'CERTES, it may move compassion, that a palace, so healthful for aire, so delightful for prospect, so necessary for commodities, so fayre (in regard of these days) for building, and so strong for defence, should, in time of secure peace, and under the protection of its naturall Princes, be wronged with those spoylings, than which it could endure no greater at the hands of a forrayne and deadly enemy for the Parke is disparked, the timbers rooted up, the conduit pipes taken away, the roofe made sale of, the planching rotten, the walls fallen downe, and the hewed stones of the windowes, dournes and clavels pluct out to serve private dwellings: onely there remayneth an utter defacement, to complayne upon this unregarded distresse.'

CAREW'S SURVEY OF CORNWALL, 1602.

RESTORMEL.

CANTO I.

DAY wanes apace, and yet the Sun
Looks as if he had now begun

His course, returning from the West;
O'er Mawgan flames his golden crest,
Roughtor's dark brow is helm'd with fire,
And the bluff headlands of Pentire
Like shields emboss'd with silver glow.
Glistening and murmuring as they flow,
Camel and Fowey* seek different shores;
And North and South the eye explores

* Pronounced Foy, and so spelt by Carew and Norden.

Two spreading seas of purple sheen,

That blend with Heaven's own depths serene.
Inland, from crag and bosky height

Hoar turrets spring like shafts of light,
While in the dales the deepening shades

Extend, and reach the forest glades.

Descending from the breezy Down,

I turn from Bodmin's ancient town

And skirt the banks of Fowey's clear stream, And through the osiers see the gleam

Of scales would please old Walton's eye,

Did he with baited line pass by.

From the fair, hospitable roof

Which Vivian rear'd I keep aloof,

And pass, though few to leave would choose,

Lanhydrock's stately avenues.

At last, as if some mystic Power

Had in the greenwood built his Tower,

Restormel to the gaze presents

Its range of lofty battlements :

One part in crypt-like gloom, the rest

Lit up as for a Royal guest,

And crimson banners in the sky

Seem from the parapets to fly.

Where tapers gleam'd at close of day

The sunset sheds its transient ray,

And carols the belated bird

Where once the vesper hymn was heard.

Slowly the sylvan mount I climb, Like bard who toils at some tall rhyme; And now I reach the moat's broad marge, And at each pace more fair and large The antique pile grows on my sight, Though sullen Time's resistless might, Stronger than storms or bolts of Heaven, Through wall and buttress rents has riven;

And wider gaps had here been seen

But for the ivy's buckler green,

With stems like stalwart arms sustain'd :

Here else had little now remain'd

But heaps of stone, or mounds o'ergrown With nettles, or with hemlock sown.

Under the mouldering gate I pass,

And on the rank and matted grass
My footstep falls with a dull thud,
And a strange tremor chills my blood,
As one might feel who chanced to tread
On the dim precincts of the dead.

There stood the ample Hall, and here
The Chapel did its altar rear;

All round the spacious chambers rose,
Now swept by every wind that blows.
By those stone stairs, abrupt and steep,
You reach the ramparts of the Keep,
And thence may view, as I do now,
Through opening trees or arching bough
The distant town, its bridge and spire,
And hostel, which some most admire;
The valley with its sparkling wreath
Of ripples; the empurpled heath