[ Wm. Stephen Pryer . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece ]
[ The Castle, Hastyngs. ]
[ St. Hilda's Keep. ]
THE CASTLE, HASTYNGS.
Old Ragnor's Cliffs.
Like some horrific Gorgon's mammoth skull,
Thrown up by Titan spade,
From out those caves
Where saurians with mastodons had played,
Before the sea had made their homes their graves,
And scared their ghosts with screech of sea-born mew and gull,
Is Ragnor's beetling brow, the seaman's dread,
That scowls by night and day
On that same sea
And with earth-shaking sound is heard to say,—
Which sound the waves roll back with mocking glee—
"What! Not enough of life ye must e'en have the dead?"