University of Virginia Library

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.