Classic Poem

Where, among the midland hills,
Wooded blue the distance fills,
Years ere I became a man
Western ways my fancy ran:
Ere its tide was up to flood
Westward, westward turned my blood.

Hills on which the day went down,
Mists that rose from Malvern town,
Severn's windings, Worcester's towers
Beaconed all my boyhood's hours:
Ere my feet could run a mile
How the distance seemed to smile!

Over highways far descried
East and west the world went wide;
But the steeps of rising day
Never won my heart away:
Twilight fell, and in my breast
Burned the fever of the west.

Oft since then, from mart and street
Westward have I turned my feet,
Facing, as the daylight fails,
The dark border-land of Wales,—
Hills which keep with rugged face
Watch against an alien race.

Those dark hills, by blood embrued,
Hold embraced a deathless feud;
There embosomed, buried deep,
How the murdered ages sleep!
In the land for which I pine
Race is still the border-line.

Challenged by that stubborn face,
I confess my English race;
From my blood an answer runs—
“You I love, but not your sons!”
'Tis the west land, not its breed,
Spurs my eager feet to speed.

'Mid the silence of her hills
Soft and clear the curlew shrills,
Out across a driven sky
Wind-blown plovers beat and cry,
Still with passionate unrest
Guarding the unsheltered nest.

Wind and wasteland, sound and sight,
Minister to my delight;
Only at some lonely farm
Darts the look suspecting harm;
Only man, on man his mate,
Turns the counter glance of hate.

English foot on field or hill
Seems to him invasion still;
Quick at sight his thought grows hot,—
You are that which he is not:
Though it held no horse before,
Taffy locks his stable door!

Ere you question, Taffy cries:
“I am telling you no lies!”
Ere you hint a disbelief,
Taffy swears he is no thief:
Loudly he, with braggart stir,
Boasts a blameless character.

Aye, ye hills, 'tis true indeed,—
I am of an alien breed:
All the wrong your bards have sung
Sharpens still the Welshman's tongue:
He, for fear lest foe go fed,
Puts no salt into his bread!

Blood, which is not mine to change,
Draws me west, but makes it strange:
From the hills which hem me round
Ever comes a warning sound:
“Till the friendly life-blood fails,
Keep you from the men of Wales!”