And he sat down upon the bank,
Under the willow-tree.
There came a man from the house hard by,
At the well to fill his pail;
On the well-side he rested it,
And he bade the stranger hail.
"Now, art thou a bachelor, stranger?" quoth he;
'For, an if thou hast a wife,
The happiest draught thou hast drank this day
That ever thou didst in thy life.
"Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast, Ever here in Cornwall been?
For, an if she have, I'll venture my life
She has drank of the Well of St. Keyne."
"I have left a good woman who never was here," The stranger he made reply;
"But that my draught should be the better for that, I pray you answer me why."
"St. Keyne," quoth the Cornish-man, "many a time Drank of this crystal well;
And, before the angel summoned her,
She laid on the water a spell,
"If the husband of this gifted well
Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man thenceforth is he,
For he shall be master for life;
"But if the wife should drink of it first,
God help the husband then!"
The stranger stooped to the Well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.
"You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes?"
He to the Cornish-man said;
But the Cornish-man smiled as the stranger spake, And sheepishly shook his head:
"I hastened, as soon as the wedding was done, And left my wife in the porch;
But i' faith she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church."
ON THE VIEW FROM ST. LEONARD'S.
TAIL to thy face and odors, glorious Sea!
'T were thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great, beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile My heart beats calmer, and my very mind Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world! Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. Even gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes With all the darling field-flowers in their prime,
And gardens haunted by the nightingale's
Long trills and gushing ecstasies of song,
For these wild headlands, and the sea-mews clang.
With thee beneath my windows, pleasant Sea,
I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades
And green savannahs, earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine;
The eagle's vision cannot take it in;
The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space,
Sinks half-way o'er it like a wearied bird;
It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their hosts within the concave firmament,
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once.
Nor on the stage
Of rural landscape are there lights and shades
Of more harmonious dance and play than thine.
How vividly this moment brightens forth,
Between gray parallel and leaden breadths,
A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league,
Flushed like the rainbow, or the ringdove's neck,
And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing
The semblance of a meteor.
Chameleon-like thou changest, but there's love
In all thy change, and constant sympathy
With yonder Sky, — thy mistress; from her brow
Thou tak'st thy moods and wear'st her colors on
Thy faithful bosom; morning's milky white,
Noon's sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve;
And all thy balmier hours, fair Element,
Have such divine complexion, crispéd smiles,
Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings,
That little is the wonder Love's own Queen
From thee of old was fabled to have sprung,
Creation's common! which no human power
Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods
And cataracts that the tiny hands of man
Can tame, conduct, or bound are drops of dew
To thee, that couldst subdue the earth itself,
And brook'st commandment from the heavens alone For marshalling thy waves.
Yet, potent Sea!
How placidly thy moist lips speak even now
Along yon sparkling shingles. Who can be
So fanciless as to feel no gratitude
That power and grandeur can be so serene,
Soothing the home-bound navy's peaceful way,
And rocking even the fisher's little bark
As gently as a mother rocks her child?
The inhabitants of other worlds behold
Our orb more lucid for thy spacious share
On earth's rotundity; and is he not
A blind worm in the dust, great Deep, the man
Who sees not, or who seeing has no joy
In thy magnificence? What though thou art
Unconscious and material, thou canst reach
The inmost immaterial mind's recess,
And with thy tints and motion stir its chords
To music, like the light on Memnon's lyre!
The Spirit of the Universe in thee
Is visible; thou hast in thee the life,
The eternal, graceful, and majestic life
Of nature, and the natural human heart
Is therefore bound to thee with holy love.
Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea
Has spires and mansions more amusive still,
Men's volant homes that measure liquid space
On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land
With pained and panting steeds and clouds of dust
Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair
Careerers with the foam beneath their bows,
Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day,
Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night,
Moored as they cast the shadows of their masts
In long array, or hither flit and yond
Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights,
Like spirits on the darkness of the deep.
There is a magnet-like attraction in
These waters to the imaginative power
That links the viewless with the visible,
And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond
Yon highway of the world my fancy flies,
When by her tall and triple mast we know
Some noble voyager that has to woo
The trade-winds and to stem the ecliptic surge.
The coral groves, the shores of conch and pearl
Where she will cast her anchor and reflect
Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves,
And under planets brighter than our own;
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