The Banks of Wye | Page 6

singing o'er our heads.?For, stranger, deem not that the eye?Could hence survey the eastern sky;?Or mark the streak'd horizon's bound,?Where first the rosy sun wheels round;?Deep in the gulf beneath were we,?Whence climb'd blue mists o'er rock and tree;?A mingling, undulating crowd,?That form'd the dense or fleecy cloud;?Slow from the darken'd stream upborne,?They caught the quick'ning gales of morn;?There bade their parent WYE good day,?And ting'd with purple sail'd away.
The MUNNO join'd us all unseen,?TROY HOUSE, and BEAUFORT'S bowers of green,?And nameless prospects, half defin'd,?Involv'd in mist, were left behind.?Yet as the boat still onward bore,?These ramparts of the eastern shore?Cower'd the high crest to many a sweep,?And bade us o'er each minor steep?Mark the bold KYMIN'S sunny brow,?That, gleaming o'er our fogs below,?Lifted amain with giant power,?E'en to the clouds his NAVAL TOWER[1];?[Footnote 1: The Kymin Pavilion, erected in honour of the British Admirals, and their unparalleled victories.]?Proclaiming to the morning sky,?Valour, and fame, and victory.
The air resign'd its hazy blue,?Just as LANDOGA came in view;?Delightful village! one by one,?Its climbing dwellings caught the sun.?So bright the scene, the air so clear,?Young Love and Joy seem'd station'd here;?And each with floating banners cried,?"Stop friends, you'll meet the slimy tide."
Rude fragments, torn, disjointed, wild,?High on the Glo'ster shore are pil'd;?No ruin'd fane, the boast of years,?Unstain'd by time the group appears;?With foaming wrath, and hideous swell,?Brought headlong down a woodland dell,?When a dark thunder-storm had spread?Its terrors round the guilty head;?When rocks, earth-bound, themselves gave way,?When crash'd the prostrate timbers lay.?O, it had been a noble sight,?Crouching beyond the torrent's might,?To mark th' uprooted victims bow,?The grinding masses dash below,?And hear the long deep peal the while?Burst over TINTERN'S roofless pile!?Then, as the sun regain'd his power,?When the last breeze from hawthorn bower,?Or Druid oak, had shook away?The rain-drops 'midst the gleaming day,?Perhaps the sigh of hope return'd?And love in some chaste bosom burn'd,?And softly trill'd the stream along,?Some rustic maiden's village song.
The Maid of Landoga.
Return, my Llewellyn, the glory?That heroes may gain o'er the sea,?Though nations may feel?Their invincible steel,?By falsehood is tarnish'd in story;?Why tarry, Llewellyn, from me?
Thy sails, on the fathomless ocean,?Are swell'd by the boisterous gale;?How rests thy tir'd head?On the rude rocking bed??While here not a leaf is in motion,?And melody reigns in the dale.
The mountains of Monmouth invite thee;?The WYE, O how beautiful here!?This woodbine, thine own,?Hath the cottage o'ergrown,?O what foreign shore can delight thee,?And where is the current so clear?
Can lands where false pleasure assails thee,?And beauty invites thee to roam;?Can the deep orange grove?Charm with shadows of love??Thy love at LANDOGA bewails thee;?Remember her truth and thy home.
Adieu, LANDOGA, scene most dear,?Farewell we bade to ETHEL'S WIER;?Round many a point then bore away,?Till morn was chang'd to beauteous day:?And forward on the lowland shore,?Silent majestic ruins wore?The stamp of holiness; this strand?The steersman hail'd, and touch'd the land.
SUDDEN the change; at once to tread?The grass-grown mansions of the dead!?Awful to feeling, where, immense,?Rose ruin'd, gray magnificence;?The fair-wrought shaft all ivy-bound,?The tow'ring arch with foliage crown'd,?That trembles on its brow sublime,?Triumphant o'er the spoils of time.?Here, grasping all the eye beheld,?Thought into mingling anguish swell'd.?And check'd the wild excursive wing,?O'er dust or bones of priest or king;?Or rais'd some STRONGBOW[A] warrior's ghost?To shout before his banner'd host.?[Footnote A: They shew here a mutilated figure, which they call the famous Earl Strongbow; but it appears from Coxe that he was buried at Gloucester.]?But all was still.--The chequer'd floor?Shall echo to the step no more;?Nor airy roof the strain prolong,?Of vesper chant or choral song.
TINTERN, thy name shall hence sustain?A thousand raptures in my brain;?Joys, full of soul, all strength, all eye,?That cannot fade, that cannot die.
No loitering here, lone walks to steal,?Welcome the early hunter's meal;?For time and tide, stern couple, ran?Their endless race, and laugh'd at man;?Deaf, had we shouted, "turn about?"?Or, "wait a while, till we come out;"?To humour them we check'd our pride,?And ten cheer'd hearts stow'd side by side;?Push'd from the shore with current strong,?And, "Hey for Chepstow," steer'd along.
Amidst the bright expanding day,?Solemnly deep, dark shadows lay,?Of that rich foliage, tow'ring o'er?Where princely abbots dwelt of yore.?The mind, with instantaneous glance,?Beholds his barge of state advance,?Borne proudly down the ebbing tide,?She turns the waving boughs aside;?She winds with flowing pendants drest,?And as the current turns south-west,?She strikes her oars, where full in view,?Stupendous WIND-CLIFF greets his crew.?But, Fancy, let thy day-dreams cease,?With fallen greatness be at peace;?Enough; for WIND-CLIFF still was found?To hail us as we doubled round.
Bold in primeval strength he stood;?His rocky brow, all shagg'd with wood,?O'er-look'd his base, where, doubling strong,?The inward torrent pours along;?Then ebbing turns, and turns again,?To meet the Severn and the Main,?Beneath the dark shade sweeping round,?Of beetling PERSFIELD'S fairy ground,?By buttresses of rock upborne,?The rude APOSTLES all unshorn.
Long be the