Robert Bloomfield

Name: The Banks of Wye: A Poem
Author: Robert Bloomfield

Summary

“The Banks of Wye: A Poem”, is a work by Robert Bloomfield. It explores elements such as Persfield, Wye and the Humane Society.

Quotes from The Banks of Wye: A Poem (Robert Bloomfield)

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Though sorrow was mark'd in his eye,
This trial he manfully bore;
Then pass'd o'er the bridge of the WYE,
To return to his PERSFIELD no more.
Yet surely another may feel,
And poverty still may be fed;
I was one who rung out the dumb peal,
For to us noble MORRIS was dead.
He had not lost sight of his home,
Yon domain that so lovely appears,
When he heard it, and sunk overcome;
He could feel, and he burst into tears.
The lessons of prudence have charms,
And slighted, may lead to distress;
But the man whom benevolence warms,
Is an angel who lives but to bless. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ That 'Cambrian mountains' thou should'st never tread,
That 'time-worn cliff, and classic stream to see,'
Was wealth's prerogative, despair for thee.
Come to the proof; with us the breeze inhale,
Renounce despair, and come to Severn's vale;
And where the COTSWOLD HILLS are stretch'd along,
Seek our green dell, as yet unknown to song:
Start hence with us, and trace, with raptur'd eye,
The wild meanderings of the beauteous WYE;
Thy ten days leisure ten days joy shall prove,
And rock and stream breathe amity and love. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ GLEANER'S SONG Dear Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stor'd,
With the joys of some bride, and the wealth of her lord.
Of her chariots and dresses,
And worldly caresses,
And servants that fly when she's waited upon:
But what can she boast if she weds unbelov'd?
Can she e'er feel the joy that one morning I prov'd,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John?
These fields, my dear Ellen, I knew them of yore,
Yet to me they ne'er look'd so enchanting before;
The distant bells ringing,
The birds round us singing,
For pleasure is pure when affection is won ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ And shout, "Delicious WYE, farewell!"
'Twas noon, when o'er thy mountain stream,
The carriage roll'd, each pow'rful gleam
Struck on thy surface, where, below,
Spread the deep heaven's azure glow;
And water-flowers, a mingling croud,
Wav'd in the dazzling silver cloud.
Again farewell! The treat is o'er;
For me shall Cambria smile no more;
Yet truth shall still the song sustain,
And touch the springs of joy again.
Hail! land of cyder, vales of health!
Redundant fruitage, rural wealth ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Of beetling PERSFIELD'S fairy ground,
By buttresses of rock upborne,
The rude APOSTLES all unshorn.
Long be the slaught'ring axe defy'd;
Long may they bear their waving pride;
Tree over tree, bower over bower,
In uncurb'd nature's wildest power;
Till WYE forgets to wind below,
And genial spring to bid them grow.
And shall we e'er forget the day, When our last chorus died away? When first we hail'd, then moor'd beside Rock-founded CHEPSTOW'S mouldering pride? Where that strange bridge [1] , light, trembling, high, Strides like a spider o'er the WYE ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ The stranger thus who steals one hour
To trace thy walks from bower to bower,
Thy noble cliffs, thy wildwood joys,
Nature's own work that never cloys,
Who, while reflection bids him roam,
Exclaims not, "PERSFIELD is my home"
Can ne'er, with dull unconscious eye,
Leave them behind without a sigh.
Thy tale of truth then, Sorrow, tell,
Of one who bade this home farewell;
MORRIS of PERSFIELD.—Hark, the strains!
Hark! 'tis some Monmouth bard complains!
The deeds, the worth, he knew so well,
The force of nature bids him tell.
MORRIS OF PERSFIELD Who was lord of yon beautiful seat ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ To gain the ridge, enjoy the view,
Where the the pure gales of summer blew.
The gleaming WYE, that circles round
Her four-mile course, again is found;
And crouching to the conqueror's pride,
Bathes his huge cliffs on either side;
Seen at one glance, when from his brow,
The eye surveys twin gulphs below.
Whence comes thy name? What Symon he,
Who gain'd a monument in thee?
Perhaps a rude woodhunter, born
Peril, and toil, and death, to scorn;
Or warrior, with his powerful lance,
Who scal'd the cliff to gain a glance ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ The wakeful steersman ready lay,
To rouse us at the break of day;
It came—how soon! and what a sky,
To cheer the bounding traveller's eye!
To make him spurn his couch of rest,
To shout upon the river's breast;
Watching by turns the rosy hue
Of early cloud, or sparkling dew;
These living joys the verse shall tell,
Harry, and Monmouth, fare-ye-well.
On upland farm, and airy height,
Swept by the breeze, and cloth'd in light,
The reapers, early from their beds,
Perhaps were singing o'er our heads.
For, stranger, deem not that the eye
Could hence survey the eastern sky ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Talk of the WYE as some old dream,
Call it the wild, the wizard stream;
Sink in your broad arm-chair to rest,
And youth shall smile to see you bless'd.
Artists, betimes your powers employ,
And take the pilgrimage of joy ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ That bosoms still might throb, and still adore,
When his who strives to charm them beats no more!
One August morn, with spirits high,
Sound health, bright hopes, and cloudless sky,
A cheerful group their farewell bade
To DURSLEY tower, to ULEY'S shade;
And where bold STINCHCOMB'S greenwood side.
Heaves in the van of highland pride,
Scour'd the broad vale of Severn; there
The foes of verse shall never dare
Genius to scorn, or bound its power,
There blood-stain'd BERKLEY'S turrets low'r,
A name that cannot pass away,
Till time forgets "the Bard" of GRAY. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ What course can poverty pursue?
What can the poor pretend to do?
O boast not, quarries, of your store;
Boast not, O man, of wealth or lore,
The flowers of nature here shall thrive,
Affection keep those flowers alive ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ To keep the flying boat in trim.
[Illustration: NEW WEAR on the WYE]
Hush! not a whisper! Oars, be still!
Comes that soft sound from yonder hill?
Or is it close at hand, so near
It scarcely strikes the list'ning ear?
E'en so; for down the green bank fell,
An ice-cold stream from Martin's Well,
Bright as young beauty's azure eye,
And pure as infant chastity,
Each limpid draught, suffus'd with dew,
The dipping glass's crystal hue;
And as it trembling reach'd the lip,
Delight sprung up at every sip.
Pure, temperate joys, and calm, were these;
We tost upon no Indian seas ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Footnote 1: To the custom of scattering flowers over the graves of
departed friends, David ap Gwillym beautifully alludes in one of his odes.
"O whilst thy season of flowers, and thy tender sprays thick of leaves
remain, I will pluck the roses from the brakes, the flowerets of the
meads, and gems of the wood; the vivid trefoil, beauties of the ground,
and the gaily-smiling bloom of the verdant herbs, to be offered to the
memory of a chief of fairest fame. Humbly will I lay them on the grave of
Iver." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ To teach us, in our solemn hours,
That we ourselves are dying flowers.
What if a father buried here
His earthly hope, his friend most dear,
His only child? Shall his dim eye,
At poverty's command, be dry? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Go, joys untasted, themes unsung,
Another scene, another land,
Hence shall the homeward verse demand.
Yet fancy wove her flow'ry chain,
Till "farewell BRECON" left a pain;
A pain that travellers may endure,
Change is their food, and change their cure. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ HAIL! COLDWELL ROCKS; frown, frown away;
Thrust from your woods your shafts of gray:
Fall not, to crush our mortal pride,
Or stop the stream on which we glide.
Our lives are short, our joys are few ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Let hist'ry tell that fateful hour At home, when surly winds shall roar, And prudence shut the study door. DE WILTON'S here of mighty name, The whelming flood, the summer stream, Mark'd from their towers.—The fabric falls, The rubbish of their splendid halls, Time in his march hath scatter'd wide, And blank oblivion strives to hide. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ PREFACE. In the summer of 1807, a party of my good friends in Gloucestershire proposed to themselves a short excursion down the Wye, and through part of South Wales.
While this plan was in agitation, the lines which I had composed on "Shooter's Hill," during ill health, and inserted in my last volume, obtained their particular attention. A spirit of prediction, as well as sorrow, is there indulged; and it was now in the power of this happy party to falsify such predictions, and to render a pleasure to the writer of no common kind. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Adieu, LANDOGA, scene most dear,
Farewell we bade to ETHEL'S WIER;
Round many a point then bore away,
Till morn was chang'd to beauteous day:
And forward on the lowland shore,
Silent majestic ruins wore
The stamp of holiness; this strand
The steersman hail'd, and touch'd the land. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ END OF THE FIRST BOOK. THE BANKS OF WYE BOOK II CONTENTS OF BOOK II. Henry the Fifth.—Morning on the Water.—Landoga.—Ballad, "The Maid of
Landoga."—Tintern Abbey.—Wind-Cliff.—Arrival at Chepstow.—Persfield.—
Ballad, "Morris of Persfield."—View from Wind-Cliff.—Chepstow Castle by
Moonlight.
BOOK II. HARRY of MONMOUTH, o'er thy page,
Great chieftain of a daring age,
The stripling soldier burns to see
The spot of thy nativity;
His ardent fancy can restore
Thy castle's turrets, now no more;
See the tall plumes of victory wave,
And call old valour from the grave ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ To shout before his banner'd host.
[Footnote A: They shew here a mutilated figure, which they call the famous
Earl Strongbow; but it appears from Coxe that he was buried at
Gloucester.]
But all was still.—The chequer'd floor
Shall echo to the step no more;
Nor airy roof the strain prolong,
Of vesper chant or choral song.
TINTERN, thy name shall hence sustain
A thousand raptures in my brain;
Joys, full of soul, all strength, all eye,
That cannot fade, that cannot die.
No loitering here, lone walks to steal,
Welcome the early hunter's meal ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Fear's start, and superstition's dream [1]
[Footnote 1: A village woman, who very officiously pointed out all that
she knew respecting the former state of the castle, desired us to remark
the descent to a vault, apparently of large dimensions, in which she had
heard that no candle would continue burning; "and," added she, "they say
it is because of the damps; but for my part, I think the devil is there."]
Is pregnant with a thousand joys,
That distance, place, nor time destroys;
That with exhaustless stores supply
Food for reflection till we die. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Soon round us spread the hills and dales,
Where GEOFFREY spun his magic tales,
And call'd them history. The land
Whence ARTHUR sprung, and all his band
Of gallant knights. Sire of romance,
Who led the fancy's mazy dance,
Thy tales shall please, thy name still be,
When Time forgets my verse and me. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Feelings that earth and time defy,
That cleave to immortality.
A light gray haze enclos'd us round;
Some momentary drops were found,
Borne on the breeze; soon all dispell'd;
Once more the glorious prospect swell'd
Interminably fair [1] . Again
[Footnote 1: This hill commands a view of the counties of Radnor, Salop,
Brecknock, Glamorgan, Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester, Somerset, and
Wilts.] ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ A tower of rock that seems to cry,
'Go round about me, neighbour WYE [A] .'
[Footnote A: This rocky isthmus, perforated at the base, would measure not
more than six hundred yards, and its highest point is two thousand feet
above the water. If this statement, taken from Coxe's History of
Monmouthshire, and an Excursion down the Wye, by C. Heath, of Monmouth, is
correct, its elevation is greater than that of the "Pen-y-Vale," or the
"Sugar-Loaf Hill," near Abergavenny. Yet it has less the appearance of a
mountain, than the river has that of an excavation.] ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ If ever man merited fame, If ever man's failings went free, Forgot at the sound of his name, Our Morris of Persfield was he [1] . [Footnote 1: The author is equally indebted to Mr. Coxe's County History for this anecdote, as for the greater part of the notes subjoined throughout the Journal.] ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ A Swiss, or perhaps a Scottish Highlander, may smile at supposed or real exaggerations; but they will be excellent critics, when they call to mind that they themselves judge, in these cases, as I do, by comparison. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ With humbled hearts they bow to the Almighty's dispensation; trusting, through the mediation of his blessed Son, he will mercifully receive their child he so suddenly took to himself.
"This monument is here erected to warn parents and others how they trust the deceitful stream; and particularly to exhort them to learn and observe the directions of the Humane Society, for the recovery of persons apparently drowned. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ In addition to the injury the castle sustained from the parliamentary
army, considerable dilapidations have been occasioned by the numerous
tenants in the vicinity, who conveyed away the stone and other materials
for the construction of farm-houses, barns, and other buildings. No less
than twenty-three staircases were taken down by these devastators; but the
present Duke of Beanfort no sooner succeeded to his estate, than he
instantly gave orders that not a stone should be moved from its situation,
and thus preserved these noble ruins from destruction. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ He was born at Oporto, in the kingdom of Portugal, on the 14th of February, 1789; third son of James Warre, of London, and of the county of Somerset, merchant, and Elinor, daughter of Thomas Gregg, of Belfast, Esq.
"Passenger, whoever thou art, spare this tomb! It is erected for the benefit of the surviving, being but a poor record of the grief of those who witnessed the sad occasion of it. God preserve you and yours from such calamity! May you not require their assistance ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ Arresting every eye and tongue;
Strangers, fair BRECON, wondering, scan
The peaks of thy stupendous VANN:
But how can strangers, chain'd by time,
Through floating clouds his summit climb?
Another day had almost fled;
A clear horizon, glowing red,
Its promise on all hearts impress'd,
Bright sunny hours, and Sabbath rest.
END OF THE THIRD BOOK. BOOK IV. CONTENTS OF BOOK IV. The Gaer, a Roman Station.—Brunless Castle.—The Hay.—Funeral Song, "Mary's Grave."—Clifford Castle.—Return by Hereford, Malvern Hills, Cheltenham, and Gloucester, to Uley.—Conclusion. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye: A Poem

“ That hist'ry's self might blush to name [1] .
[Footnote 1: In Jones's History of Brecknockshire, the castle of
Abergavenny is noticed as having been the scene of the most shocking
enormities.]
At length, through each retreating shower,
Burst, with a renovating power,
Light, life, and gladness; instant fled
All contemplations on the dead.
Who hath not mark'd, with inward joy,
The efforts of the diving boy ”

Robert Bloomfield

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