Kynance Cove (1855)
The wondrous cliffs are polished with the waves,
And flash and flicker like huge mineral walls,
Their scaly sides are clothed with leafy gold,
And burn with beauty in the light of day.
The sands that lie on this Elysian cove
Are all ring-straked with painted serpentine:
The hollow caves the waves have fretted out
Are dashed with images of fiery hues:
And on the rocks, like beautiful psalm-leaves,
Are odes of music lovely as the light,
Trilled by the sea nymphs in the watery robes.
I’m fond of travelling old deserted paths,
Searched by the winds and soft with solitude
Of matchless Nature in her robe of crags,
Or fringed with flowers, or edged with velvet moss;
And shout together, “God hath made us all!” –
Of odorous heaths, that oft inspire my Muse,
And lift me high on Inspiration’s steep;
Of musing lonely by old Ocean’s shore,
And roaming wildly through the fields of thought;
White castles, towers and palaces uprise,
Built with chaste light, and roofed with burning gems,
But starting from my song trance one bright morn,
And turning down yon crooked curious lane,
These fancy-pictures floated in the dark,
As rock on rock uncurtained to my gaze,
And rolled upon my vision like a spell.
Hail, fairy-featured, beautiful Kynance!
A loving smile is ever on thy face,
And Beauty revels mid thy gold arcades,
Along thy glittering grottoes tones are heard
Like songs at evening by some distant lake.
Thy coloured crags, on which the sea-birds perch,
Are tuneful with the tread of tiny feet.
No harsh discordant sound is heard in thee;
And he who journeys through these sculptured creeks,
And gazes on those hills of serpentine,
Where Nature sits upon her chiselled throne,
Smiling benignly in her samphire robes,
Wearing her best, her craggy gem of crowns,
When clustered once more in his loving home,
Will feel a sweetness flowing through his heart,
And more exalted views of Nature’s God.
Why seek for beaty in the stranger’s clime,
When Beauty’s state-room is gay Kynance?
Why seek for visions courted by the Muse?
When Kynance opens like a mine of gems?
Why seek for language from the waves’ white lips
When Ocean’s organ fills this pictured Cove with hymns?
Why seek for caverns striped with natural lays,
When they are stained here by the surging sea?
Why seek for islands girdled with the main,
When Kynance holds them in her feathery folds?
So mused I in the sea-damp Drawing-Room,
While through the Bellows rushed a flood of song.
