144 STADDON HEIGHTS. 



Seem glowing into life : How the pleased eye 



Surveys the scene again untired again, 



In all its varied picturesque extent, 



Stretching from where the busy arsenal 



O'erlooks the Tamar's bulwark-studded stream, 



To Laira, rolling from the cloud-crowned moor 



Through glen and valley, glebe and cultured mead. 



Still Evening's influence falls, and the rough voice 



Arising from the multitude, intent 



On busy occupations, such as made 



The tower crowned city * mistress of the sea, 



Grows fainter, fainter still and looses now 



The babel hum of its tumultuous din ; 



And nervous Labour from his wearing toil, 



That waked him with the sun and held him through 



The sultry noon and the long summer day, 



Seeks his hard couch of most serene repose. 



Behind that little isle,f which, deadly, frowns 



With engines of destruction lightning fraught 



Where Tamar yields the tribute of the hills 



Back to her wide maternal element, 



Lie the huge bulwarks of fair Britain's fame ; 



Lo ! each one rests upon the stirless tide, 



In placid grandeur peerless in its might, 



Its beauty and its vastness " ribbed with oak " 



Knitted with brazen strength and framed to pour, 



Like a volcano, terrible thunder forth. 



But should a tempest wring the harbour's breast. 



Then might ye see them, with gigantic strain 



And Titan efforts writhing to get free, 



And struggling over each successive swell 



Till every linked cable creaked and groaned 



In spent exhaustion, while it feebly held 



An Ocean Castle, conscious as it heaved 



( )f its proud strength and eager to be out 



Upon the deep the weltering deep again. 



These are the ships that at the sound of war, 



( i tided our island with a zone of fire 



And mixed theij; threatenings with the sea wind's n>;n 



* Venice. f Drake's Island. 



