Bronwylfa and Rhyllon

You ugliest of fabrics! you horrible eyesore! I wish you would vanish, or put on a visor! In the face of the sun, without covering or rag on, You stand and outstare me, like any red dragon. With your great green-eyed windows, in boldness a host, (The only green things which, indeed, you can boast,) With your forehead as high, and as bare as the pate Which an eagle once took for a stone or a slate, You lift yourself up, o’er the country afar, As who would say, “Look at me!–here stands great R!” I plant–I rear forest trees–shrubs great and small, To wrap myself up in–you peer through them all! With your lean scraggy neck o’er my poplars you rise; You watch all my guests with your wide saucer eyes. (In a paroxysm of rage.)You monster! I would I could waken some morning, And find you had taken French leave without warning; You should never be sought like Aladdin’s famed palace. You spoil my sweet temper–you make me bear malice: For it is a hard fate, I will say it and sing, Which has fix’d me to gaze on so frightful a thing. Rhyllon–(with dignified equanimity.)Content thee, Bronwylfa, what means all this rage? This sudden attack on my quiet old age? I am no parvenu: you and I, my good brother, Have stood here this century facing each other; And I can remember the days that are gone, When your sides were no better array’d than my own. Nay, the truth shall be told–since you flout me, restore The tall scarlet woodbine you took from my door! Since my baldness is mocked, and I’m forced to explain, Pray give me my large laurustinus again. (With a tone of prophetic solemnity.)Bronwylfa! Bronwylfa! thus insolent grown, Your pride and your poplars alike must come down! I look through the future (and far I can see, As St Asaph and Denbigh will answer for me,) And in spite of thy scorn, and of all thou hast done, From my kind heart’s brick bottom, I pity thee, Bron! The end of thy toiling and planting will be, That thou wilt want sunshine, and ask it of me. Thou wilt say, when thou wakest, looking out for the light, “I suppose it is morning, for Rhyllon looks bright;” While I–my green eyes with their tears overflow. (Tenderly.)Come!–let us be friends, as we were long ago.” Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn.”

There were thick leaves above me and around, And low sweet sighs, like those of childhood’s sleep, Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound As of soft showers on water. Dark and deep Lay the oak shadows o’er the turf–so still They seem’d but pictured glooms; a hidden rill Made music–such as haunts us in a dream– Under the fern-tufts; and a tender gleam Of soft green light, as by the glow-worm shed, Came pouring through the woven beech-boughs down.”

Still are the cowslips from thy bosom springing, O far-off grassy dell!”