Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AFTER GOING BEYOND TALLEY ABBEY IN OCTOBER, by ARTHUR GLYN PRYS-JONES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AFTER GOING BEYOND TALLEY ABBEY IN OCTOBER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Was ever valley road so full of sound
Last Line: Turn in his tracks and swiftly steal away.
Subject(s): October; Pilgrimages & Pilgrims; Roads; Travel; Wales; Paths; Trails; Journeys; Trips; Welshmen; Welshwomen


I

WAS ever valley road so full of sound
And mellow sweetness as the league I came
Between the mountains to enchanted ground
Burnt warm and wondrous by autumnal flame?
Along that road I could have sworn I heard
Ap Gwilym, lithe and laughing, in the brake,
Calling on Morfudd—and for Morfudd's sake
Outpouring songs of passion, like a bird.

II

And then at eve, when drooping dusk drew near,
I sat with neighbourly, moss-rooted trees
And watched the moon that bathed in Talley mere,
And heard, dim-wafted on the downward breeze
Across the stubbled fields, from hill to hill,
The echoing orisons that still
Lie captive in the heart of moor and stream,
And saw the singers, darkly as in a dream ...
The pilgrim bands who passed the abbey door
Chanting their sorrows centuries before.

III

And to the uplands, where in days of old
The Romans ranged the secret hills for gold,
I turned and looked—and saw, in moonlight gay,
October, that red fox with tail on fire
Who makes the woodlands blaze from shire to shire,
Turn in his tracks and swiftly steal away.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net