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71

SONNETS OF THE LAND'S END.

THE LAND'S END.

I.

The Land's End is it? with calm beryl sea
Stretching before me for a score of miles
To the low, distant, broken rim of isles?
The Land's End pictured in my reverie
Had been a wall of granite on the lee
Of waves, that mimicked mountains and defiles,
And flung themselves upon the giant piles
Of boulders, swooping irresistibly,
Like eagles driving through a wild swan's back
Their greedy talons deep. Was Lyonnesse
Submerged beneath this sleeping, gleaming track?
Here was it one alone escaped the stress
Of wind and wave, when o'er Sir Tristram's realm
The angry ocean rushed to overwhelm?
72

II.

But stay! Where'er an islet rock appears,
Where the “Armed Knight” stands sentry o'er the strait,
And fabled “Irish lady” met her fate,
Where the “Long Ships” their warning light uprear,
And the dark “Brisons” rise, cliff-castled sheer,
A prison for a giant, springs a spate
Of frosted, seething foam beneath the weight
Of every pounding wave. It leaps up clear,
(Like a white ostrich feather shot in air,
Or like a sunny fountain in the court
Of palace old) falls, ripples everywhere
Hissing, then drains straight back with respite short,
Islanding each projecting jag of rock,
To break or merge in the next billow's shock.
73

SENNEN—THE VILLAGE UPON THE LAND'S END.

I.

Sennen, mere hamlet—with a tiny fane,
A tavern and farmhouses, what is here
That pilgrims thread in hundreds year by year
Through the long village past the Table-maen
And roadside-cross? it is that they would gain
The end of England's land, and gaze down sheer
From her last cliffs on billows running clear,
Without a barrier, from the Spanish Main.
Majestic is the sight, which strikes the eye,
Whether the sea is calm—of that rare hue
Greener than sapphire, more than beryl blue,
Which gleams in Cornish coves—or threats the sky
With waves that o'er the cliff tops leap on high
And rend the rocks, and sand with wreckage strew.
74

II.

Nor is the little cove next Whitesand bay,
With shelving slide of granite carried down
Below low-water from the Fishers' Town,
Without its history. For in his day
After the crowning slaughter at Boleit,
King Athelstan, to wear his English crown
E'en to the utmost isles, from hence was blown
By cruel east winds to the lands which lay
A few leagues off, a bulwark from the west.
Here later Stephen landed for a throne,
And coming from his Irish wars King John;
And here, in her extremity, sore-pressed,
She who, of proudest Scottish birth possessed,
Linked the pretender's fortunes to her own.
75

III.

White Rose of Scotland, be thy slumber sweet,
Who, after thy roi-faineant was ta'en,
Taken thyself on Michael's Mount, didst gain
The favour of all eyes which thou didst meet,
Up to cold Henry on his judgment seat,
From whom with blushes and thine eyes' soft rain,
Thou, sole of all his captives, didst obtain
Life-mercy. Was thy girlhood so replete
With all which sweetens and illumines life,
That thou thy forfeit neck couldst lightly win
From these stern men not slow to slay their kin,
In the long years of internecine strife
That followed on the baring of the knife
Which finished the two Roses' council-din.
76

VELLANDREATH—WHITESAND BAY.

By Whitesand Bay report beholds at night
The spirits of the folk who have been drowned
In what was ancient Lyonnesse's bound,
And fisher-folk still shrink in strange affright
From treading on its shores before the light
Or after dusk. Why this is haunted ground
We know not if 'tis not that here are found,
The corpses which have foundered in the bight,
After the storm blows over. Once we know
The cruel Spaniard beached upon these sands,
Ready to lay his torch or violent hands
On all he met: but that was long ago,
And burn the mill was all that he might do
Which named the place, but now no longer stands.
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