A RAMBLE TO THE MOUNTAIN HEAD.
O! let us away to yon heights,
Where the Roman encamp’d him of old;
With his train’d bowmen and Knights,
And his banner all burnish’d with gold.
Having reluctantly turned our backs upon the Telegraph, we now direct our steps to the mountain apex. The road is not macadamized, but a romantic walk of 30 minutes will scarcely be felt between the bracing effects of the atmosphere and the excitement; and I feel assured that the antiquities will amply repay the additional toil. From the summit there is a commanding view of the Promontory, and you may mark its varying breadth and inequalities, its storm indented figure, and its broken fantastic cliffs, abrupt declivities, and deep gorges, as by some earthquake cleft.
There is, indeed, a charm connected with this mount, before which the pageant of pomp, and the heralds of emblazonry must bow down. That charm is
The power of thought, the magic of the mind.
What thoughts crowd upon the mind while standing on this memorable mountain! What triumphs and defeats have been experienced here. Hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, have alternately swelled the breasts of thousands mid these rocks, while watching every movement of an adverse fleet, or the approach of distant armies. The transactions of bye-gone centuries pass in review before our eyes—
Pen Caer Gybi stands renown’d,
Proud in song, and known in story;
Where proud Rome in triumph frown’d
O’er the Welsh, who died in glory.
These were the mighty fastnesses to which the ancient Britons had recourse when overpowered by numbers and military tactics in the plain. There is no wonder that these “sons of the mountain heroes” so long successfully withstood the inroads of Roman legions, when such craggy and adamantine rocks, were the “external circumstances” in their “formation of character;” and nothing less than the refined expedient of powder and ball could dislodge them from these rocky fastnesses and natural barricades; bows and arrows, swords and spears, were only adapted for milder game, or closer quarters. On this mountain our hardy ancestors stood and nobly fought, when liberty made her last stand in this kingdom against the strides of Roman power; their determination was
To leave the battle only on their biers,
“to conquer or to die,” and thousands fell
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
Here we tread
On sacred ground, and press the mingled dust of heroes;
Far, far beneath they sleep, nor does a stone
Or marble column rear its head to show
The spot where now they moulder.