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

St Michael's Mount! four weeks did I abide
Beneath its shadow; yet I entered not
Its castle though I haunted the wild spot
Moated with ocean every flush of tide.
Oft was I tempted sore to pass inside;
It seemed so heedless, when it was one's lot
To be so near, to miss it, and I wot
That I enjoy the oft-derided pride
Of seeing all the wonders of the earth,
As wonders, though 'twere but a fleeting glance.
Yet what was vain inquisitiveness worth
When put into the scales with the romance,
Which I could weave about each ancient wall,
Which distance held me in enchantment's thrall?

II.

While I was shielded from the common round
And commonplace of modern social life,
Piano, Paris-dress and paperknife,
Afternoon tea and tennis, I was crowned
An ancient king, could tread enchanted ground
With fairy queens, and couch a lance in strife
With mailed knights-errant. Might not Tristram's wife—
Did he not dwell in Lyonnesse's bound?—
Be in you tower, or else the Cornish Queen
For whom he died. And if I heard a fount
Of music from the church, it must have been
The Norman Fathers from the elder mount.
Was the hall lit? The valiant cavalier
Offered the ruined Stuart-Queen high cheer.

III.

With dreams and visions of Arturian knight
And monk from Mont St Michel d'Outremer
Migrated to the Guarded Mount, the air
Which floated round the castle rock was bright.
Once more the Norman scorning terms and flight
Opened his resolute veins, and stout De Vere
Extorted his free pardon. Then a pair
Of strangely mated lovers met my sight,
Scotland's white rose, child of an honoured name,
And he, who born of Flemish chapman, yet
So like to England's royal Edward came
That Edward's sister had the will to set
The ancient crown of England on his head,
And Scotland gave her choicest flower to wed.

IV.

We know but little of this fair mock-queen
Left in the castle, while her mock-king went
To lead the angered Cornish into Kent
And rouse the riversiders, who had been
Foremost, whenever force did intervene
'Twixt wrong and weakness. When, with marching spent,
His troops were routed, thou wast ta'en and sent
To the crowned King. What was it in thy mien
That melted that stern heart? how didst thou weep
And blush thy shame, that he who spared so few
Should pardon thee and bid his White Rose keep
This Scottish Rose beside her? Thou hast shared
The fate of many a flow'r of olden time,
Whose tale has passed from history to rhyme.