Welsh Journals

community. We have all been in the fiery furnace, the upper classes, the middle classes, the lower classes, if there be such a thing." This frank recognition of the better spirit born of common suffering, and the courageous resolve to approach political questions under its softening influence, may well be regarded as the harbinger of a happier settle- ment of the Church in Wales than most of us dared enter tain four years ago. This appeal must necessarily suffer from the fact that it comes from one who can reinforce it with no qualification save that of being a Cymro passionately loving the beautiful land of his birth and upbringing. But just as in a Cymanfa Ganu," a small and single voice derives dignity and power from mingling with an immense and majestic choir, so in the consciousness that I speak the sentiment of millions I take courage in thus addressing you, and having in the past often felt you to be just, I trustfully look for toleration. The course which I have A SONG OF PRAISE For the wild beauty of that afternoon I thank thee, Lord and for the clean cold air Which swept the upland path For the dusky woods, with slender trunks of trees, And level branches, holding back the sun From the fir-strewn floor For the path which took us out upon the hill, Through lanes still green, and quarry overgrown With silvery clematis. For the far off view of coast, and smoky town, The hill-top's gift; all ugliness wiped out In a soft blur of grey For the shifting lights and shadows on the hills The bracken, burning in its Autumn brown The distant blue of mists For the white clouds, tossed wildly from the west; For the paths, all damp, reflecting in the sun The blue of the heavens For the beech trees, gold and green, scattering their leaves Upon the sun-shot air; the hawthorn clumps Rich with red fruit. For the wind which sang in the trees and the grass; The mystery of the storm cloud which arose And blotted out the hills For the lurid pink which showed beneath the ridge Of heavy purple, beaconing from afar With threatening, or with hope ventured to suggest, and still more the attitude for which I have pleaded, would doubtless bring upon you the anathemas of that little coterie of implacable politicians who are as relentless amid the moral thunderings of this Armageddon as they ever were. They are not repre- sentative of public feeling. All the signs of the times indicate that in adopting a generous and helpful attitude towards the Church in Wales you would have the support and gratitude of the great mass of our imaginative, affec- tionate, and deeply religious compatriots. The main concern of the Cymry on emerging from the fiery furnace will be, not slavish consistency with the past, but the adoption of a fresh outlook, wherein the broad and in- spiring motives of the glory of God and the real well-being of His people will guide and elevate and sanctify political policies. Gwell Duw na Dim." I have the honour to be, Sir, Knighton Vicarage, Your obedient servant, Leicester. R. E. Roberts. For the rain shower, which swept across the slopes, A watery curtain, chilly with a breath From the North-west; For the dripping of the trees, the good damp smell, The clearing of the sky and then the pale Primrose of twilight. For the comradeship which made the way more fair For the washing of the body and the soul, The body with pure air, the spirit with Deep draughts of loveliness For these I thank thee most, dear Lord. F.L.W. Autumn, 1917. SEPTEMBER Sweet lyrist summer pauses in her southern flight, And, in a mist of lavender and thyme Dreams on the Sussex hills- And, dreaming, sleeps and, sleeping, dreams That sun-burnt Autumn took her in a glad embrace, And wakes to find it so. When, from the sea, come Shades of summers long since dead, Each aids to bear a new made shroud, Of sea-fogs woven,- Which they wind and turn and swathe around Mute summer, Lionel W. Young.