Land's End
For me the rocks have language, and I've thought
When gazing on these lichened chroniclers
So stony-still, like giants clad in mail
And slumbering on in awful dreaminess,
Of wondrous things that walk below the moon,
And feed on night-winds by the coppice-cave,
Or drink the dew from woven cups of moss,
Or dance upon the gilded lily leaves.
Or swing within the chalice of the flowers,
And glide around with golden imagery
Now I gaze on these hoary sentinels, -
By field or fell, by castle or by cliff,
Lone in the waste, or by the village stream.
Or piled in dreadful heaps, crag over crag.
Like those around the wondrous Logan Rock,
Bare in the sunlight, dimlv scanned at eve.
Tissued with moonbeams, garnished with the stars.
Or frowning 'neath the sable weeds of night, -
But tones of olden times come back again,
With dreams of song and visions of romance.
I walked the storm-swept, boulder-bound Land's End
And mused within the sea-washed galleries.
Whose granite arches mock the rage of Time,
I revelled in the mystery of its shades.
And my soul soared up on the wings of song.
I treasured up the lore the seagulls taught,
Which in the clouds were cooing to the breeze.
I quaffed the music of this granite grove,
And read rude cantos in the book of crags,
When morn was breaking, and the lighthouse seemed
An angel in the waters, and the rocks
Rang to the music of a thousand throats.
I looked upon it as an awful poem,
Writ with the fingers of the Deity,
Whilst the proud billows of the mighty deep
Rolled on their crests the awful name of God
Who told thee that the scenes of other lands
Were far more beautiful than aught in mine?
Who told thee that the soothing sounds of song
Fell on the ear from classic fields afar
More musical than down our thymy braes?
Who told thee that the Alps and Appenines
Had more of wildness in their very names
Than all the wonders of our Cornish coast?
Oft in my sleep I've trod the land of dreams.
And worshipped mid its still sublimity,
I've climbed the back of some dark jagged cloud
Rolling through chaos; and methought I've heard
The breathing spirit of infinity.
I've wandered by streamlets far away,
Which seemed more musical than aught of earth
I've travelled valleys starred with radiant flowers,
And wept upon my silent harp for joy;
I've scaled black mountains where the huge rocks rose
In grim array, a ghostly multitude,
Lifting their rough heads to the icy moon.
And shivering there in silent majesty;
And I have walked among them joyously,
Feasting my spirit on their visioned forms,
And then. awaking. wondered 'twas a dream
But when I found me on rough Land's End.
Conning the numbers which the winds and waves
Had channelled on its pillars, not a dream
But seemed outrivalled by this craggy host
Time plucks the coronet from kingly brows.
And scathes the laurel in the wreath of fame:
The glory of man's greatest work departs.
And o'er it drops the drapery of decay.
The hero. and the hero's blazoned deeds.
Though carved in marble, drizzled o'er with blood
From memorv fade, and shrink into the dark,
The fancy-palace built up by the bard
With its own echoes breaks and disappears:
But those eternal everlasting rocks
Sing the same cadence to the solemn sea.
And stand up strangely in their bright shell-cloaks.
With their great Maker`s name upon their tongues,
As when King Arthur to the midnight marsh
Resigned the diamond-girt Excalibur.
