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Written at the Needles Hotel, Alum Bay, Isle of Wight
HOW simple in their grandeur are the forms | |
| That constitute this picture! Nature grants | |
| Scarce more than sternest cynic might desire,— | |
| Earth, sea, and sky, and hardly lends to each | |
| Variety of color; yet the soul | 5 |
| Asks nothing fairer than the scene it grasps | |
| And makes its own forever! From the gate | |
| Of this home-featured Inn, which nestling cleaves | |
| To its own shelf among the downs, begirt | |
| With trees which lift no branches to defy | 10 |
| The fury of the storm, but crouch in love | |
| Round the low snow-white walls whence they receive | |
| More shelter than they lend,—the heart-soothed guest | |
| Views a furze-dotted common, on each side | |
| Wreathed into waving eminences, clothed | 15 |
| Above the furze with scanty green, in front | |
| Indented sharply to admit the sea, | |
| Spread thence in softest blue,—to which a gorge | |
| Sinking within the valley’s deepening green | |
| Invites by grassy path; the Eastern down | 20 |
| Swelling with pride into the waters, shows | |
| Its sward-tipped precipice of radiant white, | |
| And claims the dazzling peak beneath its brow | |
| Part of its ancient bulk, which hints the strength | |
| Of those famed pinnacles that still withstand | 25 |
| The conquering waves, as fortresses maintained | |
| By death-devoted troops, hold out awhile | |
| After the game of war is lost, to prove | |
| The virtue of the conquered.—Here are scarce | |
| Four colors for the painter; yet the charm | 30 |
| Which permanence, mid worldly change, confers, | |
| Is felt, if ever, here; for he who loves | |
| To bid this scene refresh his inward eye | |
| When far away, may feel it keeping still | |
| The very aspect that it wore for him, | 35 |
| Scarce changed by Time or Season: Autumn finds | |
| Scant boughs on which the lustre of decay | |
| May tremble fondly; Storms may rage in vain | |
| Above the clumps of sturdy furze, which stand | |
| The Forest of the Fairies; Twilight gray | 40 |
| Finds in the landscape’s stern and simple forms | |
| Naught to conceal; the Moon, although she cast | |
| Upon the element she sways a track | |
| Like that which slanted through young Jacob’s sleep | |
| From heaven to earth, and fluttered at the soul | 45 |
| Of Shadow’s mighty Painter, who thence drew | |
| Hints of a glory beyond shape, reveals | |
| The clear-cut framework of the sea and downs | |
| Shelving to gloom, as unperplexed with threads | |
| Of pallid light, as when the summer’s noon | 50 |
| Bathes them in sunshine; and the giant cliffs | |
| Scarce veiling more their lines of flint that run | |
| Like veins of moveless blue through their bleak sides, | |
| In moonlight than in day, shall tower as now | |
| (Save when some moss’s slender stain shall break | 55 |
| Into the samphire’s yellow in mid-air, | |
| To tempt some trembling life), until the eyes | |
| Which gaze in childhood on them shall be dim. | |
| Yet deem not that these sober forms are all | |
| That Nature here provides, although she frames | 60 |
| These in one lasting picture for the heart. | |
| Within the foldings of the coast she breathes | |
| Hues of fantastic beauty. Thread the gorge, | |
| And, turning on the beach, while the low sea, | |
| Spread out in mirrored gentleness, allows | 65 |
| A path along the curving edge, behold | |
| Such dazzling glory of prismatic tints | |
| Flung o’er the lofty crescent, as assures | |
| The orient gardens where Aladdin plucked | |
| Jewels for fruit no fable,—as if earth, | 70 |
| Provoked to emulate the rainbow’s gauds | |
| In lasting mould, had snatched its floating hues | |
| And fixed them here; for never o’er the bay | |
| Flew a celestial arch of brighter grace | |
| Than the gay coast exhibits; here the cliff | 75 |
| Flaunts in a brighter yellow than the stream | |
| Of Tiber wafted; then with softer shades | |
| Declines to pearly white, which blushes soon | |
| With pink as delicate as Autumn’s rose | |
| Wears on its scattering leaves; anon the shore | 80 |
| Recedes into a fane-like dell, where stained | |
| With black, as if with sable tapestry hung, | |
| Light pinnacles rise taper; further yet | |
| Swells out in solemn mass a dusky veil | |
| Of purple crimson,—while bright streaks of red | 85 |
| Start out in gleam-like tint, to tell of veins | |
| Which the slow-winning sea, in distant times, | |
Shall bare to unborn gazers.
If this scene | |
| Grow too fantastic for thy pensive thought, | |
| Climb either swelling down, and gaze with joy | 90 |
| On the blue ocean, poured around the heights, | |
| As it embraced the wonders of that shield | |
| Which the vowed Friend of slain Patroclus wore, | |
| To grace his fated valor; nor disdain | |
| The quiet of the vale, though not endowed | 95 |
| With such luxurious beauty as the coast | |
| Of Undercliff embosoms;—mid those lines | |
| Of scanty foliage, thoughtful lanes and paths, | |
| And cottage roofs, find shelter; the blue stream, | |
| That with its brief vein almost threads the isle, | 100 |
| Flows blest with two gray towers, beneath whose shade | |
| The village life sleeps trustfully,—whose rites | |
| Touch the old weather-hardened fisher’s heart | |
| With childlike softness, and shall teach the boy | |
| Who kneels, a sturdy grandson, at his side, | 105 |
| When his frail boat amidst the breakers pants, | |
| To cast the anchor of a Christian hope | |
| In an unrippled haven. Then rejoice, | |
| That in remotest point of this sweet isle, | |
| Which with fond mimicry combines each shape | 110 |
| Of the Great Land that, by the ancient bond | |
| (Sea-parted once, and sea-united now), | |
| Binds her in unity,—a Spirit breathes | |
| On cliff and tower and valley, by the side | |
| Of cottage-fire, and the low grass-grown grave, | 115 |
| Of home on English earth, and home in heaven! | |
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