{137}
Devon
Deep-wooded combes, clear-mounded hills of morn,
Red sunset tides against a red sea-wall,
High lonely barrows where the curlews call,
Far moors that echo to the ringing horn,—
Devon! thou spirit of all these beauties born,
All these are thine, but thou art more than all:
Speech can but tell thy name, praise can but fall
Beneath the cold white sea-mist of thy scorn.
Yet, yet, O noble land, forbid us not
Even now to join our faint memorial chime
To the fierce chant wherewith their hearts were hot
Who took the tide in thy Imperial prime;
Whose glory's thine till Glory sleeps forgot
With her ancestral phantoms, Pride and Time.
{138}
Among the Tombs
She is a lady fair and wise,
Her heart her counsel keeps,
And well she knows of time that flies
And tide that onward sweeps;
But still she sits with restless eyes
Where Memory sleeps—
Where Memory sleeps.
Ye that have heard the whispering dead
In every wind that creeps,
Or felt the stir that strains the lead
Beneath the mounded heaps,
Tread softly, ah! more softly tread
Where Memory sleeps—
Where Memory sleeps.
{139}
Gold