University of Virginia Library


22

II. CORNWALL.

World of the yellow gorse, and purple lea,
With fruitful ocean sounding in the caves,
Rich-veined of earth, whose ever-rolling waves
Of harvest ripen on from sea to sea;
Thy wells have power, there, saints have bent the knee,
Awe guards thy cromlechs, haunts thy moorland graves,
And at the crossway, with the sign that saves,
Hangs Balder-Christ upon his granite tree.
Still on thy greens the fairies dance their round,
The brownies haunt the hearth and clot the cream,
Tregeagle cries, the wish-hounds chase and chime;
Thy cairns with clash of phantom-arms resound,
And nights of vision melt to days of dream
Filled with romance of old Arthurian time.