Part 2 — SCENE IN A DALECARLIAN MINE. (continued 2)
Reading edition
“Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn.”
Here, on what the boys would call ‘mamma’s sofa’—a little grassy mound under her favourite beech-tree—she first read The Talisman, and has described the scene with a loving minuteness in her Hour of Romance:—
“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.”
Many years after, in the sonnet “To a Distant Scene,” she addresses, with a fond yearning, this well-remembered haunt:—
“Still are the cowslips from thy bosom springing, O far-off grassy dell!”
How many precious memories has she hung round the thought of the cowslip—that flower, with its “gold coat” and “fairy favours,” which is, of all others, so associated with the “voice of happy childhood,” and was to her ever redolent of the hours when her
“Heart so leapt to that sweet laughter’s tone!”
Another favourite resort was the picturesque old bridge over the Clwyd, and when her health (which was subject to continual variation, but was at this time more robust than usual) admitted of more aspiring achievements, she delighted in roaming to the hills; and the announcement of a walk to Cwm,[340] a remote little hamlet, nestled in a mountain hollow, amidst very lovely sylvan scenery, about two miles from Rhyllon, would be joyously echoed by her elated companions, to whom the recollection of these happy rambles must always be unspeakably dear. Very often, at the outset of these expeditions, the party would be reinforced by the addition of a certain little Kitty Jones, a child from a neighbouring cottage, who had taken an especial fancy to Mrs Hemans, and was continually watching her movements. This little creature never saw her without at once attaching herself to her side, and confidingly placing its tiny hand in hers. So great was her love for children, and her repugnance to hurt the feelings of any living creature, that she never would shake off this singular appendage, but let little Kitty rejoice in her “pride of place,” till the walk became too long for her capacity, and she would quietly fall behind of her own accord.—Memoir, p. 87-93.]