Twelve sunken ships in Selker's Bay
Rose up; and, righting soon,
With mast and sail stretched far away
Beneath the midnight moon.
They sailed right out to Bethlehem;
And soon they reached the shore.
They steered right home from Bethlehem;
And these the freights they bore.
The first one bore the frankincense;
The second bore the myrrh;
The third the gifts and tribute pence
The Eastern Kings did bear.
The fourth ship bore a little palm
Meet for an infant's hands;
The fifth the spikenard and the balm;
The sixth the swathing bands.
The seventh ship bore without a speck,
A mantle fair and clean;
The eighth the shepherds on her deck
With heavenward eyes serene.
One bore the announcing Angel's song;
One Simeon's glad record;
And one the bright seraphic throng
Whose tongues good tidings poured.
And midst them all, one, favoured more,
Whereon a couch was piled,
The blessed Hebrew infant bore,
On whom the Virgin smiled.
They sailed right into Selker's Bay:
And when the night was worn
To dawning grey, far down they lay,
Again that Christmas morn.
But through the brushwood low and clear
Came chimes and songs of glee,
That Christmas morning, to my ear
Beneath Kirk-sunken Tree.
Not from the frosty air above,
But from the ground below,
Sweet voices carolled songs of love,
And merry bells did go.
From out a City great and fair
The joyous life up-flow'd,
Which once had breathed the living air,
And on the earth abode.
A City far beneath my feet
By passing ages laid;
Or buried while the busy street
Its round of life convey'd.
So to the ground I bent an ear,
That heard, as from the grave,
The blessed Feast-time of the year
Tell out the joy it gave;
The gladness of the Christmas morn.
O fair Kirk-Sunken Tree!
One day in every year's return
Those sounds flow up by thee.
They chime up to the living earth
The joy of them below,
At tidings of the Saviour's birth
In Bethlehem long ago.
NOTES TO "CHIMES OF KIRK-SUNKEN."
In the parish of Bootle is a small inlet of the sea, called Selker's Bay, where the neighbouring people say, that in calm weather the sunken remains of several small vessels or galleys can be seen, which are traditionally stated to have been sunk and left there on some great invasion of the northern parts of this island, by the Romans, or the colonizing Northmen.
Various circles of standing stones, or what are generally called Druidical remains, lie scattered about the vicinity of Black Combe near the sea shore: several indicating by their name the popular tradition associated with them, to which the inhabitants around attach implicit credence, the spot beneath which lie the ruins of a church that sank on a sudden, with the minister and all the congregation within its walls. Hence, they say, the name Kirk-Sank-ton, Kirk-Sunken, Kirk-Sinking, and Sunken Kirks.
THE RAVEN ON KERNAL CRAG.
A Raven alighted on Kernal Rock
Amid thunder's roar and earthquake's shock.
O'er the tumbling crags he rolled his eye
Round valley and lake, and hills and sky.
'Twas a gloomy world. He settled his head
Close into his shoulders and meekly said—
"Poor Raven!"
The Raven on Kernal Crag grew old:
A human voice up the valley rolled.
Bel was worshipp'd on mountain brows:
Men made huts of the forest boughs:
And wrapt in skins in ambush lay
At the base of his crag, and seized their prey.
An old Raven.
The Raven sat in his purple cloke.
A Roman column the silence broke.
He had watched the eagles around him fly:
He saw them perched on spears go by.
The legions marched from hill to hill.
He settled his feathers; and all was still—
Still was the Raven.
The Raven was thinking, on Kernal Stone.
The hammers of Thor he heard them groan:
Regin, and Korni, and Lodinn, and Bor,
Clearing the forests from fell to shore;
With Odin's bird on their banner upraised.
And he quietly said as he downward gazed—
"A Raven!"
The Raven on Kernal was musing still.
King Dunmail's hosts went up the hill,
In the narrow Pass, to their final fall.
With an iron gaze he followed them all;
Till, piled the cairn of mighty stones,
Was heaped the Raise o'er Dunmail's bones.
Ha! hungry Raven!
The Raven on Kernal saw, in a trance,
Knights with gorgeous banner and lance,
Castles, and towers, and ladies fair.
Music floating high on the air
Reached his nest on Kernal's Steep,
And broke the spell of his solemn sleep.
A lonely Raven.
That Raven is sitting on Kernal Rock;
Counting the lambs in a mountain flock.
Pleasant their bleat is, pleasant to hear,
Pleasant to think of; but shepherds are near.
Cattle are calling below in the vale,
Maidens singing a true-love tale.
List to them, Raven.
That Raven will sit upon Kernal Rock
Till the mountains reel in the world's last shock.
Till the new things come to end like old,
He will roll his eye, and his wings unfold,
And settle again; and his solemn brow
Draw close to his shoulders, and muse as now.
That Raven.