And sometimes, by the clear hill streams,
A knight rides on alone;
He rideth ever beside the river,
Although the day be done;
For he looketh toward the western land
Where watcheth his ladye,
On the shore of the rocky Cornewayle,
In the castle by the sea.
. . . . .
And now thy rocks are silent all,
The kingly chase is o'er,
Yet none may take from thee, old land,
Thy memories of yore.
In many a green and solemn place,
Girt with the wild hills round,
The shadow of the holy cross
Yet sleepeth on the ground.
In many a glen where the ash keys hang
All golden 'midst their leaves,
The knights' dark strength is rising yet,
Clad in its wild-flower wreaths.
And yet along the mountain-paths
Rides forth that stately band,
A vision of the dim old days—
A dream of fairyland.
'It is the wide extent of these solitary wastes which makes them so impressive, and gives them their influence over the imagination. Whether seen at mid-day, when the gleams of sunlight are chasing one another along the hill-side; or at sunset, when the long line of dusky moorland lifts itself against the fading light of the western sky, the same character of extent and freedom is impressed on the landscape, which carries the fancy from hill to hill, and from valley to valley, and leads it to imagine other scenes, of equal wildness, which the distant hills conceal
'"Beyond their utmost purple rim."'
Perhaps the scenery of Dartmoor is never more impressive than under those evening effects which have last been suggested. The singular shapes assumed by the granite cappings of the tors are strongly projected against the red light of the sunset, which gleams between the many openings in the huge piles of rock, making them look like passages into some unknown country beyond them, and suggesting that idea of infinity which is afforded by no other object of sight in equal degree. Meanwhile, the heather of the foreground is growing darker and darker; and the only sound which falls upon the ear is that of the river far below, or perhaps the flapping of some heron's wings, as he rises from his rock in the stream and disappears westward—
'Where, darkly painted on the blood-red sky,
His figure floats along.'