'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 His course, returning from the West; * Pronounced Foy, and so spelt by Carew and Norden. Two spreading seas of purple sheen, That blend with Heaven's own depths serene. Hoar turrets spring like shafts of light, 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 There stood the ample Hall, and here All round the spacious chambers rose, |