Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
A Farewell to Wales
By Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)T
Farewell, and a blessing be with thee, green land!
On thy hearths, on thy halls, on thy pure mountain air,
On the chords of the harp, and the minstrel’s free hand,
From the love of my soul with my tears it is shed,
As I leave thee, green land of my home and my dead!
In the heart of thy hills, on the rocks of thy shore;
And not for the memory set deep in thy dells,
Of the bard and the hero, the mighty of yore;
And not for thy songs of those proud ages fled,—
Green land, poet land of my home and my dead!
Where’er a low hamlet smiles up to thy skies;
For thy cottage hearths burning the stranger to greet,
For the soul that shines forth from thy children’s kind eyes!
May the blessing, like sunshine, about thee be spread,
Green land of my childhood, my home, and my dead!