A Story of Carn Brea
Copper has colours different in the ores,
As various as the rainbow, black and blue
And green and red and yellow as a flower;
Gold-coloured here, there dimly visible,
Though rich the same in measure and in meed.
‘Tis found alike where glittering granite gloams,
Where killas darkens, and where gossans shroud,
And oft where wise ones write it cannot be,
Thus wisely scattered by the Hand Divine.
Tin is more secret far, with duller eye
Oft hiding in the river’s shingly bed,
Or the flint’s bosom, near the central fires,
In chambers wide, or veins like silken lace;
So that the labourer, stumbling on a start,
Wipes his hot brow, and cries, ‘Lo, here is tin.’
