The Death of Saul | Page 7

J.C. Manning
was fallen."--II SAMUEL, i., 5, 10.
PALM SUNDAY IN WALES.
FLOWERING SUNDAY.
PRIZE POEM.
WREXHAM NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD, 1876.
Fifteen competed for the prize of 5 pounds, and a silver medal for the
best English poem, never before published, upon any distinctively
Welsh subject. Mr. Osborne Morgan, M.P., Mr. Trevor Parkins, and the
Rev. Ll. Thomas adjudicated. The latter gave the award.

Out by the hedgerows, along by the steep;
Through the meadows;
away and away,
Where the daisies, like stars, through the green grass
peep, And the snowdrops and violets, waking from sleep,
Look forth
at the dawning day.
Down by the brooklet--by murmuring rills,
By rivers that glide along;

Where the lark in the heavens melodiously trills,
And the air the
wild blossom with perfume fills,
The shimmering leaves among.
Through the still valley; along by the pool,
Where the daffodil's
bosom of gold
So shyly expands to the breezes cool
As they
murmur, like children coming from school,
In whisperings over the
wold.
In the dark coppice, where fairies dwell,
Where the wren and the
red-breast build;
Along the green lanes, through dingle and dell,

O'er bracken and brake, and moss-covered fell,
Where the primroses
pathways gild.
Hither and thither the tiny feet
Of children gaily sped,
In the cool
grey dawn of the morning sweet,
Plucking wild flowers--an offering
meet
To garnish the graves of the dead.
Out from the beaten pathway, quaint and white,
The village church--a
crumbling pile--is seen;
It stands in solitude midst mounds of green

Like ancient dame in moss-grown cloak bedight.
The mantling ivy clings around its form--
The patient growth of many
and many a year.
As though a gentle hand had placed it there
To
shield the tottering morsel from the storm.
A sombre cypress rears its mournful head
Above the porch, through
which, in days gone by,
Young men and maidens sped so hopefully,

That now lie slumbering with the silent dead:

The silent dead, that round the olden pile
Crumble to dust as though
they ne'er had been.
Whose graven annals, writ o'er billows green,

Though voiceless, tell sad stories all the while.
And as they speak in speechless eloquence,
The waving shadows of
the cypress fall
In spectral patches on the quaint old wall,
Nodding
in wise and ghostly reticence
In silent sanction at the stories told
By each decrepit, wizen-featured
stone,
That seems to muse, like ancient village crone
Belost in
thought o'er memories strange and old.
Outside the stunted boundary, a row
Of poplars tall--beside whose
haughty mien
And silky rustlings of whose robes of green
The
lowly church still humbler seems to grow.
A-near the lych-gate in the crumbling wall,
A spreading oak,
grotesque and ancient, stands,
Like aged monk extending prayerful
hands
In silent benediction over all,
'Twas early morn: the red sun glinted o'er
The hazy sky-line of the
far-off hill:
Below, the valley slept so calm and still--
A misty sea
engirt by golden shore.
Out in the dim and dreamy distance rose
A spectral range of alp-like
scenery--
Mountain on mountain, far as eye could see,
Their
foreheads white and hoar with wintry snows.
And as I leaned the low-built wall upon
That shut the little
churchyard from the road,
Children and maidens into Death's abode,

With wild flow'rs laden, wandered one by one.
And in their midst, stooping and white with age,
Rich in their wealth
of quaint old village lore,
Came ancient dames, with faces furrowed
o'er,
That told of griefs in life's long pilgrimage.

The sun is rising now: the poplar tips
Are touched with liquid light:
the gravestones old,
And hoary church, are flushed with fringe of
gold,
As though embraced by angel's hallowed lips.
And with the morning sunshine children roam
To place wild flowers
where the loved ones slept;
O'er father, mother, sister--long since
swept
Away by death--with blossoms sweet they come.
Silent reminders of abiding love!
What tender language from each
petal springs!
Affection's tribute! Heart's best offerings!
Wanderers,
surely, from the realms above!
For heart-to-heart, and life-to-life, had been
The loves of those who
were and those who are;
Till death had severed them--O, cruel bar!

Leaving a dark and unknown stream between.
And on that stream, in loving fancy tossed,
Each faithful heart its
floral tribute threw,
As though the hope from out the tribute grew

To bridge the gulf the one beloved had crossed.
Near yonder grave there stands a widowed life:
Husband and son
beneath the grave-stone rest:
Some laurels tell, by tender lip caressed,

The changeless love of mother and of wife.
And o'er the bright green leaflets as they lie
She scatters snowdrops
with their waxen leaves,
And all the while her troubled bosom heaves

In tenderness, with many a sorrowing sigh.
Out from the light, to where the cypress shade
In mournful darkness
falls, a figure crept;
And as she knelt, the morning breezes swept
A
cloud of hair about her drooping head.
Her feet were small and slender, bare and white--
White as the
daisy-fringe on which she trod;
Like shimmering snowdrops in the
greening sod,
Or glow-worms glistening in the Summer night.

And as deep down in gloomy chasms seen
By those up-looking, stars
in daylight shine,
So shone the beauty of her face divine
In the dark
shadows of the cypress green.
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