lines on "Womberall," which place I drove out to see, with some difficulty, in those days, of getting a conveyance "just to see a bit of scenery," when visiting Gosford as a stranger. But as I had read "Womberall" then, I was determined not to miss it, and the recollection of it is very pleasant, and seems to bring one nearer to the poet in his work.
Kendall describes himself (or we draw that inference from his words) as picking up a shell somewhere near its native element; for it is still "glittering" and the companion of seaweed, and this shell awakens memories of distant Womberall:
Just a shell to which the seaweed
glittering yet with greenness clings,
Like the song that once I loved so
softly of the old-time sings,
Softly of the old-time speaketh, bringing
over back to me
Lights of far-off lordly forelands,
glimpses of the sounding sea.
Now the cliffs are all before me;
now, indeed, do I behold,
Shining growths, and cold, wet hill-head—
quiet pools of green and gold.
And across the gleaming beaches,
lo! the mighty flow and fall
Of the fast in-gathering waters
Thundering after Womberall.
Back there are the ponderous mountains,
there the dim, dumb ranges roam—
Ghostly shapes in dread, grey vapours,
Half-seen peaks august with gloam.
There the voice of troubled torrents
hidden in some fallen deep.
Known to moss and fain green
sunlight, wandering down the cozy steep.
