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* * * * * WILD Dartmoor! thou that midst thy mountains rude | |
| Hast robed thyself with haughty solitude, | |
| As a dark cloud on summer’s clear blue sky,— | |
| A mourner circled with festivity! | |
| For all beyond is life!—the rolling sea, | 5 |
| The rush, the swell, whose echoes reach not thee. | |
| Yet who shall find a scene so wild and bare | |
| But man has left his lingering traces there! | |
| E’en on mysterious Afric’s boundless plains, | |
| Where noon with attributes of midnight reigns, | 10 |
| In gloom and silence fearfully profound, | |
| As of a world unwaked to soul or sound. | |
| Though the sad wanderer of the burning zone | |
| Feels, as amidst infinity, alone, | |
| And naught of life be near, his camel’s tread | 15 |
| Is o’er the prostrate cities of the dead! | |
| Some column, reared by long-forgotten hands, | |
| Just lifts its head above the billowy sands,— | |
| Some mouldering shrine still consecrates the scene, | |
| And tells that glory’s footstep there hath been. | 20 |
| There hath the spirit of the mighty passed, | |
| Not without record; though the desert blast, | |
| Borne on the wings of Time, hath swept away | |
| The proud creations reared to brave decay. | |
| But thou, lone region! whose unnoticed name | 25 |
| No lofty deeds have mingled with their fame, | |
| Who shall unfold thine annals? who shall tell | |
| If on thy soil the sons of heroes fell, | |
| In those far ages which have left no trace, | |
| No sunbeam, on the pathway of their race? | 30 |
| Though, haply, in the unrecorded days | |
| Of kings and chiefs who passed without their praise, | |
| Thou might’st have reared the valiant and the free, | |
| In history’s page there is no tale of thee. | |
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| Yet hast thou thy memorials. On the wild | 35 |
| Still rise the cairns of yore, all rudely piled, | |
| But hallowed by that instinct which reveres | |
| Things fraught with characters of elder years. | |
| And such are these. Long centuries are flown, | |
| Bowed many a crest and shattered many a throne, | 40 |
| Mingling the urn, the trophy, and the bust, | |
| With what they hide,—their shrined and treasured dust. | |
| Men traverse alps and oceans, to behold | |
| Earth’s glorious works fast mingling with her mould; | |
| But still these nameless chronicles of death, | 45 |
| Midst the deep silence of the unpeopled heath, | |
| Stand in primeval artlessness, and wear | |
| The same sepulchral mien, and almost share | |
| The eternity of nature with the forms | |
| Of the crowned hills beyond, the dwellings of the storms. * * * * * | 50 |
| But ages rolled away; and England stood | |
| With her proud banner streaming o’er the flood; | |
| And with a lofty calmness in her eye, | |
| And regal in collected majesty, | |
| To breast the storm of battle. Every breeze | 55 |
| Bore sounds of triumph o’er her own blue seas; | |
| And other lands, redeemed and joyous, drank | |
| The lifeblood of her heroes, as they sank | |
| On the red fields they won; whose wild flowers wave | |
| Now in luxuriant beauty o’er their grave. | 60 |
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| ’T was then the captives of Britannia’s war | |
| Here for their lovely southern climes afar | |
| In bondage pined; the spell-deluded throng | |
| Dragged at Ambition’s chariot-wheels so long | |
| To die,—because a despot could not clasp | 65 |
| A sceptre fitted to his boundless grasp! | |
| |
| Yes! they whose march hath rocked the ancient thrones | |
| And temples of the world,—the deepening tones | |
| Of whose advancing trumpet from repose | |
| Had startled nations, wakening to their woes,— | 70 |
| Were prisoners here. And there were some whose dreams | |
| Were of sweet homes, by chainless mountain streams, | |
| And of the vine-clad hills, and many a strain | |
| And festal melody of Loire or Seine; | |
| And of those mothers who had watched and wept, | 75 |
| When on the field the unsheltered conscript slept, | |
| Bathed with the midnight dews. And some were there | |
| Of sterner spirits, hardened by despair; | |
| Who, in their dark imaginings, again | |
| Fired the rich palace and the stately fane, | 80 |
| Drank in their victim’s shriek as music’s breath, | |
| And lived o’er scenes, the festivals of death! * * * * * | |
| Yes! let the waste lift up the exulting voice! | |
| Let the far-echoing solitudes rejoice! | |
| And thou, lone moor! where no blithe reaper’s song | 85 |
| E’er lightly sped the summer-hours along, | |
| Bid thy wild rivers, from each mountain source | |
| Rushing in joy, make music on their course! | |
| Thou, whose sole records of existence mark | |
| The scene of barbarous rites, in ages dark, | 90 |
| And of some nameless combat; Hope’s bright eye | |
| Beams o’er thee in the light of prophecy! | |
| Yet shalt thou smile, by busy culture drest, | |
| And the rich harvest wave upon thy breast! | |
| Yet shall thy cottage-smoke, at dewy morn, | 95 |
| Rise in blue wreaths above the flowering thorn, | |
| And, midst thy hamlet-shades, the embosomed spire | |
| Catch from deep-kindling heavens their earliest fire. | |
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