The Mine (Part I)
Home from his pit among the reeds and flags,
Where he had dug for months, and dug in vain,
The pale man came to dinner. Lost in thought.
Upon a bench, at the low table's end,
He ate his barley pasty minus meat,
Stuffd with potatoes and enough of salt,
His lean dog watch'd him by the three-legg`d stool.
And in a cage beside his lattice small
An old thrush chatter'd with a marvellous glee,
His wife, her face upon her wasted hands,
Sat in the chimney by the red peat fire,
Watching the smoke ascend, the smutty stack.
And lost meanwhile in wondrous reverie.
Laying his knife upon the wooden plate,
He broke the silence with a heavy sigh :-
"`t is no use, Maggie, digging any more.
I’ve ventured till we've only one goat left,
The weakest of the flock: the kids are gone,
And all the sheep and lambs have long been sold:
The cows have vanish'd from the untill'd fields,
And all the horses have been driven away,
Save that poor pony, lean, you see, and long:
The pigs and poultry feed in other yards,
And every sack of corn has left the barn.
I sold the straw last night to farmer Jones,
And neighbour Lambrick bought the rick of hay.
Not a potato in the outhouse lies:
The furze is taken from the under croft,
And all the turf is carried from Beck's carne.
My bran-best hat and breeches waterproof,
My buckled boots, my best, my yellow-topp'd,
Bridle and saddle, and my darling cane,
With silver head and silver studded o'er.
I bought when we were married, - all are gone,
And I am left alone. a ruin'd man.
Dame, look around you: where the chest of drawers?
Where all the pewter? where the copper pans?
Where the old china. rich indeed for age,
The bright tin teapots, and the oaken chairs?
Gone! and the crack`d panes echo, 'Gone!"
I've work'd until my bones are almost bare,
And Hope has shricking left me; and, to fill
This dark-hued cup to overflowing quite,
Our only boy could bear distress no more,
And so last night he left us for the seas,
O God, have mercy on us and the lad!"
The poor man groan'd and shook his streaming locks.
Resting his back against the cupboard door,
He fix'd his eyes upon an empty shelf.
Then Maggie's full heart pour`d its treasures forth.
She told of many men of humble birth
Who persevered in duty's upward path,
And won estates, rich fortunes, and a name.
"Last night," she said, "I dreamt twas summer-time,
And we were walking by a limpid lake,
Whose face was crystal as the mirror'd heavens,
And overhead the tall trees shadow'd us,
And shook their leaves with gladness. We sat down,
And listen'd to the birds, and mark'd the kine
Feeding upon the lawn, while round us lay
Orchards of fruit and fields of waving corn;
And all was ours, and all the gift of Heaven.
But I awoke, and, lo, it was a dream."
And then she bade him not to be dismay'd,
But trust in God, who made the mighty hills,
And placed the minerals in their hidden cells:
That nothing came of him who ceased to act,
And wept at every steep he had to climb.
The navigator, hoping against hope,
Still steer'd his vessel over darksome seas,
Until new lands were added to his chart.
The general led his armies on and on,
Through days and nights of fever and fatigue,
Until the city sank beneath his tread.
So he should never give despair a place,
But go and try again another week. –
That week brought fortune in a mine of wealth
It happen'd thus. Down from a distant carne
An old man came, with wisdom in his face;
Mean his attire, and homely was his speech.
But warm his heart that beat beneath a frieze;
And calling at the tinner`s rustic door.
The following morn, he gently knock'd, and said
"Cheer up, faint heart : I'm come to give thee aid."
And forth upon the moor of Dits they went,
Conversing by the way of lodes and veins.
Meanwhile a cloud went marching up the sky,
And blacker grew and blacker, mounting higher,
Untìl it reel'd and stagger'd o'er their heads,
And sent forth streams of fire that roll'd along
The rocky valley like a flaming beast.
The two men gazed, and cloud and fire were gone.
Then much they chatted in the light of morn.
Spoke the old man with warm heart wrapp’d in frieze,
"This is the dragon of the mineral vault:
He's out but rarely, and his presence shows
A mine of riches wheresoe'er he rolls.
His track was down the sheep-path by the oak,
Where hung for months the miser suicide.
Strange sounds wail through the branches in dark night,
Or when the winds are high or breezes low.
Howbeit, near the oak the dragon roll'd,
Close by the pit where you were digging last,
Sad and discouraged. But this augurs well
For you, my neighbour: and we'll try once more
What virtue's in the famous dowzing-rod."
So from a white thorn, with his large clasp-knife,
The old man cut a twig formed like a V,
And, holding it in both his oozy hands
Point uppermost, he paced along the vale
From north to south, till, near the hangman-oak,
The point turn'd downwards with a sudden twitch,
And rays of joy shot from the old man's eyes.
Then back he went, and forth he came again,
Holding the rod in both his oozy hands,
And down it went over the same mark'`d spot.
So he was satisfied, and said, "Sink here:
There is a mineral-chamber underneath
Will well repay you for your little loss.
Behind yon mount o'er which the sun has climb'd
They saw a fire like this: I used the rod.
And where it turn'd, two labourers sank a pit,
Who now have coaches, titles. and estates.
I'll wager, sinking here, you'll have a mine."
And o'er the hills the dowzer pass'd away.
The vale is silent, silent are the trees,
And still the waters of the sleeping lake:
The lark's last note has floated up to heaven,
And down the stream the merry boatman glides,
And louder sings as drawing nearer home.
The smoke is curling upwards o'er the pines,
And merry voices ring among the flowers,
As Eve reposes on a primrose bank.
Amid the reeds a gentle damsel sighs
Like harper in the thicket, and the wren
Puts out his ear among the springing ferns,
To listen to the sorrows of the maid.
"He's gone, he's gone, my loving Henry's gone:
To-day we parted by the village gate,
What time the sun had reach'd his highest noon.
He shook my hand, and tears came in his eyes;
And seeing his, mine own were dim with rain:
And when he told me he should sail away
Across the ocean to a land of heat,
And seek his fortune in a grot of gold,
Because his father with a hero's heart
Lost all his little digging for a mine,
My heart seem'd bursting in me, and I thought
I should have sunk upon the flinty ground.
"Don't weep," he murmur’d; "when a few short years
Have pass'd like visions, Henry will return.
When the church bells shall ring our wedding chime,
And we be one and happy. Far away,
Alone with strangers and a selfish world.
Thine image shall be with me, going out
And coming in, and sitting by my chair,
And mirror'd on the universe of light.
I'll wear thee vision'd on my heart of hearts;
And when the daylight dies among the hills,
And Eve steals onward with her urn of dews,
I’ll think I see thee by thy cottage door,
And hear thy song float o'er the listening trees,
And feel thou prayest for thy Henry gone.'
He kiss'd my hand, and soon was out of sight."
In a rude land he labour'd with success.
Till one bright morn beneath an ancient tree
A group of men are standing. Some have rings.
And some have purses, little boxes some;
And some have letters cramm’d with lines of love;
And some have bits of gold, and some have coin;
And some have strings of pearl, and some have shells:
And some have portraits of their household flowers,
Loved, happy faces, group'd in miniature;
And some have books, and some have curls of hair,
And ribbons some, and some have metal pens,
And some have landscapes lengthen'd on a leaf,
And some have little poems wet with tears.
All eves are bent upon a fair young man,
With staff in hand and bundle on his back,
And face towards his home in Cornish-land:
And these are trifles for their distant friends,
Child, mother, wife, and lover: so he placed
Each tiny treasure in his travelling-bag,
Shook hands with all, and hasten'd on his way.
Return we to the tinner of the moor.
Soon as the dowzer left him, he went home,
And made his breakfast off a crust of bread
With salt and water on the great hearth warm'd;
And then he took his pickaxe, pipe, and spade,
And ancient canteen swinging in his hand,
And down the sheep-path once more travell'd he
Into the place of pits, a hopeful man.
Laying aside his outer vest, his eyes
Instinctively turn'd upwards, and he sigh'd,
"O Father. if it be Thy holy will.
Prosper the labour of Thy servant's hands.
The gold is Thine, the tin and copper Thine:
Direct me where to labour with success.
However, not my will, but Thine be done."
And down into the earth the pickaxe went,
As if a giant dash'd it in the ground.
Down went his shaft through various strata-crusts,
Thick laver after layer, till he came
Upon a hope-reviving bed of blue.
He brought up samples with a gladden'd heart.
And wash'd them in the rill among the reeds,
And they produced some grains of real tin.
Next day a boy came with him, and they placed
A windlass on the shaft, and wound the stuff
Up in a goatskin fashion'd like a bag.
Each day the lode grew richer, and more tin
Was lying on the surface. Then he made
A wooden wheel, and placed it in the moor.
And on some stakes of oak put iron heads,
To stamp the rough stones into powder fine.
Then o`er the wheel he turn'd the limpid stream.
And round it went; up rose the heavy heads,
And falling bruised the stones to mineral sand,
So cleaning it, the old man's pony bore
The treasure to the far-off smelting-house;
And he return'd with twenty pounds or more.
And as it chimed within his mole-skin purse,
How Maggie's bright eyes twinkled with delight
That eve a grateful prayer rose up to heaven.
Then weeks and months and seasons pass'd away
And tin was wound up in the goatskin bag,
And clean'd, and carried to the smelting-house:
And he return'd with guineas in his purse;
Till one still eve he sat upon his bench
Much pondering. Leaping quickly up, he said,
" I have a whim now whirling in my pate:
I'll work it out to-morrow." When day dawn'd.
And to the covert slunk the full-fed fox.
He cut down wood and nail'd it like a cage
With horizontal slabs and slabs oblique,
And through the centre a rough forest tree
Placed for an axle. and from out its side
Ran two arms like a giant's. Near the shaft
He set it up, and round it twined a rope,
Brought o'er a pulley by the tin-pit's mouth:
And to the rope a wooden barrel swung.
Made by a cooper in his village shop.
He harness'd pony to the great wood arm
And round and round and round again it went,
Pulling the barrel up and down the shaft,
Till heaps of tin upon the surface lay,
And Fortune fill'd his mole-skin purse with gold
And seasons came and pass'd, and came again;
Rains fell, and sunshine kiss'd the gladden d earth:
The crops grew up and fell before the scythe;
Men woo'd and married, feasted, fail'd. and died
Levels were driven, and other shafts were sunk:
An adit from a valley drain'd the mine;
Great heaps of tin upon the surface lay,
And still went round the whim and waterwheel
There dwelt among the hills a thoughtful boy.
Whose mother was the model of her sex;
And he was very forward for his years,
Fond of good books and study. Other lads
Seem'd only happy when engaged in play;
He when with God and nature. On a time,
As he sat musing by his cottage-grate,
The boiling kettle hiss'd upon the hearth,
And so he stopp'd the steam and stirr'd the fire,
His mother looking on with chiding eyes, -
Until the power confined thrust out itself.
And burst the kettle in its rage for fame.
This led the student on to higher things,
From steep to dizzy steep, until at last
He made the great steam-engine, when the world
Received a boon to bless it evermore.
And so Watt's name is carved among the great.
And chimed in song, and deck'd with summer flowers.
Meanwhile the mine extended and grew rich,
And every month the workmen multiplied;
The water gush'd from countless cracks unseen,
Ran down the levels' sides, and bubbled up
Within the adit, keeping the bold men
From sinking far beneath it, till the wheel
Was laid aside. and in its place arose
A small steam-engine newly wonderful:
And wonderful the ease with which it wrought.
Draining the mine as strangely as a spell
After the shaft was sixty feet in depth
Ends were extended eastward. westward far:
Then winzes sunk for air from level to level;
And so it ever was and ever is.
And as they sunk from rugged stair to stair,
The troubled entrails of the rifled world
Changed hard as marble. Drills were introduced
And mallets rang where picks had clink'd before,
Ere the poor wretch could say one word of prayer,
Then holes were blasted in a dangerous way,
By rushes thrust into the powder-charge
Through a small hole made by a copper wire,
Igniting it as sudden as a thought;
Ere the poor wretch could say one word of prayer,
Destroying limbs and often life itself.
Then quills were used. Still very dangerous they,
And more expensive. Turn we from the fields,
And ladder after ladder quick descend,
Until we reach a labourer's working-place.
It is the hour of morning: on a plank
A father and his elder son sit down,
A boy with fourteen Aprils on his face,
With thought of home and brothers in his mind,
And sunny slopes and lawns of laughing flowers,
Denied him here, denied the lad so soon.
A flask of water dangles to a nail,
And here a can of powder; candles there,
A pair of scissors, and a bunch of quills.
Their dinners lie beside them, and beyond
Are drills and hammers and long iron bars.
Ere they begin to labour, child and sire
Kneel down among the rocks, and that dark cave
Is visited by angels, whose bright wings
Float through the darkness to the voice of prayer
Aloud the father intercedes with Heaven
For blessings on the labour of their hands,
And blessings on his darling ones at home,
That He would spare them, if it were His will.
To meet at eve around the supper board.
But if they fell and died among the rocks,
He pray'd that they might dwell in heaven. and sit,
Down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb
And then he wrestled for his comrade-boy;
And in his earnestness he seem'd to grasp
The arm of the Most High, and so prevail'd
That heaven kiss'd earth and dropp'd into the mine.
Could you have peer'd into that youngling's face,
Hidden in both his hands, you would have seen
Great shining tear-drops roll down on the stones.
That boy grew up to bear the cross of Christ.
The Mine (Part ll)
Years stole away; the rich mine richer grew;
Another lode was added richer still:
It strangely shot out in the engine-shaft.
And so he hail'd it as a friend with gems.
Who came to pour the treasures in his lap.
It was a vein of copper bright as brass,
Which soon became the theme at every hearth.
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 scatter'd 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."
Then on the miner dawn'd a brighter day.
A day to be remember'd, when the fuse
Was first invented by ingenious minds, -
A miracle for safety and for price.
How many lives has it been blest to save
And families from mourning! Ages hence
Our wise posterity will hail its birth
A bright star in the dim sky of the past,
And clothe the inventors' honour'd busts with fame,
The slime of earth is only on the skin;
That of the serpent stains into the soul.
The Cornish miner, pale and sulphur-streak`d,
Basks in the brightness of the eternal Sun,
And muses through the halls of intellect
As largely as the man of wealth and power,
And walks as blest with calm-eyed Piety.
Behold him in his honeysuckled cot,
Kissing his children in the day's young prime,
Even while they lie sweet-smiling in their dreams;
Then hasting forth with prayer upon his lips
To tug with Danger in his darksome den
Beneath the hills' foundations. Noon arrives,
And in a level far below the light,
With flint on either hand, a band of men.
From different chambers of the mighty cave,
Frieze on their loins and slime upon their limbs,
Sing, pray, and praise the Lord. and fruit Divine
Is gather'd by them from the banks of bliss.
Old Timmy was the driver of the mules.
And he kept sixty shaggy skinny things,
Fed upon grass and very little grain;
And with his mules he visited the mine,
A tramping troop, to carry off the ores
In little bags upon their bony backs,
Two upon each, up hill and down deep dale,
To the sea-port where it was shipp'd away
Across the waves. and fused to metal slabs.
And years pass'd by, and still he drove his mules
Through cloud and sunshine, storm and pleasing calm,
Summer and winter, smoking as he went,
Or whistling tunes and cracking his short whip,
Telling strange tales to singing birds and flowers,
Familiar with each hedge, and crooked turn,
And ragged rut from long lane's end to end,
Till he grew grey as the grey herd he drove:
Then, as the ores increased, the farmers came,
With waggons wide and woeful, and lean steeds,
Which panted o'er the highways rough and rude,
With perspiration dropping off like rain, -
A sight to sadden every sorrowing heart.
But one spring morn, awaking from his dreams,
He heard the steam-horse rushing o'er the rails,
Bearing more ores behind it than his troop
Could carry in a fortnight, So he turn'd
His old friends on the common, where they fail'd,
And failing fail'd, till they could fail no more,
And Winter slew them with his sword of frost.
He could not weep, for all his tears were gone;
And in his reedy lodge a heavy sigh
Let out his ghost into the land unseen.
His grave is by the chancel of the church:
And on it many years a grave-board stood:
But time has blotted out the epitaph,
And left him sleeping in a nameless shroud.
A travelling youth hastes down the village lane
All fever'd with excitement. By the well
He meets a matron with her jar and jug;
And as she dips them in the crystal fount,
He asks her, pointing with his hazel staff.
"Who lives across the coppice in yon house
They say was haunted many years ago?
Though for my part I can't believe a ghost
Would quit the bowers of angels for this place,
To dwell with rats and cobwebs. Fie on it!
I've heard my father say how oft strange lights
Would flare along the damp rooms windowless,
And solemn dirges at still midnight rose.
And songs were heard when nought but winds were there:
And so the people said the manor-house
Was haunted with the strangest. wildest things.
Old women's fancies! why. I've walked o'er graves,
And fields of dead. and mounds of rotting bones,
When stars were blinking in the deeps of heaven:
And I have often pray'd to see a ghost,
If ghosts are palpable to mortal ken -:
But not a phantom raised his shadowy arm.
When last I saw this dwelling, years ago,
't was weeping in its ruins: now it looks
The abode of plenty, where red faces meet.
Pray, can you tell me who the owner is?"
And when she told him that its present lord
Was once the tinner living on the moor,
Who ventured till the mice forsook his shelf
And leanness seized upon him. he exclaim'd,
"O change of changes! 't is my father's home."
Full soon he cross'd the greenwood, praising much
The grand old trees that seem'd to welcome him
To linger in their cloisters. Then he stood
Within the ivy archway, lost in thought.
And now his hands are playing with the vine
About the porch: and now he knocks the door.
And soon is weeping in his mother's arms.
Then father comes, but how unlike the man
He left half-starved within his frigid hut,
Still struggling, striving, hoping against hope!
A portly person now with manly air.
And much that's pleasant peering from his eye.
Then tales were told and loving questions ask'd,
And lengthy queries answer'd, till the moon
Slid into midnight with her suite of stars,
And prayer uprose among the listening trees.
Then he lay down to dream of other days,
And one bright vision flitted though his brain
Next morn his father took him on a hill
Within his own estate, where cattle grazed
And finest sheep were feeding. Far below,
Upon the very spot the dragon roll'd
Where the bold honest tinner lost and won,
A mine spread out its vast machinery.
Here engines, with their huts and smoky stacks,
Cranks. wheels. and rods, boilers and hissing steam,
Press'd up the water from the depths below.
Here fire-whims ran till almost out of breath.
And chains cried sharply, strain'd with fiery force.
Here blacksmiths hammer'd by the sooty forge,
And there a crusher crash'd the copper ore.
Here girls were cobbing under roofs of straw,
And there were giggers at the oaken hutch.
Here a man-engine glided up and down,
A blessing and a boon to mining men:
And near the spot where, many years before,
Turn'd round and round the rude old water-wheel,
A huge fire-stamps was working evermore,
And boys were swarming at the trunks.
The noisy lander by the trap-door bawl'd
With pincers in his hand; and troops of maids
With heavy hammers brake the mineral stones
slimy The cart-man cried. and shook his broken whip:
And on the steps of the account-house stood
The active agent, with his eye on all.
Below were caverns grim with greedy gloom.
And levels drunk with darkness; chambers huge
Where Fear sat silent, and the mineral-sprite
For ever chanted his bewitching song;
Shafts deep and dreadful, looking darkest things
And seeming almost running down to doom;
Rock under foot, rock standing on each side:
Rock cold and gloomy, frowning overhead;
Before, behind, at every angle, rock
Here blazed a vein of precious copper ore,
Where lean men labour'd with a zeal for fame,
With face and hands and vesture black as night.
And down their sides the perspiration ran
In steaming eddies, sickening to behold
But they complain'd not, digging day and night,
And morn and eve, with lays upon their lips.
Here yawn'd a tin-cell like a cliff of crags,
And Danger lurk'd among the groaning rocks,
And ofttimes moan'd in darkness. All the air
Was black with sulphur, burning up the blood.
A nameless mystery seem'd to fill the void.
And wings all pitchy flapp'd among the flints,
And eyes that saw not sparkled mid the spars.
Yet here men work'd, on stages hung in ropes,
With drills and hammers blasting the rude earth,
Which fell with such a crash that he who heard
Cried,"Jesu, save the miner!" Here were ends
Cut through hard marble by the miners' skill,
And winzes, stopes, and rises: pitches here,
Where work'd the heroic, princely tributer,
This month for nothing, next for fifty pounds.
Here lodes ran wide, and there so very small
That scarce a pick-point could be press'd between;
Here making walls as smooth as polish'd steel,
And there as craggy as a rended hill:
And out of sparry vagues the water oozed.
Staining the rock with mineral. so that oft
It led the labourer to a house of gems.
Across the mine a hollow cross-course ran
From north to south, an omen of much good;
And tin lay heap'd on stulls and level-plots;
And in each nook a tallow taper flared,
Where pale men wasted with exhaustion huge
Here holes exploded. and there mallets rang.
And rocks fell crashing, lifting the stiff hair
From time-worn brows, and noisy buckets roar`d
In echoing shafts; and through this gulf of gloom
A hollow murmur rush'd for evermore
And then the father and his wondering boy
Cross'd the rude moors, conversing as they went,
When the youth learnt his father sold the mine
For thousands upon thousands, keeping still
Large shares of profit for himself and son.
And as they linger'd by a broken stile.
Watching a flock of rooks wheel o'er the wood.
And breathing odours from the banks of flowers,
A group of mining men came down the lane,
With footsteps fleet, and very sad of face,
Bearing a burden on some unplaned boards
Nail'd carelessly together. t was a youth
Who left his mother on the lonely wild
At dead of night, to dig within the mine.
He was her only son: the rest were drown'd.
And so this boy became her sole support.
And rumour ran he courted a fair maid.
Whose fame was like a rose-bud. and next moon
They would be married in the village church.
But Providence had order’d otherwise:
For while he labour'd, tamping up a hole
In a hard cross-cut. ninety fathoms down,
It crash’d around him. killing him outright;
And so his mangled form, lash'd to a spar,
Was drawn up through the shaft, and borne along
By his sad comrades to his mother's hut:
And fleetly pass'd they over hill and dale,
Till lost among the rising mists of morn.
There was a miner living by a rock
They call'd The Giant's Marble:" with him dwelt
His wife and six young children, and he strove
By dint of labour with his head and hands,
Early and late, above ground and below,
Both in his little farm and in his pitch,
With manly courage wondrous and sublime, -
More of the hero than the man of spears, -
To feed the flock the Shepherd of the world
Placed in his fold upon the brambled plain.
But months pass'd by, and he no mineral found
Within the rock he blasted: pay-days came,
But not for him: and on his famish'd cheek
Despair had almost stamp'd his frightful name.
Late one long eve the weary tributer
Was digging in the darkness, when he found
A prill of copper larger than his fist,
Which led the labourer to a course of ore;
And ere three weeks had pass'd, the worthy man
Had gain'd enough to cheer his drooping wife,
To pay his debts, and buy his pretty farm.
A cottage girl is wandering by a brook,
Gathering wild flowers, and singing, "From the isles
My love is coming with his heart for me.
His letters have been sweet with tenderest lore,
And musical with gladness. Since he left,
His sire one morn awoke in rifled rags;
And ere the sun went down behind the waves,
He was a rich man, courted and caress'd.
And will success estrange my only love,
And lure him to some less devoted maid?
Away with such a thought! it cannot be;
And so I'll pluck these flowers to bind his brow.
And kiss them as they smile baptized with dews.
He loves the primrose: thus, ye cherubs, come,
And let me pull you for an offering sweet."
And as she drew them from their homes of moss,
Pressing them gently in her little hand,
A fair young man came tripping down the banks
With summer sunshine glowing in his face.
It was her Henry, and full soon their tears
And sighs and kisses mingle as they flow.
"Why do the bells ring out such merry chimes?"
An aged dame ask'd, pausing on the road
To meet her daughter from the market town
With basket huge and heavy. "All this morn
A sea of echoes has been rolling round,
So that the rooks have scarcely had a note
To offer to the sunshine; peal on peal
Has travell'd through the valleys, and the hills
Have almost thrust their ragged caps aside.
I've seen the horses prick their pointed ears,
And pause amid the clover; and the dogs
Have bark'd and danced, not knowing what they did.
Boys clap their hands and maidens sing for glee,
And matrons. arms a-kimbo o'er the fence
Converse and smile, and kiss their wondering bairns.
Why. every tree now shining in the sun
Seems wagging with a bell upon each branch
I never heard such stunning peals before;
No, not when our good squire and lady fair
In bridal robes walk'd to the dear old church.
Do tell me, daughter, why the bells ring so."
"It is a marriage, mother. The rich man
Who lives in von high house across the gorge,
Environ'd with a wood of English oak.
Who drew his riches from a mining pit
When almost dead with fasting, this still morn
Has seen his son united to a girl
As beautiful as summer, whom he loved
When Want stood shivering in his father's home
With Famine on the doorstep. Far away
The young man laboured, prosper'd, and return'd
To find his father rich in friends and fame,
Himself a partner in his hard-earn'd gains.
But richer to his eye the cottage girl,
Who sang among the green fields like a bird,
Than heaps of diamonds piled up to the moon,
Or farms, or friends, or any other thing:
For he was true, and love to him was heaven.
So they are married, mother, and the bells
Ring that the grand old steeple seems to nod.
And let them peal still louder, louder still:
A pair more worthy never were made one,
Since Adam Eve took from the hands of God."
See'st thou that mansion on the woody slope,
Where trees stoop down and kiss the river-waves,
Or whisper on its marge; and graceful sails
Glide up and down, and sea-birds float and dive?
Along the shrubbery walk a lady comes
Leading her children by the evergreens,-
Two boys, with brows like bards and eyes like space:
And one bright girl, with April on her cheeks.
Grey deer are leaping round them, snowy swans
Steer over silent lakes. and cooing doves
Drop from tall trees to drink at glassy falls,
Whilst in the noble dwelling Wealth sits down
Dangling his shining keys with wagging sides.
This hall is Henrv's. his that lady fair,
And his those children beautiful as morn.
Such has old Cornwall lifted from her mines.
The God of Providence directing them,
And placed among the worshipp'd of the world
And thousands yet to come will bless the hour
That drew them forth to drain her mineral-veins.
