University of Virginia Library

BOOK VII.

I. Part I SONNETS OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST—SALTBURN.

I. A CHILD'S FACE ON THE SHORE.

Down to a quiet sea the shores incline,
So smoothed from sorrow, and so swept from care,
A maiden's foot could scarce in trespass dare
To print thereon her solitary sign;
But yesterday its brow was line on line
Scored deep, and aged,—to-day so young and fair;
Yet waves that wrought the wondrous change up-bare
Shells closely shut, and jelly-fish that shine.
I could not grieve to think the tide of years,
Of pain and passion's heavy gall, should mar
Thine innocent, unmeditative face:
Furrows for thought, and channelling for tears,
Can of the hand that works them borrow grace,
Secrets like shells, and patience like a star.

II. CLEVELAND.

How free and fair the land from Esk to Tees,
Where Gower grew great, and Roger Ascham strolled,
Where that old Bible-rhymer, cloistered, told
His Saxon tale to sound of Whitby seas.
Fragrant of salt, the sunny upland lees
To purple moors, by lines of hedge, are rolled;
The corn, plates all the seaward cliffs with gold,
And deep in streamlet hollows hide the trees.
Three harvests bless the labourer: fisher-sails
Hunt through the gleaming night the silver droves;
And though great Vulcan's stithy sweats and rings,
And men have bruised the hills and mined the coves,
Still by his long-backed farm the thatcher sings,
And in the barn is heard the sound of flails.

III. A NAMELESS GRAVE AT MARSKE.

“His father lies at Marske without a name,”
So runs the doggerel; but the hero son
Name to the world—for that old father won
Memorial, and an honourable fame.
Nor shalt thou be forgotten, honest dame;
When sheep were folded and the work was done,
Thou bad'st the boy spell letters one by one,
And by that gift a thirst of travel came,
With power to quench it. High on Easby Hill,
The shepherd-sailor's deed of worth is told,
And Yorkshire honours her Columbus brave;
But, long as Cleveland breeds sea-captains bold,
Shall Martin's school-dame be remembered still,
And love seek out the nameless father's grave.

IV. THE HUNTCLIFF.

What weird Protean changefulness impressed
Yon cliff, when layer on layer up it rose
Above the Saurian, in his fossil woes,
That thus all day, as if it could not rest
Content in one same royal purple dressed,
It needs must don such amethystine shows,
And, like a breathing thing that feels, disclose
Chameleon changes upward to its crest?
Was it infected by the sapphire tide
That crawls in colour, restless, manifold,
Above the yellow seaweed at its feet;
Or, does the world of shadows here compete
With lustrous sunshine, so that they, who hold
Light only loved, feel darkness glorified?

V. BENEATH HUNTCLIFF.

I sat amongst the old world's oldest dead,
In halls sepulchral, rifled by the tide;
The horns and bolts of Ammon at my side
Peeped from the pitch-dark clay, and overhead,
Line upon line, were stored in earth, blood-red,
The showers of sling-stones, telling how for pride,
By wrath of Zeus, the huge sea-monsters died,
Who crawled like toads, but wore the gavial's head.
So well had Time, the sexton, covered o'er
The tale of death with reverential hand,
No human eye had known such secrets lurk
Within earth's charnel, but for waves who work
Uninterrupted by the moaning shore,
To dig the grave of all that burial land.

VI. THE PIER AT SALTBURN-BY-THE-SEA.

Our lives are like this many-footed thing:
We strain out seaward, but ashore we stand,
Caught by the foot, and sinking deep in sand;
And ever and anon a snow-white wing
Gleams past, to sadden us. We fain would spring
To follow. Airs from Heaven, about us fanned,
Move us no more; but some discordant band
May play and please, while fools in motley sing.
Ah! well for us, if but a little way
Some child or agèd man we safely bear
Upon our shoulders o'er the flowing sea;
And happy, if by us, one seems to be
Pacing a steady deck, without a fear,
Out toward the deeps, beyond our prison bay.

VII. THE GARDENS, SALTBURN-BY-THE-SEA.

I know a happy vale wherein the sea
Throbs audibly, and silver waters wait
The fall of tide to pass beyond its gate;
Charmed by sweet sound of magic minstrelsy,
By quaint inlay, and such flower-jewelry
As well befits the summer's royal state,
The streamlet halts, to hear grey-beards debate,
Or runs with happy children, racing free.
On cool cropped sward and labyrinthine walk,
There meditation seeks the hanging wood;
And, when with wild-briar incense groves are sweet,
May fancy haunt again the hushed retreat
Of holy friar, and hear the ghostly talk
Of Whitby's hermit in his cowl and hood.

VIII. THE GARDENS ILLUMINATED, SALTBURN-BY-THE-SEA.

In old romances of Arabian night,
And wondrous tale of Eastern fantasies,
There were no hanging gardens like to these,
Such ecstasy of innocent delight.
Like Kama's lamps the earth-born stars are bright,
A firefly glamour haunts the dusky trees,
The dark parterres shine out in jewelries,
And dancing lantern-shades bewilder sight.
Flame-flowers are blossoming—amber, green, and rose,
In brake and bush bewitching colours gleam,
Here a white moon casts shadow, there a sun
Of deepest crimson rises, wanes, and grows,
Then dies; while on we walk entranced, and dream
Of worlds where only fancy's feet may run.

IX. THE GARDENS BY MOONLIGHT.

Once more, by dim Mediterranean seas,
I feel the breath of flowers, and move in dream
Thro' drowsy olives down toward a stream
That, swollen by moonlight's generous increase,
By some old castle slips to shores of peace,
Where ocean whispers. Sudden, lo! a gleam
Of torches; hark! far melodies that seem
To float and die along the wondering breeze.
By terraced slopes I go, where steps descending
Lead to a temple whiter than the moon,
Through darkened avenues, with alcoves fit
For holy lovers; while, by gay lamps lit,
O'erhanging boughs are silvered, each leaf bending
In time to that enchanted valley's tune.

X. THE SALTBURN VIADUCT.

If they whose brick-built terraces decay
Beneath the mountainous waste of Babylon,
Could leave their dusty graves, to gaze upon
This vale's gigantic piers of rosy clay;
And with them stood the men who through the day
Of Baalbec's heat gave up their flesh and bone,
Yet in the quarry left the fourth great stone,
The wide earth's marvel and their own dismay,—
How would they sigh to think their sweat was given
To magnify a crazed, ambitious king,
Or make a world of brutish wonder stare,—
While these, with honest hands for bread have striven,
To build their arch of triumph high in air,
And speed the cars of peace on swifter wing.

XI. AT MARSKE MILL.

This is the vale and gate of humbleness:
Who passes 'neath yon roseate arch's height,
He has no need of priest or eremite;
Bowed down himself, he owns his littleness,
And must his insignificance confess;
Yet therewithal will this stupendous sight
Strike to the soul a sense of wondrous might,
Such power has man his brothers to impress.
Thebes bowed before its Memnon, but we kneel
Before these ringing arches wrapped in cloud,
And hear at times a voice with music sweet,
Soft prelude of the roar of fiery feet;
We know each vast brick-builded Yggdrasil
Speaks with the gods,—they rush and answer loud.

XII. SKELTON, THE BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT BRUCE'S ANCESTORS.

A DREAM OF ROBERT THE BRUCE.

Now know I how the heart of Bruce was stored,
Which, ere it rested by the banks of Tweed,
Flung in the fiercest onset, nerved the deed
Of men, who, for its safety, swept the horde
Of Saracens like dust before the sword.
To him this free wide moorland taught its creed,
And those red cliffs would bid him dare to bleed
Rather than own the storm of foes his lord.
He saw the coastward beacons leap and flare—
Himself unto his land would beacon be.
But what strong purpose and persistence do,
Twin deep-run streamlets, did he learn of you;
For, where the hermit joined his hands in prayer,
Ye joined your hands and joyously went free.

XIII. THE BELLS OF SKELTON NEW CHURCH TOWER

(RUNG FOR THE FIRST TIME, JULY 31, 1884.).

The bells chimed loud, the ringers rang with will;
Six voices cried, “Come! for I call you now.”
From high Upleatham's wood to Warsett brow,
From Huntcliff Nab to ancient Brotton hill,
The clear notes clanged. The miller, at his mill,
Heard strange airs quivering round him, far below;
And sailors, leaning on the weather bow,
Caught sounds that seemed all Saltburn's bay to fill
With wild sea music. Still the bells were swung—
The strong tower shook, and tremblingly the vane
Moved, as, for joy, the very earth were stirred.
That evening village babes, in dreamland, heard
Angels from Heaven, and Cleveland's hollow plain
Found for the worthiest news a worthy tongue.

XIV. AT SKELTON OLD CHURCH.

We leave the church, where weekly prayer was said,
Ringed round with graves and fenced with elm and yew;
Praise in a fairer shrine shall men renew,
Vows at a nobler altar shall be made;
Unheeded now the mossy dial's shade,
No preacher climbs three stories high to view
The village magnate in his musty pew,
And Georgian galleries to dust shall fade.
White gleams the tower beyond the village street,
And proud and loud ring out the lustier chimes;
But some heart-flowers, transplanted, ne'er can grow:
These old church grasses still shall feel the feet
Of those, who hear the bells of other times,
And seek the holiest spot on earth they know.

XV. AT GUISBOROUGH ABBEY.

Who stand by Guisborough's ruin find revealed
No abbey window, but an open door
With sight of distant wood and purple moor,
Through which, with shouts of some historic field,
Come belted squire, and knight with lance and shield,
Great dames, proud abbots, bowing o'er the floor
Of level sward; but One, for all men poor,
Waits in the shadow, and his lips are sealed.
Then down the nave—now roofed with purer heaven—
Through innocent flowers that fitly praise their God,
By aisles with grasses hushed in reverence,
Silent and sad He moves; to Him is given
A scourge of cords and an avenging rod:
He drives the world's religious robbers hence.

XVI. ROSEBERRY TOPPING.

(OSNABURGH OR WODENSBURGH.)

Since high enthroned on Ida's fateful plain
Sat Odin, when the Northmen hither roved
They chose this throne-like hill for him they loved,—
Here o'er Valhalla should the great god reign;
Hard by ran Mimir's fountain, whither, fain
To know if Heimdal's warning could be proved,
When Asgard trembled and the earth was moved
By Ragnarök, went Odin, but in vain.
Fountain of sorrow, hill-top dark with fate,
The cloud pavilions reared upon thine height,
The stars that tremble o'er thee, speak of woe;
Yet this of solace have we, that we know
Neither the day we shall be desolate,
Nor that dread hour when o'er us falls the night.

XVII. FROM WARSETT BROW.

Warm was the air, and on the salt sea wind
Floated the gift of fruit to upland corn;
From Fleeborough Hill to Roseberry, was borne
The same sure message of the Eternal Mind—
That whoso ploughs with honest sweat shall find
His pearls among the fallows. Then a horn
Hooted. I stood on Warsett Brow forlorn;
The woods were blighted and the pastures pined.
Like clustered giants, looking through fierce breath
And glaring hotly with wild jealous eyes,
Between the Vale of Saltburn and the Tees
Stood up the workers of the great plain's death;
Plutonic labour cursed the sunset skies,
And Cyclops' stithy smoke perplexed the seas.

XVIII. THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

BETWEEN SALTBURN AND WHITBY.

When rockcliffe's walls are reddening with the eve,
And Staithes' bold fishers steer toward the night,
A stately castle on a foreland height
Rises with towers and bastions make-believe:
Then, round their cabin fires the sailors weave
Tales of the haunted hold that no sea-fight
Could storm; for back to stone, before men's sight,
The cliffs those fairy ramparts would receive.
Along the sea-board of our lives there stand
Gaunt castles, phantom forts of empty show,
Once garrisoned with thought, now turned to stone;
But not the magic evening's after-glow
Can break the charm and bid the towers be manned:
The seas roar dark beneath, “Hope, hope is gone!”

II. Part II. SONNETS OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST-RUNSWICK BAY.

I. THE WARRIOR'S CRADLE-SONG.

Bright in the moon-washed heaven the Charioteer
Hangs, and Orion listens wide-awake;
Continuous rolled, without a pause or break
The plunging surge from cape to cape I hear;
Bells clang, clash cymbals, horses prance and rear,
Now with a crowd's acclaim whole cities shake,
Now hosts, in ambush laid, hoarse whisperings make,
Anon the cannon shout and armies cheer.
I could not wonder that the men who sleep
Lulled into dreams or woke by sounds like these,
Should feel ambition in their souls had birth,
Should cross for fame the wild applauding seas,
With noise of arms should climb the imperial steep
And thunder at the shores of half the earth.

II. CAPTAIN COOK: BOYHOOD AT STAITHES.

No longer need these fisher huts go hide;
For here, when weary of the weights and scales,
The boy, whose heart was winged with ocean sails,
Clomb wondering up by Rockcliffe's grassy side
And watched the setting sun, in golden pride,
Write on the trembling sea persuasive tales
Of undiscovered lands, and merchant bales
Waiting for barques to push through seas untried.
But most the moon, which holds in withered hands
Those swaying scales whose weights are ocean streams,
Filled his imagination, as she made
The shore white seas with continents of shade;
For there, by chart upon the shining sands,
He sailed world round in his adventurous dreams.

III. AT STAITHES.

Hid in their tawny cleft, the fisher clan,
Untravelled, seldom climbing to the moor,
With the wild ocean knocking at their door,
Wage the same war their forefathers began;
Build the same boats; the same nets weave and tan
Eat the same bread, salt-savoured, and are poor;
Content in hopeless labour to endure,
Till death shall find for them a nobler plan.
But some there are, adventurous souls, who feel
Fresh inspiration from their prison bars;
And, stirred by narrow confines such as these,
Go forth to plant beneath their roving keel
This solid earth, this canopy of stars,
And bring back word of the Antipodes.

IV. STAITHES BECK.

Fenced from the world by cliffs, whereon the kale
Sucks opal from the redolent sea air,
One way alone the people have to fare,
Closed oft against them by the treach'rous gale.
And one rough sea the folk must ever sail—
The sea of household industry and care—
Whether the boys weave nets or the girls bear
High on their heads, from far, the brimming pail.
Yet still no beck between the Esk and Tees
Runs half so serviceably to the tide,
With such accompaniments of laugh and play,
As Staithes, thy stream, where good wives on their knees,
While children splash or mimic at their side,
Wash the sea-stains of labour quite away.

V. HINDERWELL.

Here in God's Acre since Saint Hilda first
Drank at this spring and set the Cross hard by,
The village, century after century,
Has come to quench at morn and eve its thirst;
And he who drinks not of it is accursed
In barn and field, he cannot sell nor buy;
Nor ever has this fountain head run dry,
Since from the rock the spring baptismal burst.
And here when lips no more cool water crave
They bring the dead for rest beside the well,
And they who through the long day's heat had come
Light-handed and returned with burden home,
Come hither weary laden, and may tell
How grief can drink of hope beside a grave.

VI. AT RUNSWICK.

If ever tired Ulysses by this shore,
On such a day, above the laughing foam,
Had seen these dwellings clustered, thoughts of home
Had bade him sail the wine-dark seas no more;
Yon cape, with sunset colour powdered o'er,
Had been to him Leucimne: thither come,
He would have vowed such vows as men who roam
Vow safe-returned, and hung to Zeus an oar.
Thereafter, as he strolled, the dark-lipped caves
For him should have been full of oracle;
And, dreaming haply of the Chersonese,
The sea would, in compassion, cease to swell,
And gorgeous seaweeds, from beneath the waves,
Would float, as here, in wealth of golden fleece.

VII. THE FISHER HOUSES AT RUNSWICK BAY.

Two hundred years have scarce repaired the wrong
Done by the hungry waves that still devour,
And all who fled that dark disastrous hour
Are safe, beyond earth's crumbling. How the throng
Of red-roofed houses, that have climbed along
Their golden cliff, peep forth from apple bower
Brave as the fisher girls in calm, or cower
Silent as fisher folk when storms are strong.
Like gay-cloaked gossips stand they knot by knot,
Shoulder to shoulder, and, from every hearth,
Rises as one the smoke that seamen hail;
Steep are the ledgy steps from cot to cot,
Love crowns each height, there is no place on earth
So dear to those who in the offing sail.

VIII. A RETROSPECT.

OFF TO THE FISHING-GROUND, RUNSWICK.

With stout storm-jacket o'er their shoulders cast,
Their food sealed safe against the waves in hand,
Bravely they turned toward the barren strand,
Forgetful of the misadventures past;
Down to the shore the children hurried fast.
Knee-deep, the sturdy three on breakers stand,
Push at the boat—she quivers—leaves the sand,
And soon the brown sail bellies from the mast.
The sun dropped down; far off, the fishers knew
The smother on the darkening cliff to be
The breath of fires that warmed the household meal;
And all night long, that cloud was clear in view,
Though every boat had dropped behind the sea,
And herring-moonlight flashed about each keel.

IX. KETTLENESS AND HOB HOLE.

We drank the villagers' unfailing spring,
And as from hollow stone to stone we stepped,
We knew that generations here had left
Mark of the labourers' thirst at evening.
Thence turned we to the slopes of fern and ling,
Dappled with seamew wings, and overswept
With noises of the sea, and in the cleft
Saw that dark cave where Hob found sheltering.
Good fellow, Robin, though the days are drear,
And men have set their fancy all on gold,
Still can the fisher-children dream; and yet
Thy name among the seekers after jet
Is household word, the shepherds, far and near,
Can bless or curse thee for their luck a-fold.

X. THE GIANT OF MULGRAVE DALE.

Between the streams that die into the sand
Of that long Bay old Ptolemy knew well,
Lies the green ridge of Wada's citadel;
Wada, the giant duke, whose bloody hand
Smote Ethelred the King; Wada, who plann'd
The causeway straight o'er hill and pathless fell;
Who, from the apron of his consort Bell,
Spilt heaps of stone, the marvel of the land.
But now a mightier giant rules the vale,
Throws the dark shade of his imperious sway
Across the stream, the roofs, the ricks of corn;
And, when grim Wada's walls have passed away,
This giant's steed shall plunge thro' miles of shale,
And Mulgrave's woods shall hear his steamy horn.

XI. PATRIOTISM.

IN MULGRAVE WOODS.

Down this deep wood, along the murmuring stream
Caedmon the shepherd rhymer may have strayed,
Grave Gower have sadly gone from sun to shade,
And told young Chaucer how the daisies' gleam
And the merle's voice could make a wise man dream.
Perchance the teacher of that queenly maid
Who saved our England, here to heart had laid
How worth the saving England's shores could seem.
Fit school for all such scholars, still the wood
Is green, flowers bloom, and still the sweet birds call,
And still for thoughtful feet the pathway winds.
Cold patriot he, and but of barren mood,
Who joins such woodland company and finds
No heart to strike for England ere she fall.

XII. TO AND FROM MULGRAVE CASTLE.

When, from the roll of breakers and the sound
Of that great sea the murderer Maulac heard,
I seek the woods where once his name was feared,
And gain his fortress castle—but a mound
Of crumbling buttress, sentinelled around
With innocent dumb trees—my pulse is stirred
By the least flutter of a startled bird,
So well has deathless awe possessed the ground.
But, Ocean, haply wand'ring back to thee,
By either deep-embosomed woody stream,
To cottage roofs and gardens gay with flowers,
Fierce Maulac's deed would vanish like a dream,
But for thy presence, double-hearted sea,
Hiding beneath thy cloak such cruel powers.

XIII. THE MULGRAVE STREAM.

You ask me why o'er bridges to and fro
Across the stream, by banks of fern and shale,
I still must haunt green Mulgrave's woody vale,
Where Caedmon wandered centuries ago—
It is because the solemnest sounds that flow
By constant utterance, of their awe must fail,
That still the sweetest oft-recurrent tale
Palls on the heart that has refused to know.
But here the streamlet runs, not ever clear,
As if it hid the meaning of its tone,
And whether men will have it yea or nay,
Behold, it murmurs, Earth shall melt away,
Thought and sincerest song abide alone,
Be true and think and sing and have no fear.

III. Part III. SONNETS OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST—WHITBY.

I. THE SORROW OF THE SEA.

Hast thou a ceaseless woe that cannot swoon,
Or in thy central depths, some bitter ache
Vexing thy heart and keeping thee awake,
That I, by thine unquiet roused too soon,
Must walk thy headlands, spelling out the rune,
The scripture that thy flowing foam-wreaths make,
Whilst wild with grief thy body seems to shake
And heaves responsive to the sorrowing moon?
Each month thou reachest to the shore a hand
For sympathetic touch, each month in vain
Descendest to thyself to seek for cure,
But learnest ever how the pitiless land
Repels thy plea, and grudges all thy gain,
And how hearts inconsolable endure.

II. WHITBY.

Fort of the Bay, for so the Saxons named
This quiet mouth of Esk, that twice a day
Drinks the deep sea and thirsts—the forts decay
And only waves are foes; but that far-famed
Maid-offering to war—in stone proclaimed
By Oswy and by Reinfrid—while men pray
And church bells ring for Sabbath, still must stay:
Saint Hilda lives, albeit her shrine is shamed!
And whether sailors climb the steep to prayers,
Or run to sight their vessels' gain or loss,
Or in among their rose-roof shadows glide
Beneath the vapoury cliff—that Christ has died
They know; they feel, though steep Heaven's Altar-stairs,
That God's great sign of victory is the Cross.

III. SAINT HILDA.

Saint Hilda! Abbess she of Streonshald,
Prayed, and was pure of heart and pure of hand,
And when she walked along the thundering strand
The shy cliff doves, wind-beaten, storm-appalled,
Dropped to her bosom fearless as she called.
Touched by her feet, as by enchanter's wand,
The serpents left their heads upon the sand,
Coiled into stone, or stiffened as they crawled.
Still is the power of pure-souled maids who pray
Strong to destroy all venomous things that crawl;
Only a look, the serpent shrinks and dies;
About their paths, from out of Heaven, will fall
Mute things that need love's tend'rest ministries,
And in their bosoms frightened doves shall stay.

IV. BY THE ESK AT WHITBY.

Lives nursed in quiet, where no cares intrude,
'Mid gentle sounds, things beautiful and free,
These grow to help the world, where'er they be,
Are undisturbed by any change of mood;
But, like the Esk, from her far solitude
Of inland peace and heather-purpled lea,
They move to mingle with the stormy sea,
In uncomplaining ministry of good.
So, as I jostled down the noisy quay
And leaned upon those giant-arms of stone
That hold all Whitby's pride in their embrace,
And nurse what weary boats will rest and stay,
Methought the Lady Hilda well had done
To plant her Abbey in so fair a place.

V. A CONTRAST: WHITBY.

Here, quayside clamour, shining fish displayed
Upon the streaming stones, loud jests, and all
The noises of that sea-god's festival
The daily harvest of the nets has made;
Here, rival echoes and the shouts of trade,
A harbour's tide that changes—flow and fall:
There, changeless rest, an Abbey ruin, a hall,
A Church, and round it, dead in quiet laid.
Oh, happy men! who, wearied of the deep,
Or tired of busy chaffering down below,
May look to Heaven above the smoky air,
And find a stretch of grass, as tranquil now
As when rough Caedmon fed the Abbey sheep,
Kept calm by death and consecrate to prayer.

VI. A MEMORY OF CAEDMON, WHITBY.

The grey-horned Abbey, Norman Reinfrid knew,
Looks o'er the red-roofed barn beneath, and still
The broad-winged Church broods peaceful on the hill;
And all the winds that ever favouring blew,
And all the sails that ever homeward flew,
When silver spoils the happy vessels fill,
Have felt Saint Hilda's power to guard from ill
And breathe down blessing on the strenuous crew.
For as the dusky sails and dipping mast
Sweep to the harbour's welcoming arms, they hear
How that old song, which Caedmon learned in sleep,
Still sounds from off the cottage-clustered steep;
For Love alone the wandering keels can steer—
Love, of created things the first and last.

VII. SUNRISE AT WHITBY.

Rich orange flushed the pale horizon's bar,
Yet dark and unawakened lay the town
Without a breath of smoke, while Esk ran down
Beneath the glory of a single star;
The good wives slept, the fisher-boats were far:
You could not think that care was ever known
On yonder dreaming slope; no hint was shown
Of what laborious dawns and daylights are.
But still the planet wheeled to work and woe,
The orange faded fast to common light,
And that mysterious Abbey stood forlorn—
A hopeless ruin in the fuller morn;
An anxious boat went moving to and fro,
The smoke-wreaths rose, the sails were all in sight.

VIII. A SUNSET AT WHITBY.

When unimaginable things are ours,
How quietly the heart and pulses beat;
We sit like gods in an accustomed seat,
And feel the breath of some diviner powers
To be but natural air; the spirit towers,
And puts all common things beneath our feet:
Then what we planned in dream we dare complete,
And the soul claims its royalest of dowers—
Hope that can see fulfilment. Wherefore, die
More slowly down, O Sun, and bring the dark,
And let the purple headland in the west
Hang in a saffron flood of sea and sky,
For now the fisher dreams upon his barque,
And all the wondering eyes of men are blest.

IX. WHITBY ABBEY.

Queen of the seaward Abbeys, bold to face
The storms that steal, the robber eyes that rove,
Not hid in some far inland hollow grove,
But fearless: thou wert of a fearless race.
Born of a vow that gave the Christ His place
With loss to Mercia's King who vainly strove;
Reborn, when soldier-zeal and knightly love
Gave back thy fallen monastery grace.
Still thou art not disheartened. Oswy's vow,
The prayers of Hilda, Caedmon's Saxon rhyme,
And those four bishops, Beverley's Saint John,
Were in God's eye most precious,—and are now;
And, ere the sea run dry, thy bells shall chime
Up from the depths, and ring thine orison.

X. WHITBY ABBEY.

A MEMORY OF THE SYNOD 664, WITH ITS SETTLEMENT OF THE EASTER CONTROVERSY.

How could intemperate zeal—hands hot for blood
Of Rome, that bade Rome's Altars be removed—
How could they spare the shrine Saint Hilda loved,
Or how not banish mitre, stole, and hood?
For here, in synod, when Saint Wilfrith stood
To plead that Pasch with moon-change should be moved,
The Royal Oswin held such custom proved
If he who held the keys proclaimed it good.
And though the jangle of Saint Peter's keys
Locked Rome to England, and that day restored
Union at home and union with the west;
Tho' neither flame nor fierce Reformer's sword
Can break the bond; our Church, that Rome hath blessed,
Sends Rome this stern rebuke across the seas.

XI. AFTER THE HERRINGS, WHITBY.

They lie as they would never wake again,
Those weary fisher-boats, in slumber sound;
But, as one sees at times a dreaming hound
Stir, and believe his phantom quarry slain,
Sudden they start, and soon the ocean plain
Is studded o'er with sails. Away they bound!
Some keen sea-hawk the silver drove has found;
The wingèd huntsmen follow in her train.
With such an equal pace the swarthy keels,
Slipped from their moorings, hurry to the prey,
It seems as if the sky, the ocean, all
Move with their motion if they move at all;
And like a dream the quiet pageant steals,
To melt into the far horizon's grey.

XII. HERRINGS FINE!

Out of the heaving dusk, toward the pier,
With sun in heart, and sunrise on each keel,
The herring boats flock home for morning meal;
Above the rosy rooftrees, as they near,
The blue smoke curls. They close their wings and steer
With labouring oar; they catch the loud appeal
Of loungers, asking of their woe or weal,
The children's laughter, and the fishwives' cheer.
Scaled o'er with silver, see, the skipper stands,
While the loud bell proclaims the sample fair;
Moveless of lip, he hears his net's supply
Measured against a nation's whole demands;
And soon the town takes up the joyous cry,
And “Herrings fine!” is ringing thro' the air.

XIII. IN THE UPPER HARBOUR, WHITBY.

Far from the jostling market's noisy tongue,
Forth from the hold they cast their pearly store,
With salt in showers, and count, “One,” “Two,” “Three,” “Four,”
The gleaming fish from crate to cask are flung,
Alternate snow and silver; while, among
The multitudinous barrels piled on shore,
With chalk in hand, the deft-eyed merchants pore,
And packing hammers merrily are swung.
Then, as the hulls from out the painted tide
Rise, and the decks are cleansed from fishing stain,
The nets are folded and the ropes are coiled
Fit for the next night's labour. “God,” I cried,
“If those aboard Christ's Ship of Truth so toiled,
We should not fish the deeps of man in vain.”

XIV. THE BELL BUOY AT THE HARBOUR MOUTH, WHITBY.

As if the sea were giving up her dead,
And corse by corse to burial were borne,
I heard the buoy-bell out of darkness mourn,
And bitter were the doleful words it said:
It told of waves that closed above the head
Of men unshrieved, uncoffined, husbands torn
From wives, and children fatherless, forlorn;
Of faces gazing seaward pale with dread.
But still, with melancholy sway and swing
The bell gave forth its wailing funeral note,
And the night thickened, and the moon went down,
And the wind rose. Few boats had reached the town
But for the warning of that iron throat.
Henceforth, unquestioned, let the death-bell ring.

XV. ON THE HARBOUR PIER, WHITBY.

Sometimes there pass us by the steamers proud,
Like spouting whales their hulls at distance seem,
So fierce, behind, the white churned waters gleam;
Anon they wrap themselves as in a shroud
Of their own weaving, till the plumy cloud
Hither and thither wafted, smoke and steam—
Dies out, or lingers after far abeam,
Like birds that on their close-winged journey crowd.
But 'mid the fisher fleet that clustering lay,
With here and there a wing spread forth to dry,
Resting from toil and taking strength for more,
Or waiting for the harbour's open door,
Our hearts were anchored; for the poor that stay
Are better than the great that pass us by.

XVI. LIGHTS ON WHITBY CHURCH STAIRS.

When the dark seas with gems besprinkled are,
And through the night the fisher lamp is swayed,
Saint Hilda's Abbey slope is rich inlaid
With countless suns; star shines to sister star.
Dear are the heights of Heaven, but dearer far
These lowly parts of earth, so lately made
Heaven, with the constellations new-displayed,
That never set behind the harbour bar.
The suns may clash and fall, new worlds may blaze
And vanish, to Andromeda's despair;
And one by one the jewels of the hill
Lose lustre; still the lamps upon the stair
Burn steady; Perseus still the monster slays;
And great Orion burns and brightens still.

XVII. SAINT HILDA'S LIGHTS.

When over Lythe the sun has just gone down,
And opal mist has filled the hollow way
Whereby the boats steal out into the bay,
And audibly the sea sobs to the town,
In that old church, which is the harbour's crown,
Three windows brighten wondrously. Men say
It is Saint Hilda, come with saint's array—
Slid out of Heaven to be a moment known.
The fisher sees the wonder on the hill,—
He takes the glow to bode a fairer wind.
The babe leaps up in bed to watch the gleam,
And a bright presence haunts his infant dream.
Each sunset proves it is Saint Hilda's will
To keep the light of other days in mind.

XVIII. SUNSET LIGHTS ON THE WINDOWS OF SAINT MARY'S CHURCH, WHITBY.

When grey September mingles sea and sky,
And steals the headlands one by one from sight,
Saint Mary's Church is filled with sudden light,
And old men stare, and babes clap hands and cry.
A ruby jewel, burns the Tower's one eye;
The western windows, palpitating bright,
Leap into flame. Such glory on the height
Must well-nigh rouse the dead men where they lie.
Is it some priestly pageant of old Rome,
With pomp of torch and heaped-up altar fire,
Has set the Church at vesper hour ablaze?
Or have the Saints in glory hither come,
To bid us, tho' the sun sink, still aspire
To light the world they loved with prayer and praise?

XIX. THE SIX O'CLOCK BELL, WHITBY.

The loud bell rings, the time of toil is o'er,
But the laborious ocean still works on,
As though its deeds of help were never done,
And to its central depths it must repour
For gathering strength to bless the further shore.
Led by its tireless impulse, one by one,
The fisher boats without a sigh have gone
Forth to their starlit watch and labour sore.
There is who rests not, sleeping day nor night:
This wide-embracing, this unwearied sea
Shares in the mind of Him whose pulses move
All thought, all action; even these boats can prove
Their hearts have touches of the infinite,
In that they toil for others ceaselessly.

XX. THE JET WORKER.

Close prisoner in his narrow dusty room,
He bends and breathes above his whirring wheel;
The treadle murmurs sad beneath his heel,
And sad he works his jewels of the tomb,
Emblems of sorrow from the darkened womb
Of woods on which the Deluge set its seal—
Offerings from death to death: he needs must feel
A little of his craft's incessant gloom.
But, as the pewter disk to brightness runs,
On Iris wings light shoots across the dusk,
And leaps out joyous from the heart of jet.
Lord of the Iris bow and thousand suns,
By wheels of work, if men will only trust,
In darkest souls Thy light and life are set.

XXI. THE WHITBY BELLS.

With those four sermons sounding in the air,
Above the town, above the harbour boats,
No need of prophets in their leathern coats,
No work for priest in linen fine and fair.
One cries, “Learn justice, have a reverent care
For things divine;” one, “Jesus, speed our notes;”
From one, “Praise Heaven! On earth be peace!” down floats
To those who climb the church's rocky stair.
Ring out, old bells! and add the fourth stern chime
Above a restless river, restless sea:
Till men praise Heaven peace cannot come to earth,
Of reverence only justice can have birth,
With Christ alone your speed will progress be—
Christ only speed, if men repent in time.

XXII. SERVICE IN THE OLD PARISH CHURCH, WHITBY.

We climbed the steep where headless Edwin lies—
The king who struck for Christ, and striking fell;
Beyond the harbour, tolled the beacon bell
Saint Mary's peal sent down her glad replies;
So entered we the Church: white galleries,
Cross-stanchions, frequent stairs, dissembled well
A ship's mid-hold,—we almost felt the swell
Beneath, and caught o'erhead the sailors' cries.
But as we heard the congregational sound,
And reasonable voice of common prayer
And common praise, new wind was in our sails—
Heart called to heart, beyond the horizon's bound
With Christ we steered, through angel-haunted air,
A ship that meets all storms rides out all gales.

XXIII. DROWNED BY THE UPSETTING OF THE LIFE-BOAT, OCTOBER 6, 1841.

A HERO'S GRAVE IN WHITBY CHURCHYARD.

Rest, master mariner, rest till sealess doom:
Beyond all harbour-stir upon this steep.
Though murderous winds obliterating sweep.
Thy deed shall keep a name upon thy tomb!
Child of the ocean, to its darkened womb
Who so return, regenerate, shall reap
Immortal glory. Waking tho' they sleep
Their deaths flash life across the desperate gloom.
For what are men, if, when the storms are strong
And harbours stretch their yellow arms in vain,
They go not forth to succour? Wearied sore,
Still must they rake the jaws of hell once more:
And if they die, they know their deeds remain;
And if they live, it cannot be for long.

XXIV. FAREWELL TO WHITBY.

Farewell! the silver dazzle of the tide,
That to the Esk such life and beauty brings;
The gleaming harbour towers, the glancing wings
Of boats that down the slopes of ocean glide,
Or hang in air, phantasmal, glorified.
Farewell! the blue roof smoke that curls and clings,
The solemn Abbey's overshadowings,
And o'er the town, the dead men side by side.
Farewell! If I should never see thee more,
If not again the pivot bridge of chance
Should swing above the stream of severing days,
Yet still in heart I lounge along the quays,
Mix in the market, learn the fishers' lore,
And grasp hands round from Shetland to Penzance.

XXV. THE PENNY HEDGE.

If, on a day in each returning year,
With horns' halloo, and shouts of “Fie, for shame!”
The men who knew our deed's dishonour came
And cried it to the people gathered near,
Should we not blench to watch that dawn appear?
And how much more, if lands, and wealth, and name
Were ours in tenure, so our title's claim
Stood in a deed's dishonour plain and clear!
Stout Percy's heart must needs have felt the scorn
When those hedge stakes, in Whitby's tideway driven,
Did to a gaping world his sin declare,
How by a murdered priest it was forgiven.
Soul, hast thou heard no conscience blow its horn,
Nor slain in this world's chase a man of prayer?

XXVI. THE BEGGAR'S BRIDGE, GLAISDALE.

Or built by beggar boy, to riches grown,
Who by this monument of thanks would prove
Lapse of laborious years could not remove
The mindful thanks for early kindness shown;
Or whether, foiled and thwarted by the tone
Of Esk in flood, some trysting gallant strove
To point the unconquerable way of Love,
And for Love's arrows bent this bow of stone;—
From Glaisdale's hollow arch resounds the word,
“The Foss may fail,—and Arncliffe's eagle dies,
The royal falcon starves on Godeland moor;
Brute force and death are dwindling: Love is lord,
Whether it fires the gallant's heart, or lies
In tender office round the cottage door.”

XXVII. ON A MOORLAND RAILWAY.

Like a bronze snake the deep-run valley wound
By yellow cliff and alder-sprinkled dale;
High up we saw cool, silent cloudlets sail,
Beneath we heard the hot wheels pulsing round;
But eye and ear were wrapt as in a swound;
Another scene was born, the sky went pale,
The great sun died, on either side the rail
New lights, new glories, lay along the ground.
King of the year, high on his throne at last,
Sat August, and his robes went streaming wide
In purple state beyond imagining.
Our envious Firedrake flew in thunder past,
Threw here and there his colouds, yet could not hide
The royal splendour of the Moorland King.

XXVIII. PICKERING MOOR,

FROM NEAR SALTERSGATE, IN HEATHER-TIME.

The distance gleams from purple into rose,
The moorland wears her brightest robe to-day,
Wove by the hands of August, to be gay,
Till one short week its beauty shall foreclose.
But rosy is the time, to freedom grows
The soul. Unchallenged, here the feet may stray,
And music is companion all the way—
One sweet bee monotone the heather knows.
Music and work! My soul, sing loud, work fast,
Till night-time weave us silence and a shroud.
Too soon the bee, o'erlaboured, at his door
Will fail, and fail too soon the pollen cloud;
But work and sing, the honey-hours shall last,
Till we have reached the sea beyond the moor.

XXIX. LILLA CROSS.

If some strong angel, calling bone to bone,
Should from their burial mounds these warriors free,
Would they not rub their eyes, and laugh to see
How still the summer's yearly benison
Of honey bee and heather bloom went on;
Clap hands to view the white sails going free;
Then, wandering westward down the purple lea,
Would stop to stare at this memorial stone;
Amazed, would ask, “What giant hither bore
This sturdy bolt, what hosts from battle came
And left this emblem of their victory?”
Until some passing shepherd should reply,
“I have not heard of Odin or of Thor;
This Cross is Christ's, we conquer in His name”?

XXX. GOATHLAND.

Deep in the hollow moorland, but complete
For lives that own the simple village rule,
The one-belled church, the tiny cottage school,
The lowly hostel where the shepherds meet.
When in the vale the landscape swoons for heat
And sultry August drinks the roadside pool,
The air about thy brows is fresh and cool,
And only heather-smoke about thy feet.
Then, Goathland, to thy wilderness we turn,
For there our children enter paradise:
The world is larger than they else could learn;
Their cheeks are flushed with every knoll's surprise,
They pluck great gifts of heather and of fern,
Lavish for Nature's generosities.

XXXI. IN GLAISDALE WOOD.

Here might the lover, with a heart like June,
Go whistling on from sunshine into shade,
From shade to sunshine; here the gentle maid
Might think the summer twilight came too soon;
Here, while o'erhead, with sympathetic croon,
The doves made memory sadder as he strayed,
Some sorrowful old man, his last hopes laid
In ashes, yet might find thy woods a boon.
The beauty, Glaisdale, of thy stream and wood
Has ages incommensurate by man;
It knows not time, it feels not any change.
In yonder narrow vale, each cot and grange
Must sing and weep alternate; but thy mood
Is joy since buds broke forth or river ran.

IV. Part iv. SONNETS OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST—SCARBOROUGH.

I. ROBIN HOOD'S TOWN.

My eyes were full of that cliff-huddled home,
With smoke, and sun, and shadow mistimpearled,
White as if some Atlantic billow curled
Had broke and clung, inhabitable foam.
There were the men who will no longer roam,
Tired of the sea, that wanders round the world,
Still cannot bid their sails be wholly furled,
And still must watch what vessels rise and come.
And as from shore I clomb the narrow street,
Thronged with its boats for safety thither brought,
By stairs perplexed and passages uneven,
But for the red red roofs of thy retreat,
Bold Robin Hood, I verily had thought
I gazed upon the sweetest scene in Devon.

II. TO ROBIN HOOD'S BAY.

We passed the pillars in the meadows reared
To Robin Hood and Archer Little John,
When, having dined off monkish venison,
They shewed the Abbot why their bolts were feared;
Then sudden to the sea the farm lands cleared
By Saxon hatchets sloped, the moor looked on,
As purple as the day the fight was won
And the black raven on the Peak appeared;
And down we dropped toward bold Robin's bay—
The reefs ran dark and fateful to the tide,
Roof clung to roof as if they feared a wrong;
None hunt wild Robin now, o'er England wide
His deeds are cancelled for their gifts to song—
And hide-and-seek the peeping houses play.

III. BAY TOWN.

In the curved bay, where resonantly flow
The north sea tides, and wondrous echo brings
The noise of ships that, borne on cloudy wings,
Pant round the headlands, red the roof-trees glow;
Homes of the fisher, built how sailors know,
With intricate care, and close up-shoulderings.
Men-martlets they, the sons of robber kings,
Norseman and Dane, and Robin of the bow.
So planned and fashioned on their bank of shale
Village and cliff are one, each open door
A tiny gate to undiscovered caves.
And when the sun has sunk behind the moor
The cottage eyes flash fire, and o'er the waves
House whispers house the smuggler's oft-told tale.

IV. SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.

Grim Scardeborga—so our sages spell
The name the Vikings gave thee—since the night
When fierce Hardrada from thy rocky height
Rained flaky fires that on the fish-huts fell,
And left them ashes, never has the smell
Of fire passed from thee! Fury of the fight,
Zeal for the king or for the people's right,
Have flamed up fresh in yonder citadel.
But they who see thy fortress-cavern gape
High in the wall where once the faggot blazed,
Where now the winds blow desolate and cold,
May know two fires—though here imprisoned both,
Burn free—one, Mercy, in pure woman-shape;
One, zeal for God, a weaver-prophet raised.

V. AT THE PARISH CHURCH, SCARBOROUGH.

The bells rang loud; below, the vessels lay
As if they listened to a preacher's tone,
Crying, “O, wandering souls, why have ye gone
Labouring in vain, and wherefore will ye stray?”
I looked, and into distance, lo, the bay
Gleamed like the sea that beats before the Throne,—
Glass mixed with fire; and bells, waves, boats, in one,
A thousand “Hallelujahs!” seemed to say.
I entered. In the church, the chanting choir
Did but prolong that vision of accord,
When all who wander, weary, tempest-tost,
Shall stand upon the sea of molten fire;
And, with the harps of God, a choral host
Shall sing the marvellous glory of the Lord.

VI. OLIVER'S MOUNT, SCARBOROUGH.

When from the mask of fashion and of show
I seek, green Weaponesse, thy solemn height,
Again I seem to see thy beacon light
Flash fire of help to friend, of hurt to foe.
Great Ida's fleet has neared the cliffs of snow;
From Inguar, lo! St. Hilda's monks in flight;
The rash Hardrada's keels are hove in sight;
And outlawed Robin scours the wood below.
Dreams are but dreams! Thy beacon flares no more;
No shepherd hither brings in haste his quern,
Or hurries with his frightened flocks and herds.
But we have need of beacon men'ries stern;
Foes watch along an ease-enfeebled shore,
And thy grave hill can speak Protector's words.

VII. THE WANDERER'S TOMB ON THE FILEY HEIGHTS.

His was no ordinary soul, the brave
Who, as he felt the thundering surge of death
Sound in his ears, could yet, with his last breath,
Columbus-like, still murmur of the wave,
And bid them lay him dead where he might have
View of the long well-watered bay beneath;
So with his dagger, horn, and Druid wreath,
His soul might unastonied leave the grave.
For he had wandered far, before he time
They chose for him the hollowed oaken tree,
Had warred with men, had battled much with wind;
But still he kept the temper of his prime,
And still the wild unconquerable sea
Hid leagues of wonder for his warrior mind.

VIII. THE DANE'S DYKE, FLAMBOROUGH HEAD.

I cannot climb this mighty rampire's breast
Without a thought of those fierce men of old,
Who steered adventurous galleys, and were bold
To scale the white cliff's yet unconquered breast,
Smote down the hind, the shepherd dispossessed,
And few, against a multitude untold,
Planned out what little kingdom they could hold,
And built their wall against the whole wide west.
First of our land's invaders—whether thirst
For wider acres or for wiser laws,
Or led by natural wish some way to win
Beyond the heaving grey that hedged them in—
Theirs was the glory of a desperate cause;
Others have followed after, these were first.

IX. FLAMBOROUGH.

Headland of flame, thy tower may flash by night,
But these far-gleaming promontories glow
Through mist or sunshine, citadels of snow;
Above the gloomy waters, dancing light
Plays in each shadowy hall and lucent bight,
And wondering tides clap hands of awe, and go
By milk-white monolith and portico,
With swift return, as if for sheer delight.
But he who wanders in thy hollow caves
Will hear a wailing murmur, see the stain
Like blood, in pool and on the pavement thrown;
As though for all the wash of cleansing waves
The signs of Ida's struggle must remain,
When on the heights he won Northumbria's crown.

X. SEA SYMPATHY.

Weighed down beneath the inevitable press
Of earthly calls, as frivolous as loud,
Hemmed in and vexed with the persistent crowd
Of things to do, that done are nothingness,
When lips that might have sung are musicless
For want of silent hearing, and the proud
Exacting hours move on behind a shroud
Of thought towards a tomb that none can bless;
Then let the singer seek a lonely shore—
There, like a man that dreams and walks in swound,
Wrapped all about with voices, lo, the din
That shuts the world without, shuts thought within,
And ocean, echoing to his heart's profound,
Shall stir his soul and melody restore.