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Banwell Hill; A Lay Of The Severn Sea. Part First
By William Lisle Bowles
PREFACE.[1]
The estimation of a Poem of this nature must depend, first, on its arrangement, plan, and disposition; secondly, on the judgment, propriety, and feeling with which - in just and proper succession and relief - picture, pathos, moral and religious reflections, historical notices, or affecting incidents, are interwoven. The reader will, in the next place, attend to the versification, or music, in which the thoughts are conveyed. Shakspeare and Milton are the great masters of the verse I have adopted. But who can be heard after them? The reader, however, will at least find no specimens of sonorous harmony ending with such significant words as "of," "and," "if," "but," etc of which we have had lately some splendid examples. I would therefore only request of him to observe, that when such passages occur in this poem as "vanishing," "hush!" etc. it was from design, and not from want of ear.[2]
An intermixture of images and characters from common life might be thought, at first sight, out of keeping with the higher tone of general colouring; but the interspersion of the comic, provided the due mock-heroic stateliness be kept up in the language, has often the effect of light and shade, as will be apparent on looking at Cowper's exquisite "Task," although he has often "offended against taste." The only difficulty is happily to steer "from grave to gay."
So far respecting the plan, the execution, the versification, and style. As to the sentiments conveyed in this poem, and in the notes, I must explicitly declare, that when I am convinced, as a clergyman and a magistrate, that there has been an increase of crime, owing, among other causes, to the system pursued by some "nominal Christians," who will not preach "these three" (faith, hope, and charity) according to the order of St Paul, but keep two of these graces, and the greatest of all, out of sight, upon any human plea or pretension; when they do not preach, "Add to your faith virtue;" when they will not preach, Christ died for the sins of "the world, and not for ours only;" when, from any pleas of their own, or persuaded by any sophistry or faction, they become, most emphatically, "dumb dogs" to the sublime and affecting moral parts of that gospel which they have engaged before God to deliver; and above all, when crimes, as I am verily persuaded have been, are, and must be, the consequence of such public preaching, - leaving others to "stand or fall" to their own God; I shall be guided by my own understanding, and the plain Word of God, as I find it earnestly, simply, beautifully, and divinely set before me by Christ and his Apostles; and so feeling, I shall as fearlessly deliver my own opinions, being assured, whether popular or unpopular, whether they offend this man or that, this sect or that sect, they will not easily be shaken.
I might ask, why did St Paul add, so emphatically, "these three," when he enumerated the Christian graces? Doubtless, because he thought the distinction very important. Why did St Peter say, "Add to your faith virtue"? Because he thought it equally important and essential. Why did St John say, "Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and not for ours only"? Because he thought it equally important and necessary.
Never omitting the atonement, justification by faith, the fruits of the Spirit, and never separating faith from its hallowed fellowship, we shall find all other parts of the gospel unite in harmonious subordination; but if we shade the moral parts down, leave them out, contradict them, by insidious sophistry, the Scripture, so far from being "rightly divided," will be discordant and clashing. The man, be he whom he may, who preaches "faith" without charity; who preaches "faith without virtue," is as pernicious and false an expounder of the divine message, as he who preaches "good works," without their legitimate and only foundation - Christian faith.
One would suppose, from the language of some preachers, the "civil," "decent," "moral" people, from the times of Baxter to the present, want amendment most. We all know that mere morals, which have no Christian basis, are not the gospel of Christ; but I might tell Richard, with great respect notwithstanding, for I respect his sincerity and his heart, that, at least, "decent," and "civil," and "moral" people,[3] are not worse than indecent, immoral, and uncivil people; and when there are so many of these last, I think a word or two of reproof would not much hurt them, let the "decent," "moral," and "civil" be as wicked as they may.
I hope it is not necessary for me to disclaim, in speaking of facts, the most remote idea of throwing a slight on the sincerely pious of any portion of the community; but, if religion does not invigorate the higher feelings and principles of moral obligation; if a heartless and hollow jargon is often substituted for the fundamental laws of Christian obedience; if ostentatious affectation supersedes the meek, unobtrusive character of feminine devotion; if a petty peculiarity of system, a kind of conventional code of godliness, usurps the place of the specific righteousness, visible in its fruits, "of whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely;" if, to be fluent and flippant in the jargon of this petty peculiarity of code, is made the criterion of exclusive godliness; when, by thousands and thousands, after the example of Hawker, and others of the same school, Christianity is represented as having neither "an if, or but," the conclusion being left for the innumerable disciples of such a gospel school; when, because none - "no, not one" - is without sin, and none can stand upright in the sight of Him whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity, they who have exercised themselves to "have a conscience void of offence toward God and man," though sensible of innumerable offences, are considered, by implication, before God, as no better than Burkes or Thurtles, for the imputation of utter depravity must mean this, or be mere hollow verba et voces; when amusements, or recreations, vicious only in their excess, are proclaimed as national abominations, while real abominations stalk abroad, as is the case in large manufacturing towns, with "the Lord," "the Lord," on the lips of some of the most depraved; when, from these causes, I do sincerely believe the heart has been hardened, and the understanding deteriorated, the wide effects being visible on the great criminal body of the nation, - I conceive I do a service to Evangelical Religion by speaking as I feel of that ludicrous caricature which so often in society usurps its name, and apes and disgraces its divine character.
I am not among those who divide the clergy of the Church of England into classes; and I think it my duty ingenuously to declare, that the opinions I have expressed of the effects of such public doctrines as I have described, be they preached or published by whom they may, were written without communication with any one living. I think it right to declare this, most explicitly, lest the distinguished person to whom this poem is inscribed, might be supposed to have any participation in such sentiments; though, I trust, no possible objection could be made to the manly avowal of my opinion of the injurious effects of Antinomian, or shades of Antinomian doctrines.
Further, the object of my remarks is not piety, but ostentatious publicity and affectation, - far more disgusting in the assumed garb of female piety than under any shape; and often attended by acting far more disgusting than any acting on any stage.
BANWELL CAVE.
The following extract of a letter from Mr Warner will enable the reader to form his own opinion concerning the vast accumulation of bones in this cave: -
"The sagacity of Mr Beard having detected the existence of the cavern, and his perseverance effected a precipitous descent into it, the objects offered to his notice were of the most astonishing and paradoxical description - 'an antre vast,' rude from the hand of nature, of various elevations, and branching into several recesses; its floor overspread with a huge mingled mass of bones and mud, black earth (or decomposed animal matter), and sand from the Severn sea, which flows about six miles to the northward of Banwell village. The quantity of bones, and the mode by which they could be conveyed to, and deposited in, the place they occupied, were points of equal difficulty to be explained: as the former amounted to several waggon loads; and as no access to the cavern appeared to exist, except a fissure from above, utterly incapable, from its narrow dimensions, of admitting the falling in of any animal larger than a common sheep; whereas it was evident that huge quadrupeds, such as unknown beasts of the ox tribe, bears, wolves, and probably hyenas and tigers, had perished in the cave. But, though the questions how and when were unanswerable, this conclusion was irresistibly forced upon the mind, by the phenomena submitted to the eye, that, as the receptacle was infinitely too small to contain such a crowd of animals in their living state, they must necessarily have occupied it in succession: one portion of them after another paying the debt of nature, and (leaving their bones only, as a memorial of their existence on the spot) thus making room in the cavern for a succeeding set of inhabitants, of similarly ferocious habits to themselves. The difficulty, indeed, of the ingress of such beasts into the cave did not long continue to be invincible; as Mr Beard discovered and cleared out a lateral aperture in it, sufficiently inclining from the perpendicular, and sufficiently large in its dimensions, to admit of the easy descent into this subterraneous apartment of one of its unwieldy tenants, though loaded with its prey.
"From the circumstances premised, you will probably anticipate my thoughts on these remarkable phenomena; if not, they are as follow: - I consider the cavern to have been formed at the period of the original deposition and consolidation of the matter constituting the mountain limestone in which it is found; possibly by the agency of some elastic gas, imprisoned in the mass, which prevented the approximation of its particles to each other; or by some unaccountable interruption to the operation of the usual laws of its crystallization; - that, for a long succession of ages anterior to the Deluge, and previously to man's inhabiting the colder regions of the earth, Banwell Cave had been inhabited by successive generations of beasts of prey; which, as hunger dictated, issued from their den, pursued and slaughtered the gregarious animals, or wilder quadrupeds, in its neighbourhood; and dragged them, either bodily or piecemeal, to this retreat, in order to feast upon them at leisure, and undisturbed; - that the bottom of the cavern thus became a kind of charnel-house, of various and unnumbered beasts; - that this scene of excursive carnage continued till 'the flood came,' blending 'the oppressor with the oppressed,' and mixing the hideous furniture of the den with a quantity of extraneous matter, brought from the adjoining shore, and subjacent lands, by the waters of the Deluge, which rolled, surging (as Kirwan imagines), from the north-western quarter; - that, previously to this total submersion, as the flood increased on the lower grounds, the animals which fed upon them ascended the heights of Mendip, to escape impending death; and with panic rushed (as many as could gain entrance) into this dwelling-place of their worst enemies; - that numberless birds also, terrified by the elemental tumult, flew into the same den, as a place of temporary refuge; - that the interior of the cavern was speedilly filled by the roaring Deluge, whose waters, dashing and crushing the various substances which they embraced, against the rugged rocks, or against each other; and continuing this violent and incessant action for at least three months, at length tore asunder every connected form, separated every skeleton, and produced that confusion of substances, that scene of disjecta membra, that mixture and disjunction of bones, which were apparent on the first inspection of the cavern; and which are now visible in that part of it which has been hitherto untouched."
* * * * *
Respecting the language of the Poem, I had nearly forgotten one remark. In almost all the local poems I have read, there is a confusion of the following nature. A local descriptive poem must consist, first, of the graphic view of the scenery around the spot from whence the view is taken; and, secondly, of the reflections and feelings which that view may be supposed to excite. The feelings of the heart naturally associate themselves with the idea of the tones of the supposed poetical harp; but external scenes are the province of the pencil, for the harp cannot paint woods and hills, and therefore, in almost all descriptive poems, the pencil and the lyre clash. Hence, in one page, the poet speaks of his lyre, and in the next, when he leaves feelings to paint to the eye, before the harp is out of the hand, he turns to the pencil! This fault is almost inevitable; the reader, therefore, will see in the first page of this Poem, that the graphic pencil is assumed, when the tones of the harp were inappropriate.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This poem, published in 1829, was dedicated to Dr Henry Law, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.]
[Footnote 2: Of blank verse of the kind to which I have alluded, I am tempted to give a specimen: -
"'Twas summer, and we sailed to Greenwich in
A four-oared boat. The sun was shining, and
The scenes delightful; while we gazed on
The river winding, till we landed at
The Ship."]
[Footnote 3: Baxter's "Saints' Rest."]
ARGUMENT.
PART FIRST.
Introduction - Retrospect - General view - Cave - Bones - Brief sketch of events since the deposit - Egypt - Druid - Roman - Saxon - Dane - Norman - Hill - Campanula - Bleadon - Weston - Steep Holms - Solitary flower on Steep Holms, the Peony - Flat Holms - Three unknown graves - Sea - Sea treacherous in its tranquillity - Mr Elton's children - Packet-boat sunk.
PART SECOND.
First sound of the sea - First sight of the sea - Mother - Children - Uphill parsonage - Father - Wells clock - Clock figure - Contrast of village manners - Village maid - Rural nymph before the justices - State of agricultural districts - Cause of crime - Workhouse girl - Manufactory ranters - Prosing parson - Prig parson - Calvinistic commentators, etc. - Anti-moral preaching - True and false piety - Crimes passed over by anti-moral preachers - Bible, without note or comment - English Juggernaut - Village picture of Coombe - Village-school children, educated by Mrs P. Scrope - Annual meeting on the lawn of 140 children - Old nurse - Benevolence of English landlords - Poor widow and daughter - Stourhead - Ken at Longleat - Marston house - Early travels in Switzerland - Compton house - Clergyman's wife - Village clergyman.
PART THIRD.
A tale of a Cornish maid - Her prayer-book - Her mother - Widow and son - Tales of sea life - Phantom-ship of the Cape.
PART FOURTH.
Solitary sea - Ship - Sea scenes of Southampton contrasted - Solitary sand - Young Lady - Severn - Walton Castle - Picture of Bristol - Congresbury - Brockley-Coombe - Fayland - Cottage - Poor Dinah - Goblin-Coombe - Langford court - Mendip lodge - Wrington - Blagdon - Author of the tune of "Auld Robin Gray" - Auld Robin Gray - Auld Lang Syne.
PART FIFTH.
Lang syne - Return to the Deluge - Vision of the Flood - Archangel - Trump - Voice - Phantom-horse - Dove of the Ark - Dove ascending - Conclusion.
BANWELL HILL.
PART FIRST.
INTRODUCTION - GENERAL VIEW - CAVE - ASCENT - VIEW - STEEP HOLMS - FLAT HOLMS - SEA.
If, gazing from this eminence, I wake,
With thronging thoughts, the harp of poesy
Once more, ere night descend, haply with tones
Fainter, and haply with a long farewell;
If, looking back upon the lengthened way
My feet have trod, since, long ago, I left
Those well-known shores, and when mine eyes are filled
With tears, I take the pencil in its turn,
And shading light the landscape spread below,
So smilingly beguile those starting tears; 10
Something, the feelings of the human heart -
Something, the scene itself, and something more -
A wish to gratify one generous mind -
May plead for pardon.
To this spot I came
To view the dark memorials of a world[4]
Perished at the Almighty's voice, and swept 17
With all its noise away! Since then, unmarked,
In that rude cave those dark memorials lay,
And told no tale!
Spirit of other times,
Sad shadow of the ancient world, come forth!
Thou who has slept four thousand years, awake!
Rise from the cavern's last recess, and say,
What giant cleft in twain the neighbouring rocks,[5]
Then slept for ages in vast Ogo's Cave,[6]
And left them rent and frowning from that hour;
Say, rather, when the stern Archangel stood,
Above the tossing of the flood, what arm
Shattered this mountain, and its hollow chasm 30
Heaped with the mute memorials of that doom!
Spirit of other times, thou speakest not!
Yet who could gaze a moment on that wreck
Of desolation, but must pause to think
Of the mutations of the globe - of time,
Hurrying to onward spoil - of his own life,
Swift passing, as the summer light, away -
Of Him who spoke, and the dread storm went forth.
The surge came, and the surge went back, and there -
There - when the black abyss had ceased to roar, 40
And waters, shrinking from the rocks and hills,
Slept in the solitary sunshine - there
The bones that strew the inmost cavern lay:
And when forgotten centuries had passed,
And the gray smoke went up from villages,
And cities, with their towers and temples, shone,
And kingdoms rose and perished - there they lay!
The crow sailed o'er the spot; the villager
Plodded to morning toil, yet undisturbed 49
They lay: - when, lo! as if but yesterday
The Archangel's trump had thundered o'er the deep
The mighty shade of ages that are passed
Towers into light! Say, Christian, is it true,
That dim recess, that cavern, heaped with bones,
Will echo to thy Bible!
But a while
Here let me stand, and gaze upon the scene;
That headland, and those winding sands, and mark
The morning sunshine, on that very shore
Where once a child I wandered. Oh! return, 60
(I sigh) return a moment, days of youth,
Of childhood, - oh, return! How vain the thought,
Vain as unmanly! yet the pensive Muse,
Unblamed, may dally with imaginings;
For this wide view is like the scene of life,
Once traversed o'er with carelessness and glee,
And we look back upon the vale of years,
And hear remembered voices, and behold,
In blended colours, images and shades
Long passed, now rising, as at Memory's call, 70
Again in softer light.
I see thee not,
Home of my infancy - I see thee not,
Thou fane that standest on the hill alone,[7]
The homeward sailor's sea-mark; but I view
Brean Down beyond; and there thy winding sands,
Weston; and, far away, one wandering ship,
Where stretches into mist the Severn sea.
There, mingled with the clouds, old Cambria draws
Its stealing line of mountains, lost in haze; 80
There, in mid-channel, sit the sister holms,[8]
Secure and tranquil, though the tide's vast sweep, 82
As it rides by, might almost seem to rive
The deep foundations of the earth again,
Threatening, as once, resistless, to ascend
In tempest to this height, to bury here
Fresh-weltering carcases!
But, lo, the Cave!
Descend the steps, cut rudely in the rock,
Cautious. The yawning vault is at our feet! 90
Long caverns, winding within caverns, spread
On either side their labyrinths; all dark,
Save where the light falls glimmering on huge bones,
In mingled multitudes. Ere yet we ask
Whose bones, and of what animals they formed
The structure, when no human voice was heard
In all this isle; look upward to the roof
That silent drips, and has for ages dripped,
From which, like icicles, the stalactites
Depend: then ask of the geologist, 100
How nature, vaulting the rude chamber, scooped
Its vast recesses; he with learning vast
Will talk of limestone rock, of stalactites,
And oolites, and hornblende, and graywacke -
With sounds almost as craggy as the rock
Of which he speaks - feldspar, and gneis, and schorl!
But let us learn of this same troglodyte,[9]
Who guides us through the winding labyrinth,
The erudite "Professor" of the cave,
Not of the college; stagyrite of bones. 110
He leads, with flickering candle, through the heaps
Himself has piled, and placed in various forms,
Grotesque arrangement, while the cave itself
Seems but his element of breathing! Look! 114
This humereus is that of the wild ox.
The very candle, as with sympathy,
Flares while he speaks, in glimmering wonderment!
But who can mark these visible remains,
Nor pause to think how awful, and how true,
The dread event they speak! What monuments 120
Hath man, since then, the lord, the emmet, raised
On earth! He hath built pyramids, and said,
Stand there! and in their solitude they stood,
Whilst, like the camel's shadow on the sands
Beneath them years and ages passed. He said,
My name shall never die! and like the God
Of silence,[10] with his finger on his lip,
Oblivion mocked, then pointed to a tomb,
'Mid vast and winding vaults, without a name.
Where art thou, Thebes? The chambers of the dead 130
Echo, Behold! and twice ten thousand men,
Even in their march of rapine and of blood,
Involuntary halted,[11] at the sight
Of thy majestic wreck, for many, a league -
Sphynxes, colossal fanes, and obelisks -
Pale in the morning sun! Ambition sighed
A moment, and passed on. In this rude isle,
The Druid altars frowned; and still they stand,
As silent as the barrows at their feet,
Yet tell the same stern tale. Soldier of Rome, 140
Art thou come hither to this land remote
Hid in the ocean-waste? Thy chariot wheels
Rung on that road below![12] - Cohorts, and turms,
With their centurions, in long file appear,
Their golden eagles glittering to the sun,
O'er the last line of spears; and standard-flags 146
Wave, and the trumpets sounding to advance,
And shields, and helms, and crests, and chariots, mark
The glorious march of Cæsar's soldiery,
Firing the gray horizon! They are passed! 150
And, like a gleam of glory, perishing,
Leave but a name behind! So passes man,
An armed spectre o'er a field of blood,
And vanishes; and other armed shades
Pass by, red battle hurtling as they pass.
The Saxon kings have strewed their palaces
From Thames to Tyne. But, lo! the sceptre shakes;
The Dane, remorseless as the hurricane
That sweeps his native cliffs, harries the land!
What terror strode before his track of blood! 160
What hamlets mourned his desultory march,
When on the circling hills, along the sea,
The beacon-flame shone nightly! He has passed!
Now frowns the Norman victor on his throne,
And every cottage shrouds its lonely fire,
As the sad curfew sounds. Yet Piety,
With new-inspiring energies, awoke,
And ampler polity: in woody vales,
In unfrequented wilds, and forest-glens,
The towers of the sequestered abbey shone, 170
As when the pinnacles of Glaston-Fane
First met the morning light. The parish church,
Then too, exulting o'er the ruder cross,
Upsprung, till soon the distant village peal
Flings out its music, where the tapering spire
Adds a new picture to the sheltered vale.
Uphill, thy rock, where sits the lonely church,
Above the sands, seems like the chronicler
Of other times, there left to tell the tale!
But issuing from the cave, look round, behold 180
How proudly the majestic Severn rides
On to the sea; how gloriously in light
It rides! Along this solitary ridge,
Where smiles, but rare, the blue campanula,
Among the thistles and gray stones that peep
Through the thin herbage, to the highest point
Of elevation, o'er the vale below,
Slow let us climb. First look upon that flower,
The lowly heath-bell, smiling at our feet.
How beautiful it smiles alone! The Power 190
That bade the great sea roar, that spread the heavens,
That called the sun from darkness, decked that flower,
And bade it grace this bleak and barren hill.
Imagination, in her playful mood,
Might liken it to a poor village maid,
Lowly, but smiling in her lowliness,
And dressed so neatly as if every day
Were Sunday. And some melancholy bard
Might, idly musing, thus discourse to it: -
Daughter of Summer, who dost linger here, 200
Decking the thistly turf, and arid hill,
Unseen, let the majestic dahlia
Glitter, an empress, in her blazonry
Of beauty; let the stately lily shine,
As snow-white as the breast of the proud swan
Sailing upon the blue lake silently,
That lifts her tall neck higher as she views
Her shadow in the stream! Such ladies bright
May reign unrivalled in their proud parterres!
Thou wouldst not live with them; but if a voice, 210
Fancy, in shaping mood, might give to thee,
To the forsaken primrose thou wouldst say -
Come, live with me, and we two will rejoice:
Nor want I company; for when the sea 214
Shines in the silent moonlight, elves and fays,
Gentle and delicate as Ariel,
That do their spiritings on these wild holts,
Circle me in their dance, and sing such songs
As human ear ne'er heard! But cease the strain,
Lest wisdom and severer truth should chide. 220
Behind that windmill, sailing round and round,
Like days on days revolving, Bleadon lies,
Where first I pondered on the grammar-lore,
Sad as the spelling-book, beneath the roof
Of its secluded parsonage; Brean Down
Emerges o'er the edge of Hutton Hill,
Just seen in paler light! And Weston there,
Where I remember a few cottages
Sprinkling the sand, uplifts its tower, and shines,
As if in conscious beauty, o'er the scene. 230
And I have seen a far more welcome sight,
The living line of population stream -
Children, and village maids, and gray old men -
Stream o'er the sands to church: such change has been
In the brief compass of one hastening life!
And yet that hill, the light, is to my eyes
Familiar as those sister isles that sit
In the mid channel! Look, how calm they sit,
As listening each to the tide's rocking roar!
Of different aspects - this, abrupt and high, 240
And desolate, and cold, and bleak, uplifts
Its barren brow - barren, but on its steep
One native flower is seen, the peony;
One flower, which smiles in sunshine or in storm,
There sits companionless, but yet not sad:
She has no sister of the summer-field,
None to rejoice with her when spring returns,
None that, in sympathy, may bend its head, 248
When evening winds blow hollow o'er the rock,
In autumn's gloom! So Virtue, a fair flower,
Blooms on the rock of Care, and, though unseen,
So smiles in cold seclusion; while, remote
From the world's flaunting fellowship, it wears,
Like hermit Piety, one smile of peace,
In sickness or in health, in joy or tears,
In summer days or cold adversity;
And still it feels Heaven's breath, reviving, steal
On its lone breast; feels the warm blessedness
Of Heaven's own light about it, though its leaves
Are wet with evening tears! 260
Yonder island
Seems not so desolate, nor frowns aloof,
As if from human kind. The lighthouse there,
Through the long winter night, shows its pale fire;
And three forgotten mounds mark the rude graves,
None knows of whom; but those of men who breathed,
And bore their part in life, and looked to Heaven,
As man looks now! - they died and left no name!
Fancy might think, amid the wilderness
Of waves, they sought to hide from human eyes 270
All memory of their fortunes. Till the trump
Of doom, they rest unknown. But mark that hill -
Where Kewstoke seems to creep into the sea,
Thy abbey, Woodspring, rose.[13] Wild is the spot;
And there three mailed murderers retired,
To the last point of land. There they retired, 276
And there they knelt upon the ground, and cried,
Bury us 'mid the waves, where none may know
The whispered secret of a deed of blood!
No stone is o'er those graves: - the sullen tide,
As it flows by and sounds along the shore,
Seems moaningly to say, Pray for our souls!
Nor other "Miserere" have they had
At eve, nor other orison at morn.
Thou hast put on thy mildest look to-day,
Thou mighty element! Solemn, and still,
And motionless, and touched with softer light,
And without noise, lies all thy long expanse.
Thou seemest now as calm, as if a child
Might dally with thy playfulness, and stand, 290
The weak winds lifting gently its light hair;
Upon thy margin, watching one by one
The long waves, breaking slow, with such a sound
As Silence, in her dreamy mood, might love,
When she more softly breathed, fearing a breath
Might mar thy placidness!
Oh, treachery!
So still, and like a giant in his strength
Reposing, didst thou lie, when the fond sire
One moment looked, and saw his blithsome boys 300
Gay on the sands, one moment, and the next,
Heart-stricken and bereft, by the same surge,
Stood in his desolation;[14] - for he looked,
And thought how he had blessed them in their sleep,
And the next moment they were borne away,
Snatched by the circling surge, and seen no more;
While morning shone, and not a ripple told 307
How terrible and dark a deed was done!
And so the seas were hushed, and not a cloud
Marred the pale moonlight, save that, here and there,
Wandering far off, some feathery shreds were seen,
As the sole orb, above the lighthouse, held
Its course in loveliness; and not a sound
Came from the distant deep, save that, at times,
Amid the noise of human merriment,
The ear might seem to catch a low faint moan,
A boding sound, as of a dying dirge,
From the sunk rocks;[15] while all was still beside,
And every star seemed listening in its watch;
When the gay packet-bark, to Erin bound, 320
Resounding with the laugh and song, went on!
Look! she is gone! O God! she is gone down,
With her light-hearted company; gone down,
And all at once is still, save, on the mast,
Just peering o'er the waters, the wild shrieks
Of three, at times, are heard! They, when the dead
Were round them, floating on the moonlight wave,
Kept there their dismal watch till morning dawned,
And to the living world were then restored!
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