Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/228

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,