The view was bounded on their right by hills,
Those gentle hills that border on the sea,
Ah! as I write a thought my bosom stills,
That thought, Oh Berwick, is the thought of thee!
How kind, how tranquil were thine hours to me,
Those hours amongst thy silent valleys cast,
O moments gone, come back and let me be
Enfolded in the visions of the Past,
While other hours and days and years are fleeting fast!
XLVII.
Anon the summit of the cliff they gained,
Above the vast expanse the eye is bent,
Where Beauty's finger wanders unrestrained
With its fantastical embellishment;
The mind is riveted, the gaze is spent
Where lavish Nature pours her richest spoil,
The tongue is voiceless with bewilderment,
Far, far below the ocean's ceaseless toil
Makes bosoms inly shudder and all eyes recoil.
XLVIII.
Our little thoughts are staggered at the scene,
That splendour so unspeakably intense,
And dazzled by its brilliancy of sheen,
The senses reel with its magnificence;
Below the surgy yeast was boiling, whence
Rose on the summer air its restless roar,
It smote the broken cliff's bold battlements,
Unmoted like the warriors of yore,
And plunged upon the moss-clad boulders of the shore.
XLIX.
The feathery clouds moved slowly through the sky,
The coast-line melted into tender blue,
The storm-bleared headland stood defiantly
The boldest feature of that boundless view;
In contrast with its chalky front, the hue
Of the green sea swept freely far and wide,
And o'er the promontory's base there grew,
As though its time-torn nakedness to hide,
Some shaggy weeds that floated on the swelling tide.
L.
It was the ebb. They could not yet descend;
So Rose suggested that they should proceed
In the direction of the headland's end,
There straightway squat them on the grass and read
The books they'd brought; to this they all agreed,
Then hastened onward though the sun was hot,
And there beneath their sunshades with much speed
And very much more chatter did they squat;
In those parts foliage umbrageous there was not.
LI.