Now calm as strong, and clear as summer air,
Blessing and blest of earth and sky, he glides:
Now on some rock-ridge rends his bosom fair,
And foams with cloudy wrath and hissing tides:
Then with full flood of level-gliding force,
His discord-blended melody murmurs low
Down the long seaward course:-
So through Time's mead, great River, greatly glide:
Whither, thou may'st not know:-but He, who knows, will guide.
St. 3 Sketches Prehistoric England. St. 4 Mile-paths; old English name for Roman roads. St. 5 Tree and flower; such are reported to have been naturalized in England by the Romans.-Northern ramparts; that of Agricola and Lollius Urbicus from Forth to Clyde, and the greater work of Hadrian and Severus between Tyne and Solway. St. 6, 7 The Arthurian legends,-now revivified for us by Tennyson's magnificent Idylls of the King,-form the visionary links in our history between the decline of the Roman power and the earlier days of the Saxon conquest. St. 9 Villagedom; Angles and Saxons seem at first to have burned the larger towns of the Romanized Britons and left them deserted, in favour of village-life. St. 11 Village-moot: Held on a little hill or round a sacred tree: 'the ealdermen spoke, groups of freemen stood round, clashing shields in applause, settling matters by loud shouts of Aye or Nay.' (J. R. Green, History of the English People). St. 12 Balder, the God of Light, like Adonis in the old Greek story, is a nature-myth, figuring the Sun, yearly dying in winter, and yearly restored to life. St. 13 Landeyda; Name of Danish banner: 'the desolation of the land.'
For further details upon points briefly noticed in this Prelude, readers are referred to Mr. J. R. Green's History, and to Mr. T. Wright's The Celt, The Roman, and The Saxon, as sources readily accessible.
THE FIRST AND LAST LAND
AT SENNEN
Thrice-blest, alone with Nature!-here, where gray
Belerium fronts the spray
Smiting the bastion'd crags through centuries flown,
While, 'neath the hissing surge,
Ocean sends up a deep, deep undertone,
As though his heavy chariot-wheels went round:
Nor is there other sound
Save from the abyss of air, a plaintive note,
The seabirds' calling cry,
As 'gainst the wind with well-poised weight they float,
Or on some white-fringed reef set up their post,
And sentinel the coast:-
Whilst, round each jutting cape, in pillar'd file,
The lichen-bearded rocks
Like hoary giants guard the sacred Isle.
-Happy, alone with Nature thus!-Yet here
Dim, primal man is near;-
The hawk-eyed eager traders, who of yore
Through long Biscayan waves
Star-steer'd adventurous from the Iberic shore
Or the Sidonian, with their fragrant freight
Oil-olive, fig, and date;
Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes,
Or Tyrian azure glass
Wavy with gold, and agate-banded globes:-
Changing for amber-knobs their Eastern ware
Or tin-sand silvery fair,
To temper brazen swords, or rim the shield
Of heroes, arm'd for fight:-
While the rough miners, wondering, gladly yield
The treasured ore; nor Alexander's name
Know, nor fair Helen's shame;
Or in his tent how Peleus' wrathful son
Looks toward the sea, nor heeds
The towers of still-unconquer'd Ilion.
Belerium; The name given to the Land's End by Diodorus, the Greek historical compiler. He describes the natives as hospitable and civilized. They mined tin, which was bought by traders and carried through Gaul to the south-east, and may, as suggested here, have been used in their armour by the warriors during the Homeric Siege of Troy.
PAULINUS AND EDWIN
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