |
| With thy Maries and Josephs I roam, | |
| In companionship gentle and friendly I seem, | |
| As with Patrick and Brigid at home. | 20 |
| |
| Green, meadow-fresh, streamy-bright land! | |
| Though greener meads, valleys as fair, | |
| Be at home, yet the home-yearning heart will demand, | |
| Are they blest as in Brittany there? | |
| |
| Demand not,—repining is vain; | 25 |
| Yet would God that even as thou | |
| In thy homeliest homesteads, contented Bretagne, | |
| Were the green isle my thoughts are with now! | |
| |
| But I call thee not golden: let gold | |
| Deck the coronal troubadours twine, | 30 |
| Where the waves of the Loire and Garomna are rolled | |
| Through the land of the white wheat and vine, | |
| |
| And the fire of the Frenchman goes up | |
| To the quick-thoughted, dark-flashing eye; | |
| While Glory and Change, quaffing Luxury’s cup, | 35 |
| Challenge all things below and on high. | |
| |
| Leave to him—to the vehement man | |
| Of the Loire, of the Seine, of the Rhone— | |
| In the Idea’s high pathways to march in the van, | |
| To o’erthrow, and set up the o’erthrown; | 40 |
| |
| Be it thine in the broad beaten ways | |
| That the world’s simple seniors have trod, | |
| To walk with soft steps, living peaceable days, | |
| And on earth not forgetful of God. | |
| |
| Nor repine that thy lot has been cast | 45 |
| With the things of the old time before, | |
| For to thee are committed the keys of the past, | |
| O gray monumental Arvôr. | |
| |
| Yes, land of the great Standing Stones, | |
| It is thine at thy feet to survey, | 50 |
| From thy earlier shepherd-kings’ sepulchre-thrones, | |
| The giant, far-stretching array; | |
| |
| Where, abroad o’er the gorse-covered lande, | |
| Where, along by the slow-breaking wave, | |
| The hoary, inscrutable sentinels stand | 55 |
| In their night-watch by History’s grave. | |
| |
| Preserve them, nor fear for thy charge; | |
| From the prime of the morning they sprung, | |
| When the works of young Mankind were lasting and large, | |
| As the will they embodied was young. | 60 |
| |
| I have stood on Old Sarum; 1 the sun, | |
| With a pensive regard from the west, | |
| Lit the beech-tops low down in the ditch of the Dun, | |
| Lit the service-trees high on its crest: | |
| |
| But the walls of the Roman were shrunk | 65 |
| Into morsels of ruin around, | |
| And palace of monarch and minster of monk | |
| Were effaced from the grassy-fossed ground. | |
| |
| Like bubbles in ocean, they melt, | |
| O Wilts, on thy long-rolling plain, | 70 |
| And at last but the works of the hand of the Celt | |
| And the sweet hand of Nature remain. | |
| |
| Even so: though, portentous and strange, | |
| With a rumor of troublesome sounds, | |
| On his iron way gliding, the Angel of Change | 75 |
| Spread his dusky wings wide o’er thy bounds, | |
| |
| He will pass; there ’ll be grass on his track, | |
| And the pick of the miner in vain | |
| Shall search the dark void; while the stones of Carnac | |
| And the word of the Breton remain. | 80 |
| |
| Farewell; up the waves of the Rance, | |
| See, we stream back our pennon of smoke: | |
| Farewell, russet skirt of the fine robe of France, | |
| Rugged land of the granite and oak! | |
