By Faughan is a short lyric about a river valley in autumn, where hills, woods, and streams feel both immediate and remembered. The speaker is alone, piping above a cove, and he imagines autumn as a weaver making wind out of old sounds the hills still recall. The landscape is active but gentle: sea-misted hills rise against the sky, summer passes overhead, and small roads struggle prettily toward the sea. The River Faughan itself becomes music, broken over rocks like bells. There is a quiet, wistful mood here—part celebration of a loved place, part reflection on seasons passing. The weaving, bell-like imagery gives the valley a delicate, handcrafted feel, as if nature is composing a song. The closing lines suggest the speaker finds that song in the charged stillness between silence and wind, and offers it tenderly to someone he cares about.
By Faughan — Summary
For hills and woods and streams unsung I pipe above a rippled cove. And here the weaver autumn hung Between the hills a wind she wove From sounds the hills remember yet Of purple days and violet.
The hills stand up to trip the sky, Sea-misted, and along the tops Wing after wing goes summer by, And many a little roadway stops And starts, and struggles to the sea, Cutting them up in filigree.
Twixt wind and silence Faughan flows, In music broken over rocks, Like mingled bells the poet knows Ring in the fields of Eastern flocks. And here this song for you I find Between the silence and the wind.