On Leaving London for Wales
Lines:37Movement:Romanticism
Hail to thee, Cambria! for the unfettered windWhich from thy wilds even now methinks I feel,Chasing the clouds that roll in wrath behind,And tightening the soul's laxest nerves to steel;True mountain Liberty alone may healThe pain which Custom's obduracies bring,And he who dares in fancy even to stealOne draught from Snowdon's ever sacred springBlots out the unholiest rede of worldly witnessing. And shall that soul, to selfish peace resigned,So soon forget the woe its fellows share?Can Snowdon's Lethe from the free-born mindSo soon the page of injured penury tear?Does this fine mass of human passion dareTo sleep, unhonouring the patriot's fall,Or life's sweet load in quietude to bearWhile millions famish even in Luxury's hall,And Tyranny, high raised, stern lowers on all? No, Cambria! never may thy matchless valesA heart so false to hope and virtue shield;Nor ever may thy spirit-breathing galesWaft freshness to the slaves who dare to yield.For me!...the weapon that I burn to wieldI seek amid thy rocks to ruin hurled,That Reason's flag may over Freedom's field,Symbol of bloodless victory, wave unfurled,A meteor-sign of love effulgent o'er the world. ... Do thou, wild Cambria, calm each struggling thought;Cast thy sweet veil of rocks and woods between,That by the soul to indignation wroughtMountains and dells be mingled with the scene;Let me forever be what I have been,But not forever at my needy doorLet Misery linger speechless, pale and lean;I am the friend of the unfriended poor,--Let me not madly stain their righteous cause in gore.