Poems and Translations from the Ancient Celtic Bards (1843) - Page 23

⚠Page contains significant foxing and brown spotting.

THE DESERTED VALLEY.

But while the influence strove to dwell,

And parting reason still delayed,

One imaged charm dissolved the spell,—

My country's modest mountain maid! The speaker describes how the memory of a simple, honest woman from his homeland finally broke the "spell" of the exotic foreign luxuries he had been enjoying.

Oft on the deep, in eves of June,

I've leant beneath the slumb'ring sail ; slumb'ring sail: a poetic description of a ship's sail in very light wind, moving slowly as if asleep

The blue waves murmuring to the moon—

I musing on my native vale. original: "vale"; a valley, typically one that is lush and secluded.

Years passed away—full forty times—

My country smiled in summer's glow ;

And still I sought in other climes

What it could much and well bestow. The speaker reflects with some regret that he spent forty years searching abroad for fulfillment that his own home country could have provided him all along.

But prudence came with youth's decay, youth's decay: the transition from the vitality of youth to the wisdom and physical decline of old age

And taught my long deluded eye

That pleasure was a transient ray, transient ray: a metaphor for happiness that is as brief and fleeting as a single beam of light

And false its winning witchery.

Then truant fancy truant fancy: a wandering or straying imagination that has neglected its duties or its home would be fain

Once more amidst thy wilds to stray :

Hope whispered fond salutes again,

And sweetly cheered my homeward way.