In reply to Sion Roberts:
These are my riches, that none can take away from me,
Stored as mountain grass is stored in the byre;
These shall shine of an evening when winter befalls me,
Sitting by the fire.
Mine are the torrents and the timeless hills,
The rock face, the heather and the rain,
The summits where the life-wind thrums and thrills,
And, answering, the glad heart sings again:
The good grey rock that loves a grasping hand,
The stress of body and the soul’s rebirth
On the tall peak where gods and men may stand
Breathless above the kingdoms of the earth:
The drowse of summer on the sunlit crags
Lulled in the blue and shimmering air of June,
When Time, the lazy mountain- traveller, lags
To dream with us an endless afternoon:
The ice-wind stealing downwards from the crest
To hush with frost the reedy river’s flow,
When all the mountain land on winter’s breast
Sleeps, in the deathly silence of the snow.
These are my riches, these and the bright remembering
Of ridge and buttress and sky-shouldering spire;
These I shall count, when I am old, of an evening,
Sitting by the fire.
By the late Showell Styles
