WHAT face is that upon the mountain-top,
Which seems to gaze intently on the heavens?
The forehead large and high, yet falling off
Above the temples, as fatigued with thought
Much earlier than with boisterous passions; eyes
Viewless under rough and shaggy brows, deep
And hollow seeming; an aquiline nose; the beard
Clothing the lips as lichen lines the rock,—
Shaggy and short, the large mouth not concealing,
But making more terrific: The whole head,
Relieved by the blue sky, rests on the rock,
Recumbent on its stony bed for ages.
The neck, and breast, and body, from the sides
Of the dark mountain gradually slope,
Until they lose their ponderous extent,
And blend into the valley. Fancy sees
The mighty feet, invisible to sense,
Bathed by the sea's eternal waves, whose roar
Is music fitting to a giant's ear.
This head, these features, are the magic work
Of Nature; the rude Elements have shaped
The shelving rock into this human form;
The Winds have slept within those cavities
That serve for eyes; the Rain hath pour'd his torrents
Adown the furrows of the ample cheeks;
The Dew hath bathed his brow; and Storm hath
His most familiar friend.
This face and figure to have once belonged
To a gigantic Moor, and styles the rock,
As well beseems this fiction, THE MOOR'S HEAD.
A Sculptor once, 'tis said, when Louis reigned,
The fourteenth of that name, for a large sum,
Offered to carve upon this Rock's bold brow
The features of that king, a monument
To everlasting ages of a man,
Whose fame, while living, made all Europe ring
From side to side. But whether avarice,
Or other cause unknown, forbade the king
To delegate the Artist to this work,
And make his head as eminent in death
Above all other mortals, as in life
His fame-though toward the evening his bright sun
Was hung around with black and angry clouds,
Which menaced thunder, and a wide-spread ruin
To all his hopes of universal rule—
No mortal artist's sacrilegious hand,
With hammer or with chisel, on this rock
Engraved the features of the Gallic King.
The Giant Moor asserts his single sway
Of this huge rock, and o'er the vale sublime
Reclines majestic; and the sun's soft beams
At evening rest upon his savage face,
Mellowing and moulding the rude countenance
Almost to beauty, such as nature shows,
Even in her rudest forms, when heaven's fair light 23
Doth visit her in gladness and deep joy.
The thunder-cloud oft hovers o'er this face:
And as from Jove's head sprang the Maid Divine,
A Goddess in bright armour clad, with shield
And glittering spear that flashed afar,-burst forth
The fire-winged bolts of lightning from the brow
Of the vast Moor, half-hidden by his clouds;
While from his giant mouth the thunder peals,-
Crash following crash along the echoing vale,
As every hill lifts up a mighty voice,
This Theme reminds me of another Rock,
Which, in the happy island of my birth,
Hangs o'er the ocean's channel that divides f
The cliffs of Albion from the shores of France.
There the rude Elements, to kings more kind,
Have sculptured on the highest eminence
Of Hasting's Cliffs the head revered of GEORGE,—
The third, and glorious, of our English Kings.
There looks he from his native rocks, and sees
Those shores, that country, at whose opposite
Extremity I pen these lines. His foot
Repels the encroachment of the flashing waves That beat against his base, and fling their spray i Above his bosom with an impotent,
A mad, and ineffectual fury, whence
They're borne away upon the passing wing
Of every wind that blows. Thus did this King
Repel the encroaching power of France, which flung
Her waves against his firm-set isle. He stood
Firm to his Country, and her equal laws,—
The Father of his people, as his rank
Demanded of him, and as still he stands
In imaged grandeur on his native rocks,—
In station eminent, in posture firm;
Frowning defiance on the well-known coast
Of Normandy; and resolute to stand,
And beat a thousand armies back again,
That shall essay the invasion of our shores,
To give us French or Norman Conquerors,
For English Kings 24.
Our aged Sovereign now
Is gathered to his fathers in the grave;
Peace to his ashes! To his memory
Be honour, glory, love! Long as the rocks,
Which guard, his kingdom's southern coast, shall
Long as the storms of Heaven shall beat against
His features, sculptured by the Elements;
Long as the Breeze shall fold his gentle wings,
And whisper Nature's softest melody
Above his head; long as the Sun shall throw
His mellow beams upon his countenance,
Which wears the seeming aspect of bright thought,
And clothe it in a radiance of glory;
Long as the Sea shall dash against his feet,
And fling the swelling tide far underneath
The rocky caves o'er which he stands; and long
As Englishmen shall love their native land,
Her laws, and institutions,—may the Rock,
|