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.