From Gretna Green to Land's End : a literary journey in England . had their brief season of joy. 319 SOMERSET AND DEVONSHIRE Low was our pretty cot; our tallest rosePeeped at the chamber window. We could hearAt silent noon, and eve, and early mornThe seas faint murmur. In the open airOur myrtle blossomed; and across the porchThick jasmines twined. It was here that this poet of boundlesspromise, The rapt one of the godlike heaven-eyed creature, wrote his iEolian Harp, his * Frost at Mid-night, and other lyrics touched with an un-wonted serenity and sweetness, and here thatHartley C
From Gretna Green to Land's End : a literary journey in England . had their brief season of joy. 319 SOMERSET AND DEVONSHIRE Low was our pretty cot; our tallest rosePeeped at the chamber window. We could hearAt silent noon, and eve, and early mornThe seas faint murmur. In the open airOur myrtle blossomed; and across the porchThick jasmines twined. It was here that this poet of boundlesspromise, The rapt one of the godlike heaven-eyed creature, wrote his iEolian Harp, his * Frost at Mid-night, and other lyrics touched with an un-wonted serenity and sweetness, and here thatHartley Coleridge was born. But our first walk took us by the beach andacross the fields to that obscure and soli-tary church where lies Tennysons Arthur,son of Henry Hallam the historian, and him-self a poet. He was in Vienna when Gods finger touchd him and he slept, and Tennyson linked the Austrian and theEnglish rivers in his elegy. The Danube to the Severn gave The darkend heart that beat no more;They laid him by the pleasant in the hearing of the SOMERSET AND DEVONSHIRE There twice a day the Severn fills;The salt sea-water passes hushes half the babbling Wye,And makes a silence in the hills. The ancient church, now but seldomopened for service, was locked, and we hadto hunt for the sexton. It was dusk whenhe arrived, but we groped our way to thesouth transept and, by the light of a liftedtaper, made out the pathetic farewell: VALE DULCISSIMEVALE DILECTISSIME DESIDERATISSIMEREQUIESCAS IN PACE It was this tablet that haunted the restless-ness of Tennysons grief as, on moonlightnights, he would seem to see that lustre whichfell across his bed gliding through the tran-sept window and becoming a glory on thewalls. The marble bright in dark appears. As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name. And oer the number of thy years. The mystic glory swims away; From off my bed the moonlight dies;And closing eaves of wearied eyesI sleep till dusk is d
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