The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2

"From the circumstances premised, you will probably anticipate my thoughts on these remarkable phenomena; if not, they are as follow: – I consider the cavern to have been formed at the period of the original deposition and consolidation of the matter constituting the mountain limestone in which it is found; possibly by the agency of some elastic gas, imprisoned in the mass, which prevented the approximation of its particles to each other; or by some unaccountable interruption to the operation of the usual laws of its crystallization; – that, for a long succession of ages anterior to the Deluge, and previously to man's inhabiting the colder regions of the earth, Banwell Cave had been inhabited by successive generations of beasts of prey; which, as hunger dictated, issued from their den, pursued and slaughtered the gregarious animals, or wilder quadrupeds, in its neighbourhood; and dragged them, either bodily or piecemeal, to this retreat, in order to feast upon them at leisure, and undisturbed; – that the bottom of the cavern thus became a kind of charnel-house, of various and unnumbered beasts; – that this scene of excursive carnage continued till 'the flood came,' blending 'the oppressor with the oppressed,' and mixing the hideous furniture of the den with a quantity of extraneous matter, brought from the adjoining shore, and subjacent lands, by the waters of the Deluge, which rolled, surging (as Kirwan imagines), from the north-western quarter; – that, previously to this total submersion, as the flood increased on the lower grounds, the animals which fed upon them ascended the heights of Mendip, to escape impending death; and with panic rushed (as many as could gain entrance) into this dwelling-place of their worst enemies; – that numberless birds also, terrified by the elemental tumult, flew into the same den, as a place of temporary refuge; – that the interior of the cavern was speedilly filled by the roaring Deluge, whose waters, dashing and crushing the various substances which they embraced, against the rugged rocks, or against each other; and continuing this violent and incessant action for at least three months, at length tore asunder every connected form, separated every skeleton, and produced that confusion of substances, that scene of disjecta membra, that mixture and disjunction of bones, which were apparent on the first inspection of the cavern; and which are now visible in that part of it which has been hitherto untouched."

Respecting the language of the Poem, I had nearly forgotten one remark. In almost all the local poems I have read, there is a confusion of the following nature. A local descriptive poem must consist, first, of the graphic view of the scenery around the spot from whence the view is taken; and, secondly, of the reflections and feelings which that view may be supposed to excite. The feelings of the heart naturally associate themselves with the idea of the tones of the supposed poetical harp; but external scenes are the province of the pencil, for the harp cannot paint woods and hills, and therefore, in almost all descriptive poems, the pencil and the lyre clash. Hence, in one page, the poet speaks of his lyre, and in the next, when he leaves feelings to paint to the eye, before the harp is out of the hand, he turns to the pencil! This fault is almost inevitable; the reader, therefore, will see in the first page of this Poem, that the graphic pencil is assumed, when the tones of the harp were inappropriate.

ARGUMENT

PART FIRST

Introduction – Retrospect – General view – Cave – Bones – Brief sketch of events since the deposit – Egypt – Druid – Roman – Saxon – Dane – Norman – Hill – Campanula – Bleadon – Weston – Steep Holms – Solitary flower on Steep Holms, the Peony – Flat Holms – Three unknown graves – Sea – Sea treacherous in its tranquillity – Mr Elton's children – Packet-boat sunk.

PART SECOND

First sound of the sea – First sight of the sea – Mother – Children – Uphill parsonage – Father – Wells clock – Clock figure – Contrast of village manners – Village maid – Rural nymph before the justices – State of agricultural districts – Cause of crime – Workhouse girl – Manufactory ranters – Prosing parson – Prig parson – Calvinistic commentators, etc.– Anti-moral preaching – True and false piety – Crimes passed over by anti-moral preachers – Bible, without note or comment – English Juggernaut – Village picture of Coombe – Village-school children, educated by Mrs P. Scrope – Annual meeting on the lawn of 140 children – Old nurse – Benevolence of English landlords – Poor widow and daughter – Stourhead – Ken at Longleat – Marston house – Early travels in Switzerland – Compton house – Clergyman's wife – Village clergyman.

PART THIRD

A tale of a Cornish maid – Her prayer-book – Her mother – Widow and son – Tales of sea life – Phantom-ship of the Cape.

PART FOURTH

Solitary sea – Ship – Sea scenes of Southampton contrasted – Solitary sand – Young Lady – Severn – Walton Castle – Picture of Bristol – Congresbury – Brockley-Coombe – Fayland – Cottage – Poor Dinah – Goblin-Coombe – Langford court – Mendip lodge – Wrington – Blagdon – Author of the tune of "Auld Robin Gray" – Auld Robin Gray – Auld Lang Syne.

PART FIFTH

Lang syne – Return to the Deluge – Vision of the Flood – Archangel – Trump – Voice – Phantom-horse – Dove of the Ark – Dove ascending – Conclusion.

BANWELL HILL

PART FIRST

INTRODUCTION – GENERAL VIEW – CAVE – ASCENT – VIEW – STEEP HOLMS – FLAT HOLMS – SEA

If, gazing from this eminence, I wake,
With thronging thoughts, the harp of poesy
Once more, ere night descend, haply with tones
Fainter, and haply with a long farewell;
If, looking back upon the lengthened way
My feet have trod, since, long ago, I left
Those well-known shores, and when mine eyes are filled
With tears, I take the pencil in its turn,
And shading light the landscape spread below,
So smilingly beguile those starting tears;
Something, the feelings of the human heart —
Something, the scene itself, and something more —
A wish to gratify one generous mind —
May plead for pardon.
To this spot I came
To view the dark memorials of a world[4 - The reader is referred to Dr Buckland's most interesting illustrations of these remains of a former world. The Bishop of Bath and Wells has built a picturesque and appropriate cottage near the cave, on the hill commanding this fine view.]
Perished at the Almighty's voice, and swept
With all its noise away! Since then, unmarked,
In that rude cave those dark memorials lay,
And told no tale!
Spirit of other times,
Sad shadow of the ancient world, come forth!
Thou who has slept four thousand years, awake!
Rise from the cavern's last recess, and say,
What giant cleft in twain the neighbouring rocks,[5 - The stupendous Cheddar Cliffs, in the neighbourhood.]
Then slept for ages in vast Ogo's Cave,[6 - Wookey, Antrum Ogonis.]
And left them rent and frowning from that hour;
Say, rather, when the stern Archangel stood,
Above the tossing of the flood, what arm
Shattered this mountain, and its hollow chasm
Heaped with the mute memorials of that doom!
Spirit of other times, thou speakest not!
Yet who could gaze a moment on that wreck
Of desolation, but must pause to think
Of the mutations of the globe – of time,
Hurrying to onward spoil – of his own life,
Swift passing, as the summer light, away —
Of Him who spoke, and the dread storm went forth.
The surge came, and the surge went back, and there —
There – when the black abyss had ceased to roar,
And waters, shrinking from the rocks and hills,
Slept in the solitary sunshine – there
The bones that strew the inmost cavern lay:
And when forgotten centuries had passed,
And the gray smoke went up from villages,
And cities, with their towers and temples, shone,
And kingdoms rose and perished – there they lay!
The crow sailed o'er the spot; the villager
Plodded to morning toil, yet undisturbed
They lay: – when, lo! as if but yesterday
The Archangel's trump had thundered o'er the deep
The mighty shade of ages that are passed
Towers into light! Say, Christian, is it true,
That dim recess, that cavern, heaped with bones,
Will echo to thy Bible!
But a while
Here let me stand, and gaze upon the scene;
That headland, and those winding sands, and mark
The morning sunshine, on that very shore
Where once a child I wandered. Oh! return,
(I sigh) return a moment, days of youth,
Of childhood, – oh, return! How vain the thought,
Vain as unmanly! yet the pensive Muse,
Unblamed, may dally with imaginings;
For this wide view is like the scene of life,
Once traversed o'er with carelessness and glee,
And we look back upon the vale of years,
And hear remembered voices, and behold,