Banwell Hill; A Lay Of The Severn Sea. Part Fourth

PART FOURTH.

WALK ABROAD - VIEWS AROUND, FROM THE SEVERN TO BRISTOL - WRINGTON - "AULD ROBIN GRAY."

The shower is past - the heath-bell, at our feet,

Looks up, as with a smile, though the cold dew

Hangs yet within its cup, like Pity's tear

Upon the eyelids of a village child!

Mark! where a light upon those far-off waves

Gleams, while the passing shower above our head

Sheds its last silent drops, amid the hues

Of the fast-fading rainbow, - such is life!

Let us go forth, the redbreast is abroad,

And, dripping in the sunshine, sings again.    10

No object on the wider sea-line meets

The straining vision, but one distant ship,

Hanging, as motionless and still, far off,

In the pale haze, between the sea and sky.

She seems the ship - the very ship I saw

In infancy, and in that very place,

Whilst I, and all around me, have grown old

Since she was first descried; and there she sits,

A solitary thing of the wide main -

As she sat years ago. Yet she moves on: -    20

To-morrow all may be one waste of waves!

Where is she bound? We know not; and no voice    22

Will tell us where. Perhaps she beats her way

Slow up the channel, after many years,

Returning from some distant clime, or lands,

Beyond the Atlantic! Oh! what anxious eyes

Count every nearer surge that heaves around!

How many anxious hearts this moment beat

With thronging thoughts of home, till those fixed eyes,

Intensely fixed upon these very hills,    30

Are filled with tears! Perhaps she wanders on -

On - on - into the world of the vast sea,

There to be lost: never, with homeward sails,

Destined to greet these far-seen hills again,

Now fading into mist! So let her speed,

And we will pray she may return in joy,

When every storm is past! Such is this sea,

That shows one wandering ship! How different smile

The sea-scenes of the south; and chiefly thine,

Waters of loveliest Hampton, chiefly thine -    40

Where I have passed the happiest hours of youth -

Waters of loveliest Hampton! Thy gray walls,

And loop-hooled battlements, cast the same shade

Upon the light blue wave, as when of yore,

Beneath their arch, King Canute sat,[74] and chid

The tide, that came regardless to his feet,

A thousand years ago. Oh! how unlike

Yon solitary sea, the summer shines,

There, while a crowd of glancing vessels glide,

Filled with the young and gay, and pennants wave,    50

And sails, at distance, beautifully swell

To the light breeze, or pass, like butterflies,

Amid the smoking steamers. And, oh look! -

Look! what a fairy lady is that yacht

That turns the wooded point, and silently    55

Streams up the sylvan Itchin; silently -

And yet as if she said, as she went on,

Who does not gaze at me!

Yon winding sands

Were solitary once, as the wide sea.        60

Such I remember them! No sound was heard,

Save of the sea-gull warping on the wind,

Or of the surge that broke along the shore,

Sad as the seas; and can I e'er forget,

When, once, a visitor from Oxenford,

Proud of Wintonian scholarship, a youth,

Silent, but yet light-hearted, deeming here

I could have no companion fit for him -

So whispered youthful vanity - for him

Whom Oxford[75] had distinguished, - can my heart    70

Forget when once, with thoughts like these, at morn,

I wandered forth alone! The first ray shone

On the white sea-gull's wing, and gazing round,

I listened to the tide's advancing roar,

When, for the old and booted fisherman,

Who silent dredged for shrimps, in the cold haze

Of sunrise, I beheld - or was it not

A momentary vision? - a fair form -

A female, following, with light, airy step,

The wave as it retreated, and again    80

Tripping before it, till it touched her foot,

As if in play; and she stood beautiful,

Like to a fairy sea-maid of the deep,

Graceful, and young, and on the sands alone.

I looked that she would vanish! She had left,

Like me, just left the abode of discipline,

And came, in the gay fulness of her heart,

When the pale light first glanced along the wave,    88

To play with the wild ocean, like a child;

And though I knew her not, I vowed (oh, hear,

Ye votaries of German sentiment!) -

Vowed an eternal love; but, diffident,

I cast a parting look, that seemed to say,

Shall we ne'er meet again? The vision smiled,

And left the scene to solitude. Once more

We met, and then we parted, in this world

To meet no more; and that fair form, that shone

The vision of a moment, on the sands,

Was never seen again! Now it has passed

Where all things are forgotten; but it shone    100

To me a sparkle of the morning sun,

That trembled on the light wave yesterday,

And perished there for ever!

Look around!

Above the winding reach of Severn stands,

With massy fragments of forsaken towers,

Thy castle, solitary Walton. Hark!

Through the lone ivied arch, was it the wind

Came fitful! There, by moonlight, we might stand,

And deem it some old castle of romance;    110

And on the glimmering ledge of yonder rock,

Above the wave, fancy it was the form

Of a spectre-lady, for a moment seen,

Lifting her bloody dagger, then with shrieks

Vanishing! Hush! there is no sound - no sound

But of the Severn sweeping onward! Look!

There is no bleeding apparition there -

No fiery phantoms glare along thy walls!

Surrounded by the works of silent art,

And far, far more endearing, by a group    120

Of breathing children, their possessor lives;[76]    121

And ill should I deserve the name of bard -

Of courtly bard, if I could touch this theme

Without a prayer - an earnest, heartfelt prayer,

When one, whose smile I never saw but once,

Yet cannot well forget, when one now blooms -

Unlike the spectre-lady of the rock -

A living and a lovely bride![77]

How proud,

Opposed to Walton's silent towers, how proud,    130

With all her spires and fanes, and volumed smoke,

Trailing in columns to the midday sun,

Black, or pale blue, above the cloudy haze,

And the great stir of commerce, and the noise

Of passing and repassing wains, and cars,

And sledges, grating in their underpath,

And trade's deep murmur, and a street of masts

And pennants from all nations of the earth,

Streaming below the houses, piled aloft,

Hill above hill; and every road below    140

Gloomy with troops of coal-nymphs, seated high

On their rough pads, in dingy dust serene: -

How proudly, amid sights and sounds like these,

Bristol, through all whose smoke, dark and aloof,

Stands Redcliff's solemn fane, - how proudly girt

With villages, and Clifton's airy rocks,

Bristol, the mistress of the Severn sea -

Bristol, amid her merchant-palaces,

That ancient city sits!

From out those trees,    150

Look! Congresbury lifts its slender spire!

How many woody glens and nooks of shade,    152

With transient sunshine, fill the interval,

As rich as Poussin's landscapes! Gnarled oaks,

Dark, or with fits of desultory light

Flung through the branches, there o'erhang the road,

Where sheltered, as romantic, Brockley-Coombe

Allures the lingering traveller to wind,

Step by step, up its sylvan hollow, slow,

Till, the proud summit gained, how gloriously    160

The wide scene lies in light! how gloriously

Sun, shadows, and blue mountains far away,

Woods, meadows, and the mighty Severn blend,

While the gray heron up shoots, and screams for joy!

There the dark yew starts from the limestone rock

Into faint sunshine; there the ivy hangs

From the old oak, whose upper branches, bare,

Seem as admonishing the nether woods

Of Time's swift pace; while dark and deep beneath

The fearful hollow yawns, upon whose edge    170

One peeping cot sends up, from out the fern,

Its early wreath of slow-ascending smoke.

And who lives in that far-secluded cot?

Poor Dinah! She was once a serving-maid,

Most beautiful; now, on the wild wood's edge

She lives alone, alone, and bowed with age,

Muttering, and sad, and scarce within the sound

Of human kind, forsaken as the scene!

Nor pass we Fayland, with its fairy rings

Marking the turf, where tiny elves may dance,    180

Their light feet twinkling in the dewy gleam,

By moonlight. But what sullen demon piled

The rocks, that stern in desolation frown,

Through the deep solitude of Goblin-Coombe,[78]

Where, wheeling o'er its crags, the shrilling kite    183

More dismal makes its utter dreariness!

But yonder, at the foot of Mendip, smiles

The seat of cultivated Addington:[79]

And there, that beautiful but solemn church

Presides o'er the still scene, where one old friend[80]    190

Lives social, while the shortening day unfelt

Steals on, and eve, with smiling light, descends -

With smiling light, that, lingering on the tower,

Reminds earth's pilgrim of his lasting home.

Is that a magic garden on the edge

Of Mendip hung? Even so it seems to gleam;

While many a cottage, on to Wrington's smoke

(Wrington, the birth-place of immortal Locke),

Chequers the village-crofts and lowly glens

With porch of flowers, and bird-cage, at the door,    200

That seems to say - England, with all thy crimes,

And smitten as thou art by pauper-laws,

England, thou only art the poor man's home!

And yonder Blagdon, in its sheltered glen,

Sits pensive, like a rock-bird in its cleft.

The craggy glen here winds, with ivy hung,

Beneath whose dark, depending tresses peeps

The Cheddar-pink; there fragments of red rock

Start from the verdant turf, among the flowers.

And who can paint sweet Blagdon, and not think    210

Of Langhorne, in that hermitage of song -

Langhorne, a pastor, and a poet too![81]

He, in retirement's literary bower,

Oft wooed the Sisters of the sacred well,

Harmonious: nor pass on without a prayer

For her, associate of his early fame,    216

Accomplished, eloquent, and pious More,[82]

Who now, with slow and gentle decadence,

In the same vale, with look upraised to heaven,

Waits meekly at the gate of paradise,    220

Smiling at time!

But, hark! there comes a song,

Of Scotland's lakes and hills - Auld Robin Gray!

Tweed, or the winding Tay, ne'er echoed words

More sadly soothing; but the melody,[83]

Like some sweet melody of olden times,

A ditty of past days, rose from those woods.

Oh! could I hear it, as I heard it once -

Sung by a maiden[84] of the south, whose look

(Although her song be sweet), whose look, and life,    230

Are sweeter than her song - no minstrel gray,

Like Donald and "the Lady of the Lake,"

But would lay down his harp, and when the song

Was ended, raise his lighted eyes, and smile,

To thank that maiden, with a strain like this: -

Oh! when I hear thee sing of "Jamie far away,"

Of "father and of mother," and of "Auld Robin Gray,"

I listen till I think it is Jeanie's self I hear,

And I look in thy face with a blessing and a tear.

"I look in thy face," for my heart it is not cold,[85]    240

Though winter's frost is stealing on, and I am growing old;

Those tones I shall remember as long as I live,    242

And a blessing and a tear shall be the thanks I give.

The tear it is for summers that so blithesome have been,

For the flowers that all are faded, and the days that I have seen;

The blessing, lassie, is for thee, whose song, so sadly sweet,

Recalls the music of "Lang Syne," to which my heart has beat.