Felicia Dorothea Hemans

The River Clwyd, in North Wales

O CAMBRIAN river! with slow music gliding
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruined towers;
Now midst thy reeds and golden willows hiding;
Now gleaming forth by some rich bank of flowers;
Long flowed the current of my life’s clear hours
Onward with thine, whose voice yet haunts my dream,
Though time and change and other mightier powers
Far from thy side have borne me. Thou, smooth stream!
Art winding still thy sunny meads along,
Murmuring to cottage and gray hall thy song,
Low, sweet, unchanged. My being’s tide hath passed
Through rocks and storms; yet will I not complain,
If, thus wrought free and pure from earthly stain,
Brightly its waves may reach their parent deep at last.