for a moment seen,
Lifting her bloody dagger, then with shrieks
Vanishing! Hush! there is no sound--no sound
But of the Severn sweeping onward! Look!
There is no bleeding apparition there--
No fiery phantoms glare along thy walls!
Surrounded by the works of silent art,
And far, far more endearing, by a group 120
Of breathing children, their possessor lives;[76] 121
And ill should I deserve the name of bard--
Of courtly bard, if I could touch this theme
Without a prayer--an earnest, heartfelt prayer,
When one, whose smile I never saw but once,
Yet cannot well forget, when one now blooms--
Unlike the spectre-lady of the rock--
A living and a lovely bride![77]
How proud,
Opposed to Walton's silent towers, how proud, 130
With all her spires and fanes, and volumed smoke,
Trailing in columns to the midday sun,
Black, or pale blue, above the cloudy haze,
And the great stir of commerce, and the noise
Of passing and repassing wains, and cars,
And sledges, grating in their underpath,
And trade's deep murmur, and a street of masts
And pennants from all nations of the earth,
Streaming below the houses, piled aloft,
Hill above hill; and every road below 140
Gloomy with troops of coal-nymphs, seated high
On their rough pads, in dingy dust serene:--
How proudly, amid sights and sounds like these,
Bristol, through all whose smoke, dark and aloof,
Stands Redcliff's solemn fane,--how proudly girt
With villages, and Clifton's airy rocks,
Bristol, the mistress of the Severn sea--
Bristol, amid her merchant-palaces,
That ancient city sits!
From out those trees, 150
Look! Congresbury lifts its slender spire!
How many woody glens and nooks of shade, 152
With transient sunshine, fill the interval,
As rich as Poussin's landscapes! Gnarled oaks,
Dark, or with fits of desultory light
Flung through the branches, there o'erhang the road,
Where sheltered, as romantic, Brockley-Coombe
Allures the lingering traveller to wind,
Step by step, up its sylvan hollow, slow,
Till, the proud summit gained, how gloriously 160
The wide scene lies in light! how gloriously
Sun, shadows, and blue mountai