In Cornwall and Across the Sea :: :: University of Virginia Library

A white farm-house on Daddon hill's bluff crest,
In true Devonian-wise environed round
With deep-sunk lanes all honey-suckle-crowned,
Walled in securely from the blusterous west,
Whose wrath the trees, blown arbour-shape, confessed,
Thou, with some ever-echoing homely sound
Of cattle byre or barnyard, horse or hound,
My soothing refuge wer't for thought or rest
One cloudless August through. At sunset's hour
A furlong from thy gateway, I could hear
The wild wood-pigeon coo, and see the tower
Of Abbotsham between the elm-tops peer,
And, if the even were not overcast,
Rough Lundy scarred with western wave and blast.

284

II.

Oft have I paused a moment at thy gate
To watch the sun its seething scarlet steep
In sea, and myriad rooks fly home to sleep,
As I returned from pilgrimages late,
From where King Hubba met with his red fate
By men of Devon, or some ruined keep
On Cornish headland threatening the deep,
Or little haven, now of low estate,
But whence, in days of great Elizabeth,
The Grenvilles, Drakes and Raleighs issued forth
In the swift gnats of ships, which stung to death
The Spanish monsters, when they came in wrath
To scourge with stake and sword the little realm
That dared to doubt their power to overwhelm.