Ballade of Exmoor
Fly westward, westward, gentle wind,
Where erst we trod the windy ways;
And wake within her wayward mind
The memory of forgotten days.
The stars step forth aslant the bays,
The still moon silvers tower and tree,
And never sound the silence frays
Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.
So soft, so strange the light that lined
The ferny moors, the forest maze,
Till all the west was smitten blind
With glamour of the golden haze;
What time we watch’d the stag upraise
His lordly brow by linn and lea,
To fright the morris of the fays
Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.
O’er the dim passes flung behind
The dying daylight all ablaze,
About those dainty tresses twined
One aureole of dreamy rays,
And many a winged lamp that strays
Darkling his weird in heaven to dree,
Lit the rare eyne downdrops to gaze
Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.
Envoy.
O westward wind, whose low breath sways
Her locks, whereto night’s shadows flee,
Bear hence a lilt of summer lays
Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.
F. S. P.