University of Virginia Library

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!”