| |
| DAY wanes apace, and yet the sun | |
| Looks as if he had now begun | |
| His course, returning from the west; | |
| O’er Mawgan flames his golden crest, | |
| Roughtor’s dark brow is helmed with fire, | 5 |
| And the bluff headlands of Pentire | |
| Like shields embossed with silver glow. | |
| Glistening and murmuring as they flow, | |
| Camel and Fowey seek different shores; | |
| And north and south the eye explores | 10 |
| Two spreading seas of purple sheen, | |
| That blend with heaven’s own depths serene. | |
| Inland, from crag and bosky height | |
| Hoar turrets spring like shafts of light, | |
| While in the dales the deepening shades | 15 |
| Extend, and reach the forest glades. | |
| |
| Descending from the breezy down, | |
| I turn from Bodmin’s ancient town | |
| And skirt the banks of Fowey’s clear stream, | |
| And through the osiers see the gleam | 20 |
| Of scales would please old Walton’s eye, | |
| Did he with baited line pass by. | |
| From the fair, hospitable roof | |
| Which Vivian reared I keep aloof, | |
| And pass, though few to leave would choose, | 25 |
| Lanhydrock’s stately avenues. | |
| At last, as if some mystic power | |
| Had in the greenwood built his tower, | |
| Restormel to the gaze presents | |
| Its range of lofty battlements: | 30 |
| One part in crypt-like gloom, the rest | |
| Lit up as for a royal guest, | |
| And crimson banners in the sky | |
| Seem from the parapets to fly. | |
| Where tapers gleamed at close of day | 35 |
| The sunset sheds its transient ray, | |
| And carols the belated bird | |
| Where once the vesper hymn was heard. | |
| |
| Slowly the sylvan mount I climb, | |
| Like bard who toils at some tall rhyme; | 40 |
| And now I reach the moat’s broad marge, | |
| And at each pace more fair and large | |
| The antique pile grows on my sight, | |
| Though sullen Time’s resistless might, | |
| Stronger than storms or bolts of Heaven, | 45 |
| Through wall and buttress rents has riven; | |
| And wider gaps had here been seen | |
| But for the ivy’s buckler green, | |
| With stems like stalwart arms sustained: | |
| Here else had little now remained | 50 |
| But heaps of stone, or mounds o’ergrown | |
| With nettles, or with hemlock sown. | |
| |
| Under the mouldering gate I pass, | |
| And, as upon the thick, rank grass | |
| With muffled sound my footstep falls, | 55 |
| Waking no echo from the walls, | |
| I feel as one who chanced to tread | |
| The solemn precincts of the dead. | |
| There stood the ample hall, and here | |
| The chapel did its altar rear; | 60 |
| All round the spacious chambers rose, | |
| Now swept by every wind that blows. | |
| By those stone stairs, abrupt and steep, | |
| You reach the ramparts of the keep, | |
| And thence may view, as I do now, | 65 |
| Through opening trees or arching bough | |
| The distant town, its bridge and spire, | |
| And hostel, which some most admire; | |
| The valley with its sparkling wreath | |
| Of ripples; the empurpled heath | 70 |
| Of downs o’er which the lark still trills; | |
| The dusky underwoods; the hills, | |
| Some plumed with lofty nodding trees, | |
| And fringed with rich embroideries | |
| Of clover, corn, or woodland flowers, | 75 |
| Some decked with granges, halls, and bowers. | |
| O, not in all the Western land | |
| From Morwenstowe to Kynance strand, | |
| Can lovelier prospect charm the eye, | |
| Yet with each rock-bound coast so nigh | 80 |
| That you can hear the billows roar, | |
| And see the birds of ocean soar. * * * * * | |
| |
