THE BLUEBELLS OF WERNOLEU: a Welsh Legend by Kenneth Morris

OUT of the bluebell bloom of the night When the east's agloom and the west's agleam. Over the wern at Alder-Light And the dark stile and the stream, There's dew comes dropping of dream-delight To the deeps where the bluebells dream. It's then there's brooding on wizard stories All too secret for speech or song, And rapture of rose and daffodil glories Where the lone stream wandereth long; And I think the whole of the Druids' lore is Known to the bluebell throng. For they say that a sky-bee wandered of old From her island hive in the Pleiades, Winging o'er star-strewn realms untold, And the brink of star-foamed seas— Thighs beladen with dust of gold, As is the wont of bees. She left the hives of magical pearl, Of dark-heart sapphire and pearl and dreams, Where the flowers of the noon and the night unfurl Their rose-rimmed blooms and beams— Fain of the wandering foam awhirl On the wild Dimetian streams, Of the rhododendron bloom on the hills— (There's dear, red bloom in the pine-dark dell)— Of rhododendron and daffodils, And the blue campanula bell, And the cuckoo-pint by the tiny rills That rise in Tybie's Well. (And where's the wonder, if all were known? There's many in Michael's hosts that ride Would lay down scepter and crown and throne, And their aureoled pomp and pride, So they might wander and muse alone An hour by the Teifi side. And if anything lovely is under the sky, That the eye beholds, or the proud heart dreams, When the pomp of the world goes triumphing by, When the sea with the sunlight gleams— It's show you a lovelier thing could I, 'Twixt Tywi and Teifi streams. Let be! whatever of praise be sung, Here's one could never make straight the knee, Nor stay the soul from its paeans flung Where the winds might flaunt them free, For a thousand o' mountains, cloud-fleece hung, 'Twixt Hafren Hen and the sea.) Musing, down through the firmament vales, Here and there in a thousand flowers, Even till at last she was wandering Wales, Lured by the pure June hours, Lured by the glamor of ancient tales, And the glory of age-old towers. Peony splendor of eve and dawn. Tulips abloom on the border of day, West on fire with the sun withdrawn, Night and the Milky Way— Ah, it was midnight's bluebell lawn Most in her heart held sway. O'er Bettws Mountain she came down slowly, Drowsy winged through the tangled wern; Where in the sky was there hill so holy, With so much glamor to burn, As the hyacinth wilds beyond Wernoleu, With their white bells 'mid the fern? Musing, round by the wern she wandered From bell to bell with her wings acroon, There where they laughed and nodded and pondered Through the beautiful hours of June; Bluebell-dark were the dreams she squandered On the gold and green of noon. And the wild white hyacinths, wondering, heard her, Suddenly caught by her starry song; Gave no more ear to the woodland bird, or Heeded the wild bee throng, Or laughed with delight of the sunbright verdure Of fern they had loved so long. Marvelous thought took hold of them wholly, Azure of mingled darkness and light, And they deepened to dark-heart sapphire slowly With brooding on the splendor of night; And the first of the bluebells of white Wernoleu Bloomed, night-blueness dight. And that's why the wern at Alder-Light Is sweet with silence and deep in dream, In that wizard region of dream-delight Beyond the stile and the stream, When the dews have fallen from the bloom of night On the glooms where the bluebells gleam.