Poem by Robert Leighton

The Gorsy Glen

BETWEEN Loch-Foyle and Greenan’s ancient fort,
  From Derry’s famous walls a little way,
There dreams a gorsy glen, in whose lone heart
          I mused a Sabbath day.

A nameless glen, one mass of yellow gorse,
  That hides the sparkle of a trotting burn,
Save where in dimpling pools it stays its force,
          Or takes a rocky turn.

The sandy linnet sang, the tiny wren
  Poured in the burn its tiny melodies.	
The air was honey-laden, and the glen
          All murmurous with bees.

A straggling crow, upon its woodward way,
  Might start an echo with its rusty croak;
But all around the quiet Sabbath lay,
          Hushed from the week-day yoke.

Near, yet all hidden from, the ways of men,
  No foot into my sanctuary stole;
I wandered with my shadow in the glen,—
          The only living soul.

Yet many more were in the glen, ’t would seem:
  I heard, or thought I heard, their whispered words,
And knew ’t was not the bees, the babbling stream,
          Or carol of the birds.

And sometimes through the sunniest gleams of day
  There passed a light intenser than the gleam,—
A living soul without its grosser clay?
          Or but my waking dream?

Who knows? who knows? The dream to-day is found
  A verity to-morrow. Things have been
Forever with us in our daily round,
          Though now but newly seen.

Ah! could we by a purer life refine
  The veil that keeps the inward from our ken,
No lonely fellowship had then been mine
          Within the gorsy glen.

1. Seven Churches of Clonmacnoise
2. Glen-Messen
3. Near Dunbar
4. York Minster
5. Stratford-on-Avon

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