The nights of palmy isles, that she will see
Lit boundless by the fire-fly, all the smells
Of tropic fruits that will regale her, — all
The pomp of nature, and the inspiriting
Varieties of life she has to greet,
Come swarming o'er the meditative mind.
True, to the dream of fancy Ocean has
His darker tints; but where 's the element
That checkers not its usefulness to man
With casual terror? Scathes not Earth sometimes
Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes
Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang
Of bells for their own ruin, strews them flat
As riddled ashes, - silent as the grave?
Walks not contagion on the air itself?
I should old Ocean's saturnalian days
And roaring nights of revelry and sport
With wreck and human woe be loath to sing;
For they are few, and all their ills weigh light
Against his sacred usefulness, that bids
Our pensile globe revolve in purer air.
Here morn and eve with blushing thanks receive
Their freshening dews, gay fluttering breezes cool
Their wings to fan the brow of fevered climes,
And here the spring dips down her emerald urn
For showers to glad the earth.
Infinity of ages ere we breathed
Existence, and he will be beautiful
When all the living world that sees him now
Shall roll unconscious dust around the sun.
Quelling from age to age the vital throb
In human hearts, death shall not subjugate
The pulse that swells in his stupendous breast,
Or interdict his minstrelsy to sound
In thundering concert with the quiring winds;
But long as man to parent nature owns
Instinctive homage, and in times beyond
The power of thought to reach, bard after bard
Shall sing thy glory, BEATIFIC SEA.
THE DOOM-WELL OF ST. MADRON.
"PLUNGE thy right hand in St. Madron's spring,
If true to its troth be the palm you bring;
But if a false sigil thy fingers bear,
Lay them the rather on the burning share.”
Loud laughed King Arthur when-as he heard
That solemn friar his boding word;
And blithely he sware as a king he may,
"We tryst for St. Madron's at break of day."
"Now horse and hattock, both but and ben,"
Was the cry at Lauds, with Dundagel men;
And forth they pricked upon Routorr side,
As goodly a raid as a king could ride.
Proud Gwennivar rode like a queen of the land,
With page and with squire at her bridle hand;
And the twice six knights of the stony ring,
They girded and guarded their Cornish king.
Then they halted their steeds at St. Madron's cell,
And they stood by the monk of the cloistered well;
"Now off with your gauntlets," King Arthur he cried,
"And glory or shame for our Tamar side."
'T were sooth to sing how Sir Gauvain smiled,
When he grasped the waters so soft and mild;
How Sir Lancelot dashed the glistening spray
O'er the rugged beard of the rough Sir Kay.
Sir Bevis he touched and he found no fear;
'T was a benitée stoup to Sir Belvidere ;
How the fountain flashed o'er King Arthur's Queen,
Say, Cornish dames, for ye guess the scene.
"Now rede me my riddle, Sir Mordred, I pray,
My kinsmen, mine ancient, my Bien-aimé ;
Now rede me my riddle, and rede it aright,
Art thou traitorous knave or my trusty knight ? "
He plunged his right arm in the judgment well,
It bubbled and boiled like a caldron of hell:
He drew and he lifted his quivering limb,
Ha! Sir Judas, how Madron had sodden him.
Now let Uter Pendragon do what he can,
Still the Tamar River will run as it ran;
Let king or let kaisar be fond or be fell,
Ye may harowe their troth in St. Madron's well.
Robert Stephen Hawker.
HILE summer airs scarce breathe along the tide,
Oft pausing, up the mountain's scraggy side
We climb, how beautiful, how still, how clear
The scenes that stretch around! The rocks that rear
Their shapes in rich fantastic colors dressed,
The hill-tops where the softest shadows rest,
The long-retiring bay, the level sand,
The fading sea-line and the farthest land,
That seems, as low it lessens from the eye,
To steal away beneath the cloudless sky!
But yesterday the misty morn was spread
In dreariness on the bleak mountain's head;
No glittering prospect from the upland smiled,
The driving squall came dark, the sea heaved wild,
And, lost and lonely, the wayfarer sighed,
Wet with the hoar spray of the flashing tide.
How changed is now the circling scene! The deep Stirs not; the glancing roofs and white towers peep Along the margin of the lucid bay;
The sails descried far in the offing gray
Hang motionless, and the pale headland's height
Is touched as with sweet gleams of fairy light!
O, lives there on earth's busy stirring scene,
Whom nature's tranquil charms, her airs serene,
Her seas, her skies, her sunbeams, fail to move
With stealing tenderness and grateful love!
Go, thankless man, to misery's care, - behold
Captivity stretched in her dungeon cold!
Or think on those who, in yon dreary mine
Sunk fathoms deep beneath the rolling brine,
From year to year amid the lurid shade,
O'er-wearied ply their melancholy trade;
That thou may'st bless the glorious sun, and hail
Him who with beauty clothed the hill and vale,
Who bent the arch of the high heavens for thee,
And stretched in amplitude the broad blue sea!
Now sunk are all its murmurs; and the air
But moves by fits the bents that here and there
Upshoot in casual spots of faded green:
Here straggling sheep the scanty pasture glean,
Or on the jutting fragments that impend,
Stray fearlessly, and gaze as we ascend.
Mountain, no pomp of waving woods hast thou,
That deck with varied shade thy hoary brow;
No sunny meadows at thy feet are spread,
No streamlets sparkle o'er their pebbly bed!
But thou canst boast thy beauties: ample views
That catch the rapt eye of the pausing Muse;
Headlands around new-lighted; sails and seas,
Now glassy-smooth, now wrinkling to the breeze;
And when the drizzly winter, wrapped in sleet,
Goes by, and winds and rain thy ramparts beat,
Fancy can see thee standing thus aloof,
And frowning, bleak and bare and tempest-proof,
Look as with awful confidence, and brave
The howling hurricane, the dashing wave;
More graceful when the storm's dark vapors frown
Than when the summer suns in pomp go down!
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