listening each to the tide's rocking roar!Of different aspects – this, abrupt and high,
And desolate, and cold, and bleak, uplifts
Its barren brow – barren, but on its steep
One native flower is seen, the peony;
One flower, which smiles in sunshine or in storm,
There sits companionless, but yet not sad:
She has no sister of the summer-field,
None to rejoice with her when spring returns,
None that, in sympathy, may bend its head,
When evening winds blow hollow o'er the rock,
In autumn's gloom! So Virtue, a fair flower,
Blooms on the rock of Care, and, though unseen,
So smiles in cold seclusion; while, remote
From the world's flaunting fellowship, it wears,
Like hermit Piety, one smile of peace,
In sickness or in health, in joy or tears,
In summer days or cold adversity;
And still it feels Heaven's breath, reviving, steal
On its lone breast; feels the warm blessedness
Of Heaven's own light about it, though its leaves
Are wet with evening tears!
Yonder island
Seems not so desolate, nor frowns aloof,
As if from human kind. The lighthouse there,
Through the long winter night, shows its pale fire;
And three forgotten mounds mark the rude graves,
None knows of whom; but those of men who breathed,
And bore their part in life, and looked to Heaven,
As man looks now! – they died and left no name!
Fancy might think, amid the wilderness
Of waves, they sought to hide from human eyes
All memory of their fortunes. Till the trump
Of doom, they rest unknown. But mark that hill —
Where Kewstoke seems to creep into the sea,
Thy abbey, Woodspring, rose.13 Wild is the spot;
And there three mailed murderers retired,
To the last point of land. There they retired,
And there they knelt upon the ground, and cried,
Bury us 'mid the waves, where none may know
The whispered secret of a deed of blood!
No stone is o'er those graves: – the sullen tide,
As it flows by and sounds along the shore,
Seems moaningly to say, Pray for our souls!
Nor other "Miserere" have they had
At eve, nor other orison at morn.
Thou hast put on thy mildest look to-day,
Thou mighty element! Solemn, and still,
And motionless, and touched with softer light,
And without noise, lies all thy long expanse.
Thou seemest now as calm, as if a child
Might dally with thy playfulness, and stand,
The weak winds lifting gently its light hair;
Upon thy margin, watching one by one
The long waves, breaking slow, with such a sound
As Silence, in her dreamy mood, might love,
When she more softly breathed, fearing a breath
Might mar thy placidness!
Oh, treachery!
So still, and like a giant in his strength
Reposing, didst thou lie, when the fond sire
One moment looked, and saw his blithsome boys
Gay on the sands, one moment, and the next,
Heart-stricken and bereft, by the same surge,
Stood in his desolation;14– for he looked,
And thought how he had blessed them in their sleep,
And the next moment they were borne away,
Snatched by the circling surge, and seen no more;
While morning shone, and not a ripple told
How terrible and dark a deed was done!
And so the seas were hushed, and not a cloud
Marred the pale moonlight, save that, here and there,
Wandering far off, some feathery shreds were seen,
As the sole orb, above the lighthouse, held
Its course in loveliness; and not a sound
Came from the distant deep, save that, at times,
Amid the noise of human merriment,
The ear might seem to catch a low faint moan,
A boding sound, as of a dying dirge,
From the sunk rocks;15 while all was still beside,
And every star seemed listening in its watch;
When the gay packet-bark, to Erin bound,
Resounding with the laugh and song, went on!
Look! she is gone! O God! she is gone down,
With her light-hearted company; gone down,
And all at once is still, save, on the mast,
Just peering o'er the waters, the wild shrieks
Of three, at times, are heard! They, when the dead
Were round them, floating on the moonlight wave,
Kept there their dismal watch till morning dawned,
And to the living world were then restored!
PART SECOND
A shower, even while we gaze, steals o'er the scene,
Shrouding it, and the sea-view is shout out,
Save where, beyond the holms, one thread of light
Hangs, and a pale and sunny stream shoots on,
O'er the dim vapours, faint and far away,
Like Hope's still light beyond the storms of Time.
Come, let us rest a while in this rude seat!
I was a child when first I heard the sound
Of the great sea. 'Twas night, and journeying far,
We were belated on our road, 'mid scenes
New and unknown, – a mother and her child,
Now first in this wide world a wanderer: —
My father came, the pastor of the church16
That crowns the high hill crest, above the sea;
When, as the wheels went slow, and the still night
Seemed listening, a low murmur met the ear,
Not of the winds: – my mother softly said,
Listen! it is the sea! With breathless awe,
I heard the sound, and closer pressed her hand.
Much
The abbey was built by the descendants of Becket's murderers. Almost at the brink of the channel, being secured from it only by a narrow shelf of rocks called Swallow-clift, William de Courteneye, about 1210, founded a friary of Augustine monks at Worsprynge, or Woodspring, to the honour of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and St Thomas à Becket. William de Courteneye was a descendant of William de Traci, and was nearly related to the three other murderers of à Becket, to whom this monastery was dedicated.
See the late Sir Charles Elton's pathetic description of the deaths of his two sons at Weston, whilst bathing in his sight; one lost in his endeavour to save his brother.
Called "The Wolves," from their peculiar sound.
Uphill.
