Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (280 page)

LXV.

Now this good spire thus high they made,
All the land to watch and ward,
That the ill sprites, whene’er they strayed,
To their confines might be awed.
It could see on the wide horizon’s bound
Each shade, good or bad, as it walked its round,
Whether a fairy or fiend,
Whether a foe or a friend.
It could see the procession move along
With glittering harps, in robes of white;
It could hear the responsive far-borne song
Faintly swell o’er the wide-stretched plain,
Then sink, till all was still again,
And sleeping in the dear moonlight.
So this beautiful spire did watch and wake,
And guarded the land for Innocence* sake.

LXVI.

And, at this very day,
Let but the feeblest ray,
Or gleam, of moonshine chance to fall
Over this steeple so slenderly tall,
Or but glimmer upon the trembling vane;
Though the lighted traveller on the plain,
While he perceives it faintly shine,
Peering over upland downs afar, —
Though he hails it for the morning-star,
Yet all too well the warning sign
Know the bands of the Wizard’s line!
Soon as they spy its watching eye,
Whether by moonlight, or by morn,
Sullen they sigh, and shrink and fly,
Where sun, or moonbeam, never warn.
So this beautiful spire does watch and wake,
And still guards the land for Innocence’ sake.

SHAKSPEARE’S CLIFF
.

HERE, all along the high sea cliff,
Oh, how sweet it is to go!
When Summer lures the light-winged skift
Over the calm expanse below, —

And tints, with shades of sleepy blue,
Misty ocean’s curving shores;
And with a bright and gleaming hue,
Dover’s high embattled towers.

How sweet to watch the blue haze steal
Over the whiteness of yon sail;
O’er yon fair cliffs, and now conceal
Boulogne’s walls and turrets pale!
Oh! go not near that dizzy brink,
Where the mossed hawthorn hangs its root.
To look how low the sharp crags sink,
Before the tide they overshoot.

Nor listen for their hollow sound —
Thou canst not hear the surges mourn,
Nor see how high the billows bound
Among the caves their rage has worn.

Yet, yet forbear! thou canst not spring,
Like fay, from off this summit high,
And perch upon the outstretched wing
Of the sea-mew passing by,

And safely with her skirt the clouds;
Or, sweeping downward to the tide,
Frolic amid the seaman’s shrouds,
Or on a bounding billow ride.

Ah! no; all this I cannot do;
Yet I will dare the mountain’s height,
Seas and shores and skies to view,
And cease but with the dim daylight.

For fearful-sweet it is to stand
On some tall point ‘tween earth and heaven,
And view, far round, the two worlds blend,
And the vast deep by wild winds riven.

And fearful-sweet it is to peep
Upon the yellow strands below,
When on their oars the fishers sleep,
And calmer seas their limits know.

And bending o’er this jutting ridge,
To look adown the steep rock’s sides,
From crag to crag, from ledge to ledge,
Down which the samphire-gatherer glides.

Perhaps the blue-bell nods its head,
Or poppy trembles o’er the brink,
Or there the wild-briar roses shed
Their tender leaves of fading pink.
Oh fearful-sweet it is, through air
To watch their scattered leaves descend,
Or mark some pensile sea-weed dare
Over the perilous top to bend,

And, joyous in its liberty,
Wave all its playful tresses wide,
Mocking the death, that waits for me,
If I but step one foot aside.

Yet I can hear the solemn surge
Sounding long murmurs on the coast;
And the hoarse waves each other urge,
And voices mingling now, then lost.

The children of the cliffs I hear,
Free as the waves, as daring too;
They climb the rocky ledges there,
To pluck sea-flowers of humble hue.

Their calling voices seem to chime;
Their choral laughs rise far beneath;
While, who the dizziest point can climb,
Throws gaily down the gathered wreath.

I see their little upward hands,
Outspread to catch the falling flowers,
While, watching these, the little bands
Sing welcomes to the painted showers.

And others scramble up the rocks,
To share the pride of him, who, throned
On jutting crag, at danger mocks,
King of the cliffs and regions round.

Clinging with hands and feet and knee,
How few that envied height attain!
Not halfway up those urchins, see,
Yet ply their perilous toil in vain.

Fearless their hero sports in air,
A rival almost of the crows,
And weaves fresh-gathered blossoms there,
To bind upon his victor-brows.

The broad sea-myrtle glossy bright,
Mixed with the poppy’s scarlet bell,
And wall-flowers, dipt in golden light,
Twine in his sea-cliff coronal.

The breeze has stolen his pageant-crown;
He leans to mark how low it falls;
Oh, bend not thou! lest, headlong down,
Thou paint’st with death these fair sea-walls!

Now, o’er the sky’s concave I glance,
Now o’er the azure deep below,
Now on the long-drawn shores of France,
And now on England’s coast I go,

To where old Beachy’s beaked head,
High peering in the utmost West,
Bids the observant seaman dread,
Lest he approach his guarded rest.

What fairy hand hangs loose that sail
In graceful fold of sunny light?
Beneath what tiny figures move,
Traced darkly on the wave’s blue light?

It is the patient fisher’s sloop,
Watching upon the azure calm;
They are his wet sea-boys, that stoop,
And haul the net with bending arm.

But on this southern coast is seen,
From Purbeck hills to Dover piers,
No foam-tipt wave so clearly green,
No rock so dark as Hastings rears.

How grand is that indented bay,
That sweeps to Romney’s sea-beat wall,
Whose marshes slowly stretch away,
And slope into some green hill small.

Now North and East I bend my sight
To where the flats of Flanders spread;
And now where Calais cliffs are bright,
Made brighter by the sunset red.
Shows not this towering point so high
To him, who in mid-channel sails;
For the slant light from western sky
Ne’er on its awful front prevails.

But mark! on
this
cliff Shakspeare stood,
And waved around him Prospers wand,
When straight from forth the mighty flood
The Tempest “rose, at his command!”

THE FISHERS
.

STEEPHILL.

BEHOLD this rocky bay! On either hand
Cliffs dark and frantic rise and stretch away
To yon bold promontories, East and West,
Hanging amid the clouds; that shut out all,
Save seas and skies and sails dim-moving on
Th’ horizon’s edge, and the rough boat, that skirts,
With slow and wary course, this ruinous strand.
Far ‘mong the waves, are shown gigantic limbs
Of these stem shores, whose outpost Terror is,
Whose eyes look down on desolation, pain,
Shipwreck and death. Yet, half way up the rocks,
And scarce beyond the salt spray’s reach, when storms
Of winter beat, perched where the sea-mew rests
In sunbeam, a low fisher’s cabin peeps
From its green sheltering nook. Wild mountainous shrubs
Hang beetling o’er it, and such flowers as grow
On rocky ledges, brought by the unseen
Air, messengers from
off
some fertile hill
Or dale, or haply from far forest’s side;
The scarlet poppy and the blue corn-flower,
The wild rose and the purple bells, that chime
In th’ evening breeze to the poor woodlark’s notes.
Full to the South, the fisher’s cottage peeps,
And overlooks how many lonely leagues
Of ocean, sleeping in its summer haze
Of downy blue, or green, or purple, shades,
Charming the heart to musing and sweet peace!
How solemn, when our autumn’s moon goes down,
And walks in silence on the farthest waves,
(Then sinks, leaving brief radiance in the air,)
To measure out a few short moments here,
By the sad, dying glow!

But sweet, O then, most sweet I when the clear dawn
Of Jane breaks on, and blesses the horizon.
In Holy stillness it dispels the shades
Of night, appearing like the work sublime
Of Goodness, — a meek emblem of the JUST
And LIVING GOD! Bending our heads with awe
And grateful adoration, we exclaim —
“FATHER OF LIGHT! Thou art
our
Father too;
We are Thy creatures; and these glorious beams
Attest, that in THY GOODNESS we are made
For bliss eternal.”

There stands the fisher’s hut, and close beside,
A mountain-stream winds round the mossed platform,
Singing wild lullaby to the wailing surge,
As ‘mid resisting brakes and massy crags,
It seeks a passage to the shore below.
There, hauled above the reach of flowing tides
And the high-abounding spray, the seaboat rèsts,
Huge, sturdy, heavy, almost round, and formed
For labour and hard strife with the rough sea;
About the fisher’s cot, from crag to crag,
His nets hang round in many a graceful sweep,
‘Midst his long lines and treacherous baits and hooks.
Beside his door, the aged fisher weaves
New meshes for his sons, and sends, at times,
A look far o’er the ocean, where the beam
O’ the west falls brightest, for the adventurers,
Who yester-mom went forth, and all night long
Watched patient on the waters, and all day
Have hauled the net, or laboured at the oar.
More fearful roves his eye, as sinks the sun,
While sad he marks September’s stormy cloud
Fire all the West, and tip with crimson hues,
Though less resplendent, ev’n the nearer waves
While the broad flush tinges his silver locks
And his brown visage and his garments blue.
Anxious, he throws aside th’ unfinished web,
And climbs the higher crag, and thence afar,
Turning the western cape, he sees the glance
Of oars withdrawing, and the square sail set
And swelling to the breeze. With struggling toil
The poor bark seeks its home, ere night and tempest
Meet on the billows. While she thus, scarce known,
Alternate rides the ridge and then is lost
Below the shelving wave, widely they steer
Athwart the dangerous surge, though not that, way
Lies their dear home; but well they know where lurk
The rocks unseen, and where the currents flow.
Suddenly drops the sail, and now again
This way they bend, while, as they ply once more
The oars, just heard, and turn, with scrupulous eyes,
To view their narrow course, a faint ray shows
Their sun-burnt features and their ragged locks,
Beneath the sea-worn hat. Nearer sow they move.
And now scarce lift the oar, so cautiously
They creep along the strand, and wind their way
Among its half-seen rocks.

Stays the old fisher on the high crag now?
No; yonder down the steep path slow he steps,
And his wave-faring children hails afar.
Meanwhile upon the beach, patient And cold,
Stands the poor horse, with drooping head and eyes
Half-shut, and panniers all too wide and deep,
Waiting the cargo, that his master, tired
And sauntering on the water’s edge, shall bring;
Then must he bear it up high cliffs and hills,
To the for vale, where lies some peopled town.
Now slowly grounds the skiff, and the glad fishers,
Mounting the beach, the bended grapple cast.
“What luck? what luck? my boys!”
“Good luck, my father!”
And forth they pour the treasure of the main,
With many a scaly form unshapely, strange!
The dog-fish monstrous, with his high, round back,
And look voracious. Oh! ill-named is he,
After man’s careful, tender, faithful friend!
The spotted Seston, dragon-like, with wings
And jaws terrific; and the giant skate.
Then dark-mailed forms, that die in torture wild,
Unfitted, therefore, for the feast of man,
To whom abundant
guiltless
food is given.
And last, a shape, the fairy of the wave,
Clad in transparent tints of silver comes.
But see where the last gleam of the day’s sun,
Far from behind that western promontory,
Slants ‘thwart the deep curve of this shaded bay,
Tinges yon headland of the eastern shore,
And goes in stillness down on the fair waves,
Seeming to say, “Children of Time, farewell Î
Your course draws nearer to Eternity;
Even thus must fade your glory in this world
But sure as dark shades of the night lead on
To morning, the sun-set of earthly life
Leads to the dawn of an eternal day: —
Think of THAT DAWN!”

Now doth the aged fisher mutely watch,
While his stout sons fling o’er their shoulders broad
Deep osier baskets hung with pebbles round;
Then, wrapt in his blue mantle, stalks away,
Beneath the dark cliffs beetling o’er the sea,
To those low rocks, that stretch, point after point,
Far out amid the tide, crowned with black moss.
There, in the waves, safe from rapacious force,
And from the eye of plunderer close concealed,
He leaves his treasure, for tomorrow’s care;
Then hies he homeward. There, amidst the friends
He loves, reposes. All last night, he watched
Upon the rocking main; the arching sky
His sole, cold roof; the stars his only guides
Through the vast shadow of the lonely deep!
This night, how calm his dream, how sweet his sleep,
In the safe shelter of his cabin small,
With his glad family round him hush’d in peace!

IN THE NEW FOREST
.

WANDERER! if thy path bend o’er these lawns
And forest-lands, stay thy rejoicing steps —
Though they would fain bound with yon fawns and hinds
Down the green slope, and skim the level turf
To other slopes, and other pluming groves, —
Stay thy intemperate spirit, and mark well
Each beauty of the scene, and the strong lights
And stormy sunshine, that fall o’er these shades!
Pause thou awhile, that, in some future hour,
When the long sunless storm of winter broods,
And thou sitt’st lonely by thy evening hearth,
In melancholy twilight, listening
The far-off tempest, — then sweet Memory
May come, and with her mirror cheer thy mind,
On whose bright surface lovelier scenes shall live
Than any shrined within Italian climes;
And every graceful form and shaded hue,
As now it lives, again shall smile before thee:
For England, beauteous England, scarce can boast,
Through her green vales and plains and wavy hills,
Another landscape of such sylvan grace.

‘Twas surely here, that Shakspeare dreamt of fays,
And in these shades Titania held her court.
And bade her tiny bands in starlight revel.
Those tufts of oak, that crown the swelling lawn,
Those were her shady halls at high moon-tide;
And yon light ash her summer-night pavilion,
Lighted by dewdrops and the flickering blaze,
That glances from the high electric north.
Where’er the groves retire and meadows rise,
There were her carpets spread, of various tints
From turf and amorous lichen, all combined
With soft flowers and transparent azure-bells,
On whose pure skin their purple veins appear.
And over all these hues a veil is thrown
Of silvery dew, oft lighted by the moon.
Temper thy joyous spirit, wanderer!
And ‘gainst the wintry hour, when thorns alone
Hold forth their berries, cull sweet summer-buds.
Then shall the deep gloom vanish, the storm sink!
The balmy air of woods shall soothe thy sense,
And their broad leaves thy landscape canopy,
E’en in December’s melancholy day!

And now bound with those fawns down the green slope,
Skim the smooth turf to other hills and groves,
In the full joy of sunshine and new hopes.