The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2. Bowles William Lisle

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СКАЧАТЬ assumed garb of female piety than under any shape; and often attended by acting far more disgusting than any acting on any stage.

BANWELL CAVE

      The following extract of a letter from Mr Warner will enable the reader to form his own opinion concerning the vast accumulation of bones in this cave: —

      "The sagacity of Mr Beard having detected the existence of the cavern, and his perseverance effected a precipitous descent into it, the objects offered to his notice were of the most astonishing and paradoxical description – 'an antre vast,' rude from the hand of nature, of various elevations, and branching into several recesses; its floor overspread with a huge mingled mass of bones and mud, black earth (or decomposed animal matter), and sand from the Severn sea, which flows about six miles to the northward of Banwell village. The quantity of bones, and the mode by which they could be conveyed to, and deposited in, the place they occupied, were points of equal difficulty to be explained: as the former amounted to several waggon loads; and as no access to the cavern appeared to exist, except a fissure from above, utterly incapable, from its narrow dimensions, of admitting the falling in of any animal larger than a common sheep; whereas it was evident that huge quadrupeds, such as unknown beasts of the ox tribe, bears, wolves, and probably hyenas and tigers, had perished in the cave. But, though the questions how and when were unanswerable, this conclusion was irresistibly forced upon the mind, by the phenomena submitted to the eye, that, as the receptacle was infinitely too small to contain such a crowd of animals in their living state, they must necessarily have occupied it in succession: one portion of them after another paying the debt of nature, and (leaving their bones only, as a memorial of their existence on the spot) thus making room in the cavern for a succeeding set of inhabitants, of similarly ferocious habits to themselves. The difficulty, indeed, of the ingress of such beasts into the cave did not long continue to be invincible; as Mr Beard discovered and cleared out a lateral aperture in it, sufficiently inclining from the perpendicular, and sufficiently large in its dimensions, to admit of the easy descent into this subterraneous apartment of one of its unwieldy tenants, though loaded with its prey.

      "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.

ARGUMENTPART 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 СКАЧАТЬ