Fair, shining mountains

One last snap from the Brecon Beacons ...

... and so here's a famous Henry Vaughan poem about the local area - it might be quite old now, but still captures the essence of the time and the landscape:


The Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains

Fair, shining mountains of my pilgrimage,
And flow'ry vales, whose flow'rs were stars:
The days and nights of my first happy age;
An age without distaste and wars:
When I by thoughts ascend your sunny heads,
And mind those sacred midnight lights,
By which I walked, when curtained rooms and beds
Confined, or sealed up others' sights:
O then how bright
And quick a light
Doth brush my heart and scatter night;
Chasing that shade
Which my sins made,
While I so spring, as if I could not fade!

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Henry Vaughan (1621 - 1695)

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