224 VALE OF THE PLYM. 



And the lone heron, still as if a spell 



Had stricken him to stone, with neck high-arched 



The monarch of his island home, looks down 



Gazing intent, unwearied on the tide; 



And the wild heritor of ocean's waste, 



The storm-nursed sea-mew, for awhile forsakes 



His dwelling on the bosom of the brine 



To linger here in solitude. 



Thy vale 



Romantic Bickleigh ! to the mountain stream 

 Yields all its sylvan beauty, in repose 

 And luxury of wakening verdure clothed, 

 Or dressed in Nature's most fantastic garb. 

 The quiet nooks along the river's side 

 Curtained with ivy, carpetted with moss 

 Of every shade and dye, tapestried o'er 

 With golden coloured lichen, starred with flout -i- 

 And canopied above by slender arms 

 Of graceful mountain ash might well beseem, 

 As secret haunts, the Naiads of the stream. 

 And Desolation, too, might claim a home 

 Where, nearer to thy fountain origins, 

 The misty moor upheaves his tor-crowned hilN 

 Shading in darkness the divergent stream 

 Where, in its rifted course, lie pile on pile, 

 Terrific in their grandeur, massive rocks 

 Swept by the current when the winter storm 

 Sang wildly through the sky and fed with flood* 

 The howling fierceness of the torrents' rush 

 That drunk with revelling in the tempest, raved 

 Like Madness, rent their adamantine chains 

 And flung them here in ruins. 



Stream of the moor ! tis pleasant to forget 



The tumult of the scene we leave behind, 



In the exciting city's restless stir, 



And yield our hearts to gladness, while we woo 



The charms of Nature in her undisturbed 



And lonely loveliness ; To watch the day 



(Jrow glorious in its morning strength, to feel 



The winds diffusing balmy influence 



As wandering on o'er dewy field, and fell, 



