Sonnet Xviii. Culbone, Or Kintore, Somerset.

Half way upon the cliff I musing stood O'er thy sea--fronting hollow, while the smoke Curled from thy cottage chimneys through the wood And brooded on the steeps of glooming oak; Under a dark green buttress of the hill Looked out thy lowly house of Sabbath prayer; The sea was calm below; only thy rill Talked to itself upon the quiet air. Yet in this quaint and sportive--seeming dell Hath, through the silent ages that are gone, A stream of human things been passing on, Whose unrecorded story none may tell, Nor count the troths in that low chancel given, And souls from yonder cabin fled to heaven.