University of Virginia Library

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.