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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  For a Monument in the Vale of Ewias

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Wales: Ewias

For a Monument in the Vale of Ewias

By Robert Southey (1774–1843)

HERE was it, stranger, that the patron saint

Of Cambria passed his age of penitence,

A solitary man; and here he made

His hermitage, the roots his food, his drink

Of Hodney’s mountain stream. Perchance thy youth

Has read with eager wonder how the Knight

Of Wales in Ormandine’s enchanted bower

Slept the long sleep; and, if that in thy veins

Flow the pure blood of Britain, sure that blood

Hath flowed with quicker impulse at the tale

Of David’s deeds, when through the press of war

His gallant comrades followed his green crest

To victory. Stranger! Hatterill’s mountain heights,

And this fair vale of Ewias, and the stream

Of Hodney, to thine afterthoughts will rise

More grateful, thus associate with the name

Of David and the deeds of other days.