Wicklow Winds

From “Wicklow” YES, this is Wicklow; round our feet And o’er our heads its woodlands smile; Behold it, love—the garden sweet And playground of our stormy isle.* * * * * Is it not fair—the leafy land? Not boasting Nature’s sterner pride, Voluptuous beauty, scenes that stand By minds immortal deified.* * * * * Fair when the woodland strains and creaks As loud the gathering whirlwinds blow, And through the smoke-like mists the Peaks In warm autumnal purples glow; When madly toss the bracken’s plumes Storm-swept upon the seaward steep, As far below them foams and fumes On beach and cliff the wrathful deep, Till cloud and tempest, creeping lower, Old Djouce’s ridges swathe in night, And down through all his hollows pour The foaming torrents swoln and white; Or when o’er Powerscourt’s leafless woods, With crests that down the tempest lean, Bend, braving winter’s fiercest moods, The pines in all their wealth of green.