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Sonnets Round the Coast

by H. D. Rawnsley
  

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XXVII. SAINT BEES.
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103

XXVII. SAINT BEES.

Saint bega's Church peeps out behind the hill;
Laid out upon the treeless upland wide,
No longer needs the village now to hide;
Rotun the rover chief is dead, but still
As if it feared the ocean's treacherous will
It rests inland, and yet—the plowman's pride—
Those long-drawn fallows stretch toward the tide,
And sea-mews toss and tumble round his drill.
Here twice a day the sea-lips, deadly pale,
Are touched to life beyond the tawny cove,
And that old wizard scatters coraline,
Jacinth and onyx, then his pulses fail,
And, while the beach grows blank and grey above,
Long miles of liquid pearl, the wet sands shine.