Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Dover
DOVER.
Out on the Shakspeare cliff, and look below!
Seest thou the samphire-gatherer? He no more
Pursues his fearful trade, as when the eye
Of Avon's bard descried him. But the height
Is still as dizzy, and the ruffian winds
Come from their conflict with the raging seas
So vengefully, that it is hard to hold
A footing on the rock.
The moon is forth
In all her queenly plenitude, and scans
The foaming channel with a look of peace,
But ill returned. For such a clamor reigns
Between the ploughing waves and unyoked blasts,
That the hoarse trumpet of the mariner
Seems like the grass-bird's chirp.
And yet 't is grand
To gaze upon the mountain-surge, and hear
How loftily it hurls the challenge back
To the chafed cloud, and feel yourself a speck,
An atom, in His sight, who rules its wrath,
To whom the crush of all the elements
Were but a bursting bubble.
Cliffs of chalk,
Old Albion's signal to the mariner,
Encompass Dover, with their ramparts white,
As in her vale, half-deafened by the surge,
She croucheth down. Within their yielding breasts,
Deep excavations, and dark wreaths of smoke
Mysterious, curling upward to the cloud,
Reveal the soldier's home.
With Roman pride
The ancient Pharos in its dotage points
To Cæsar, and the castellated walls
Of yon irregular fabric speak of war:—
While France, who through the curtaining haze peers out
Faint on the far horizon, boasts how oft
The bomb-fires blazed, and the tired sentinel
Kept watch and ward against her warrior step,
Or threatened purpose.
Yet 't is sweeter far,
In yon sequestered vales and hamlets small,
To note the habitudes of rural life,
Safe from such hurly'twixt the sea and shore,
As shreds the rock in fragments.
Twining round
Trellis or prop, or o'er the cottage wall
Weaving its wiry tendrils, interspersed
With the rough serrate leaf, profuse and dark,—
The aromatic hop, the grape of Kent,
Lifts its full clusters, of a paler green,
Loved for the simple vintage.
Many a tale
Of interest and sympathy is rife
Among the humble harvesters of Kent;
And one I heard, which I remember still.
In a lone hamlet, the narrator said,
I saw a funeral. Round the open grave
Gathered a band of thoughtful villagers,
While pressing nearest to its shelving brink,
A slender boy of some few summers stood,
Sole mourner, with a wild and wishful eye
Fixed on the coffin. When they let it down
Into the darksome pit, and the coarse earth
From the grave-digger's shovel falling gave
A hollow sound, there rose such bitter wail,
Prolonged and deep, as I had never heard
Come from a child.
Then he, who gave with prayers
The body to the dust, when the last rite
Was over, turned with sympathizing look,
And said;
"Poor boy, your mother will not sleep
In this cold bed forever. No!—as sure
As the sweet flowers, which now the frost hath chilled,
Shall hear the call of spring, and the dry grass
Put on fresh greenness, she shall rise again,
And live a life of joy."
Bleak autumn winds
Swept through the rustling leaves, and seemed to pierce
The shivering orphan, as he bowed him down
All desolate, to look into the pit.
But from the group a kindly matron came,
And led him thence.
When spring returning threw
Her trembling colors o'er the wakened earth,
I wandered there again. A timid step
Fell on my ear, and that poor orphan child
Came from his mother's grave. Paler he'd grown,
Since last I saw him, and his little feet
With frequent tread had worn the herbage down
To a deep, narrow path. He started thence,
And would have fled away. But when I said
That I had stood beside him, while they put
His mother in the grave, he nearer drew,
Inquiring eagerly,—
"Then did you hear
The minister, who always speaks the truth,
Say that she'd rise again?—that just as sure
As spring restored to life the grass and flowers,
She would come back?"
"Yes.— But not here, my son;
Not to live here."
"Yes, here, this is the spot
Where she was laid. So here she'll rise again,
Just where they buried her. I marked it well,
And night and morning, since the grass grew green,
I've come to watch. Sometimes I press my lips
Close to the place where they laid down her head,
And call, and tell her that the flowers have come,
And now 't is time to wake. See too the seeds
I planted here! seeds of the flowers she loved,
Break the brown mould. But yet she does not come,
Nor answer to my voice."
"She cannot come
To you, on earth, but you shall go to her."
"I go to her!" and his thin hands were clasped
So close, that every bone and sinew seemed
Fast knit together. "Shall I go to her?
Let me go now."
Then, with a yearning heart,
I told him of the Book that promiseth
A resurrection, and eternal life
To them who sleep in Jesus,—that the word
Of God's unerring truth could ne'er deceive
The trusting soul, that kept His holy law
Obediently, and his appointed time
With patience waited.
"Then I'll wait His time,
And try to do His will, if I may hope,
After this body dies, to rise again,
And live once more with mother."
So he turned
From that low grave, with such a piteous look
Of soul subdued, and utter loneliness,
As haunted memory, like a troubled dream.
Time sped away, and when again I passed
That quiet village, I inquired for him,
And one who knew him told me how he prized
The Blessed Book, which teacheth that the dead
Shall rise again, and o'er its pages hung
Each leisure moment, with a wondering love,
Until he learned of Jesus, and laid down
All sorrow at his feet.
But then there came
A fearful sickness, and in many a cot
Were children dead, and he grew ill, and bore
His pain without complaint, and meekly died,
And went to join the mother that he loved.
Saturday, Nov. 7, 1840
"Deep excavations, and dark wreaths of smoke."
In the towering cliffs of Dover, which are chalk, with a mixture of flint stones, are cut various subterranean ways, magazines, and barracks for soldiers. The latter are capable of containing more than 2000 men, and are constructed in the side of perpendicular precipices, to which you ascend, by an internal winding stair-case, some two hundred steps. Light and air are conveyed to them by well-like apertures in the chalk, or by openings on the face of the cliffs; and an intelligent traveller has said, that "the chimneys, coming up forty feet through the mountain, shoot out their smoke, as if they were the flues of some Cyclopean artificers, whose forges were in the bowels of the earth."
"The ancient Pharos in its dotage points
To Cæsar."
The remains of the Pharos, on Castle-Hill, furnish incontestable proof of Roman workmanship, though no decided evidence can be adduced that it was erected by Julius Cæsar, as tradition is fond of asserting. The commanding situation of Dover caused it to be held as a military post by the ancient Britons, and that it was fortified by the Romans is admitted by the most discriminating historians.
"The aromatic hop, the grape of Kent."
The culture of the hop has long been a distinguishing feature of the County of Kent. Old Michael Drayton exclaims;
"O famous Kent!
What county can this isle compare with thee?
Which hath within thyself all thou couldst wish,
Rabbits and venison, fruits, hops, fowl and fish," &c.
And a more modern poet describes with greater particularity this predominating vegetable.
"On Cantium's hills,
The flowery hop, with tendrils climbing round
The tall, aspiring pole, bears its light head
Aloft, in pendent clusters."
The name of Cantium, which was given to this county by Cæsar, is referred by Camden to the word Canton, or Cant, signifying corner, because it stretched out in the form of a large angle, comprehending the south-east coast of the island.
Though our journey from London to Dover was principally performed amidst a violent rain, we were not precluded from some observation of the finely varied country through which we were passing.
Rochester Cathedral, which, notwithstanding the storm, we found opportunity to visit, is of early Saxon origin, and suffered much under William the Conqueror, and at the Reformation. It has statues of Henry the Second, and his queen, Matilda, but not many monuments to illustrious men. It is the smallest of the cathedrals in England, and belongs to the smallest diocese.
Canterbury Cathedral towered up like a mountain through the dimness of twilight. The edifice which originally occupied its site was burned by the Danes, during their siege of the city in 1011, and rebuilt in the course of the same century. It contains the tomb of Becket, whose blood was spilt before its altar, at the instigation of Henry the Second. It has also the monuments of Henry the Fourth, and his queen; the Black Prince, and many other distinguished characters, both of ancient and modern times.
The whole of our stay in Dover was marked by wind and tempest. In an evening promenade, somewhat overrating our powers of adhesion to the rocks that we traversed, we were near being blown from the Shakspeare cliff into the surges that boiled beneath. Dover Castle and its reminiscences of the vigilance, with which the English troops here kept guard against the vaunted invasion of the Corsican, induced one of our party to describe a caricature, executed at that time in London, which gave great satisfaction to the people. Bonaparte is represented on the very verge of the coast of Calais, eagerly pointing a spyglass towards the heights of Dover, where John Bull, in full military uniform, and with his usual portly figure, is perambulating at leisure.
"Says Boney to Johnny, I'm coming to Dover,
Says Johnny to Boney, 't is doubted by some;
But says Boney, what if I really come over?
Then doubtless, says Johnny, you'll be overcome."
It was not without some misgivings, heightened probably by those November fogs and rains, which in the English clime make demands on the most elastic spirit, that we prepared to cross the angry Channel, and enter another foreign land. A discourse to which we listened in Trinity Church, the Sunday before leaving Dover, seemed to impart strength to our faith, both by its spirit and the passage on which it was founded, "Lord, to whom shall we go but unto Thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life."