Fowey

In the isle where cloudy, melancholy Blaaven,
Of noble mould, empurpled, rules the heaving sea,
You, enfeebled, I supported from the haven.
To where Coruisk glooms crag-immured in lone sublimity. . . .
And the churchyard lieth beautiful to-day, love,
As in yonder dearer, earlier time,
When we wandered hand in hand with you in May, love,
We children, you in all your lovely prime !
Every green grave is a garden gently tended,
And birds sing in the orchard near the dead.
Meet repose for one whose day serenely ended,
Very weary, when the saintly spirit fled !
Joy was yours, and yet your life knew much of anguish,
Disenchantment, weariness, and pain ;
In the later years of weakness, when I saw you languish,
I felt our aching void would be your gain.
Love unfailing, kindly counsel, all the pleasure
In your mere delightful presence, and your smile !
It is a loss that none may map or measure ;
Lite will feel it every weary mile !
O you, who were so kind and so forgiving.
If I grieved you, how my heavy heart hath bled!
Ah ! and though unloyal hours may wrong the living.
We never think unkindly of the dead i
Friend in need, O consolation of the mourner,
Faithful heart, who suffered unremoved !
You leaned upon the Faithful, not a scorner ;
You loved well ; yea, and you were well-beloved.
A little lamb is playing in the orchard,
Faery gleams are fleeting on the hill ;
There is a lireath of lilac in the churchyard,
And the dead are lying very still.
All the vernal loveliness a shadow
Of lovelier havens wherein you al)ide,
Cooler woodland water, warmer meadow.
In the love of Him, who healed you when you died !
Faded letters, and our pilgrimage in dreaming
Raise the dead, more dear than living men,
For, however we believe it only seeming,
Night brings them warm and real to our arms again !
It may be, mother mine, when you departed,
White and silent, that you did not wholly go,
Never left your children broken-hearted.
Help them more, are nearer than they know.
And your remembered tones are more than music.
More than day the memory of your smile ;
Clear from all the cadences of sorrow,
May I hear them, and behold them in a little while !
Our eldest, and our youngest, are they gone now ?
For a mcjment I may linger by the grave ;
It may be that my day is nearly done now ;
Lord, I would have them yonder ; heal, and save !
Where the wooded hills enfold
A gleam of river water,
Luminous brown ripples hold
Communion of laughter,
Silent laughter with the trees,
Water-woven cadences.
Bole and foliage leaning over
The innumerable water-lover.
A weathered arch divinely hued,
With drowsy waterlight imbued, —
All the delicate semitones,
Purple, lilac, greys, and browns,
As tho' ineffable fine feeling
Over it were silent stealing —
Orbed to rondure in the stream ;
Ah ! ruffle not the glassy gleam,
Nor mar the fair unearthly dream !
A rill babbles like a child
In the ear of flowers wild,
Who, nodding to the lucid lapse,
Quiver when the silver taps ;
Here a wheel revolving spills
Urgent weight of flashing rills,
To soft white flour bruises yields
Of the mellow autumn fields.
But another resteth near
All idly ; this for many a year,
Urged by falling water's weight,
Toiled for human ends ; of late,
Roofed by woodland leaves from sun,
It resteth, the long labour done.
Silent ; little herbs and flowers
Have woven delicate green bowers
Over the well-travelled wheel.
Wont to grind our misty meal.
Blue germander, feathery grass,
Jewelled with a dewy glass,
Wild geranium, wood-sorrel.
Visited by moths like coral,
Azure butterflies, and bees.
Lush luxuriant herbs like these
The old water-wheel enwreathe
With a kind of verdure-sheath :
Even as a chrysalis,
Lapped in silent silken bliss ;
To the toil-worn all may seem
Like a sweet long summer dream.
So a new-arrived saint,
World-weary, after the death-faint,
In the sleep wherewith Love bound her,
Finds a lovely dream around her.
A radiant vision of repose
Involves her when her eyelids close.

Here the folding hills abide
Wooded to the water edge ,
Many a leafy nook they hide.
Where, landing on a grassy ledge.
One may moor the boat and lie.
While leafy light and shadow play
With the rippling river nigh.
Where tall heron, of plumage grey,
Waits, or bluebird flasheth by ;
Ample, warm, luxuriant light
Bathes in trance of deep delight.
Till the joy resembles pain.
And full eyes begin to rain.
Fair Lerrin hamlet, Ethy cjuay,
Your memories are dear to me,
Your murmured tones soothe memory !
St. Winnow's hoary old church tower
Drowses in a leafy bower.
While the waters gently steal
From the groves of Lostwithiel.

Now, rower, grapple with the wave !
Flood no longer smooth and suave.
Brown-ridged with feud of wind and tide,
For great ocean far and wide
Invades the river ; swiftly glide.
Pass the orchard-nested village,
Fern, heath, pasture land, and tillage,
Pass the sounding woodland shore,
And vessel lading, till the oar
Be shipped in yonder ampler space
Near the battlements of Place.
Whose the gleaming porphyry hall,
Near Fimbarrus - fair and tall ;
There the lady of Treffry
Compelled besieging hcists to fly ;
There bold gallants of the past iVIarshalled many a seasoned mast.
Loosed the harbour chain, and met
The warrior King Plantagenet,
For irresistible advance
Upon the hostile coast of France.
A quaint old tottering house is here :
To the homely laddered pier
Fishers bring their haul to sell,
Opal-hued, green mackerel.
Dry their nets, and gossip glad.
Blue-girt, big-booted, man or lad.
How often our lithe oar-blades quiver
Upon the healthful lidal river!
How they round the guarding fort,
To find a well-beloved resort
On tawny sand along the coast,
Where huge rugged rocks are tost,
By caves, for some enrapturing bathe.
Where nought may interrupt or scathe;

I The seat of the Treffry family.
Only green billows dance, and fly
White sea-mews with their dear wild cry.
O the tender-tinted lavers,
Where a dimpling water wavers,
Pink, purple, lilac ; turquoise gems
Illume imbathed amber stems.

Crimson weeds from ocean groves
Fleck the yellow floor of coves,
Diapered by gently-flowing
Ripple when no winds are blowing,
Memories of lace-like foam,
Where confused soft bubbles roam.
Launch forth a faery promontory,
Form momentary silver bays ;
And when they vanish, heavenly glory
All the shining shore inlays,
A mirrored pure cerulean hue.
Fine fleeces floating in the blue.
Or by moonlight, how we drove
Our keel into a yielding cove !
Pale foam whispering on the sand,
Eerie as a goblin land,
Shadowy arch, and cave, and stone,
One phantasmal semitone ;
Like visions wizard Wagner raises
With mystical enchanted phrases.

O'er the harbour's pale expanse.
Resembling a profound death-trance,
Under a cold misty moon,
Fragments of an alien tune.
While with bated breath we float.
Are wafted from the anchored boat —
Choral singing, flute, or lyre ;
The grey wave rolls a flickered fire
From her lit porthole ; shadowy
Ships with phantom sail go by.
Hark ! some rushing, throbbing sound
Of a steamer outward bound !
And baying of a far-off hound ! . . .

Beyond the harbour a dim-heaving sea
Breathes, awful with infinity ;
Recalls the vanity of man,
His idle noise, his feeble span :
We are all children of the mighty Main !
Why fear to rest upon the Mother Heart again ?
Launch forth, and sleep
Upon the deep !