Sonnets Round the Coast :: :: University of Virginia Library

Who knows—yon ancient planet waterless,
Once swayed with ocean; yonder caves, whence night
Not ever is dispelled, were swum with light,
And floods and verdurous mountains felt the stress
Of winds that smote the shining capes, to bless
Woodlands with power and ships with men of might:
While cloud-encircled and more softly bright
The moon walked on in gleaming spotlessness?
Now, cold of heart, and evermore accursed
With death, white ashes strewn upon her head,
Blind on her course the haggard phantom moves;
But fierce and unallayable her thirst,
To Earth's far seas in vain her hands are spread;
She strains to tilt the ocean cup she loves.

II. BRISTOL.

No more through prayerful gardens glides the Frome:
The steam-gods, perched upon their pillars high,
Patch with their breath the weary, worn-out sky;
Hill-sides are white with smoke, not apple-bloom;
A red sun glares through the perpetual gloom;
Men stay not now to ask who passes by;
From the vexed Avon ever comes the cry
Of anxious steamers, questioning—“Is there room?”
The white sails mix, and move from street to street,
The quays are coloured with the dust of ware;
Whole nations at the landing-places meet,
And foreign cargoes perfume all the air;
Only at night, men hear the loud clock's beat
And souls regain the anchorage of prayer.

III. THE DRAWBRIDGE, BRISTOL.

In the laborious heart's exchange there lies
A secret chamber, silent, all apart;
Men's tears at sudden hush will ever start.
Old City, hoarse with manufacture's cries,
Whose noise acclaims the busy enterprise,
Lo! at the clamorous centre of thy heart,
The solemn waters hush the wrangling mart,
And peaceful floods bear up thine argosies.
The prisoned waves, that quite forget to beat,
Stir to the ocean's pulses twice a day;
Then, like a dream, the silent-footed fleet
Moves to its perfect rest beside the quay;
And Bristol, through thy fevered nerves is sent
A touch of peace, a sense of calm content.

IV. SPIRE OF SAINT MARY REDCLIFFE.

By spar and shroud, with their untutored hands,
The vessels write their runes upon the sky;
Their sails, the careful seamen spread to dry,
Seem April clouds entangled in the strands:
A multitude from multitudinous lands,
Prow close to prow, in friendly purpose lie;
And queen of masts, among the forestry,
Sun-white Saint Mary's spire in beauty stands.
Ship of the Church, these vessels will not stay—
For prize, fresh gains, new venture, will be gone:
Unlading at thine anchorage alway
Though rough tides threaten, still thou holdest on,
Not bartering truth for beads and trumpery,
Thy cargo—Reason, Love, Fraternity.

V. TO A THRUSH HEARD ON CLIFTON DOWN.

Clear-throated minstrel! what desires can move
Thee, in thy branchy, mist-empurpled swing,
When woods are cold, and winds are sorrowing,
Thus to rehearse thy last-year notes of love,
To thrill with all thy heart the listening grove,
To sit, and, with no surety of the spring,
To answer every voice the breezes bring,
And thine excelling championship to prove?
In the dead winter of an early sorrow,
No thought of quickening spring my spirit cheers;
But as I hearken, of thy strength I borrow,
Hope with thy music mingles in mine ears,
Thou, who so cheerly settest forth the morrow
While round thee million buds are wet with tears!

VI. ON THE DOWNS, NEAR BRISTOL.

The lounging Roman, who, in days of yore,
Watched the low galley from the Severn side
Crawl with its hundred arms upon the tide,
Or disembark the green-incrusted ore,—
He wist not of thy rising, Bristol, more
Than I, who on this sunny rock astride,
Can think that yonder ships in dumbness glide
To dockyard clamour, and to harbour roar.
Eye-blinding selfishness! the conqueror dreamed
No other city mightier than Rome,
And I, who to these silent downs have come,
For me alone their health and beauty seemed,
Nor thought I once, beyond the hill there lies
A city's travail, with its throes and cries!

VIII. OLD CLEVEDON CHURCHYARD.

Where Hallam rests upon his hill-side green,
An arm the dark land puts to sea, and there
Two isles are lifted, separate and sheer;
With constant watch the Severn moves between:
On this one, silence evermore hath been,
From that, by day the cannon's voice is clear,
At night, a flame to vessels far and near,
The crimson-headed lighthouse tower is seen.
Ye rock-built monuments that stand apart,
One dark and dumb, one loud and lit with fire,
Emblems of those immortal friends ye are!
Death's waters flow betwixt you,—one, his heart
Is hushed; one's love is loud, his words of fire
Shine through grief's night, a pure memorial star.

IX. HENBURY PLAIN.

Ye kindred spirits of the earth and sea,
Who love the greeny levels of the main,
For ease of foot lies stretched yon even plain,
Enamelled green as springtide grass may be.
But if to hunt for posies ye agree,
White garlands from the sunny waves to gain,
Lo, daisies flash, where sprang white drops of rain,
Waves break in bloom from tree to hawthorn-tree!
And are ye loth to leave that silver store
The giddy Wye the solemn Severn yields?
A larger treasure waits you in these fields,
Youth, calm, and beauty mingle on the shore.
There, one low tune the shells are whispering;
Here, echo ranges while the gay birds sing!

X. TINTERN ABBEY.

When with strict clause and overbearing creed
Men cramped the truth, then, Tintern, it was well,
The hurricane of kingly passion fell
Upon thy splendour! For God's flower has need
Of light and air; and, like the thistle-seed,
Must flutter here, and there must, pausing, dwell.
Oft self, not Christ, chose out the hermit's cell,
Unfeeling use, not love, would count the bead.
Grey ruin, with thy protestant reproof,
The clouds do paint, the stars emboss thy roof,
Where stone was carved, green ivy sculptures thee;
Warm-hearted sunshine now may enter free;
And I, who crush the daisies as I kneel,
Can thank thy founders, and their purpose feel.

XI. AT TINTERN ABBEY.

Peace, Strongbow, peace! God rest thee, Walter Clare;
And thee whose sons did bear thee to thy grave!
The tended turf has muffled all the nave,
And tufts of green have carpeted the stair;
And if we hear not now the hum of prayer,—
Far oxen's mellow cry, the fall of wave,
The pattering rain, the moan of winds that rave,—
Such sounds, of your old lives will keep us 'ware!
No more De Bigod's deeds of battle flame
From storied panes along the chancel floor,
For God has filled the window to His Name
With cloud, and mountain, and with sunny moor;
And through the open quatrefoils, in spring,
Where sad monks chanted, joyous blackbirds sing.

XII. THE DRAKESTONE EDGE.

Oh, where is heaven more near, the earth more fair?
About their pools the quiet farms are seen;
Elms canopy the flock, the hawthorns screen
The fresh young wheat, and every rippling square
Proclaims man's toil and God's continuál care;
A flood of pearl, the Severn shines between,
And black and busy from the hills of Dean
The mines send forth their witness to the air.
Walls fence the farms, trees fence the sunny fields,
Sails watch the land, and mountains watch the sails,
High overhead Heaven's solemn guard prevails,
And earth is bright with vision of God's peace;
But Tyndale, thy strong tower can tell that eyes
Beyond such scene beheld God's Paradise.