A Description Of Chedder-Cliffs: And Part Of Mendip-Hills Poem by Samuel Bowden

near Wells, In Somersetshire.

Nemorosa juga, et scopulosi vertice colles.
Hinc atque hinc vastæ rupes.

Virgil

Now Chedder-Cliffs, our wand'ring steps invite,
And o'er fam'd Mendip's glebe, we speed our flight;
And as the dreary waste we bound along,
Mendip itself demands the Muse's song.

Hail! ye bleak mountains-lin'd with hidden store,
Fallacious wilds, concealing mines of ore;
Rich veins of calamine the desart fills
And lead the solid basis of thy hills:
Thus oft' disguis'd, in poverty we find
Bright genius sparkle thro' an humble mind.
What tho' no gold or diamonds gild the mine,
No glittering strata in the caverns shine;
Yet useful minerals, of various birth,
Lodge in the fruitful bowels of the earth.
Here savage scenes in wild confusion reign,
And desolating prospects fill the plain.
Thick fern in humble forests waves around,
And sable furzes darken all the ground.
Scatter'd some solitary trees appear,
And o'er the waste their haggard branches rear;
Whose naked fronts, like the stern Cyclops stand,
When they pursu'd Ulysses to the strand,
The wither'd tops confess eternal blight,
And hungry ravens on the branches light.

Some fruitful spots smile beautiful around,
And charming pastures cloath the verdant ground;
Where peaceful shepherds slumber on the plain,
Or with their crook direct the fleecy train.
Here o'er our head familiar lapwings play,
With hovering wings, and bask in open day;
While at a distance rapid falcons buoy'd,
With poised pinions skim the liquid void;
The tuneful larks, still chanting, upwards climb,
And lost in ether Sea-gulls soar sublime.

And now the tall, tremendous cliffs arise,
And awful fronts, and towering alps surprize.
Two chains of rocks erect on either hand,
O'er many a furlong stretch'd contiguous stand.
With brow sublime, gigantic towers ascend,
And o'er the vale with frowning aspect bend.
The nodding arches big with ruin show,
And prominent still frown with ponderous woe.
Thus hangs, suspended on a single thread,
The sword still threat'ning o'er the tyrant's head.
Their adamantine fronts ascend so high,
Half way they bid defiance to the sky.
Whose solid ribs, like parapets a-far,
Look like embattel'd garrisons of war.

Yet nature here in sweet disorder smiles,
And verdant plants peep thro' the craggy piles:
Uncommon herbs, peculiar to the place,
Burst thro' the fissures, and the prospect grace.
The studious simpler here delights to stray;
Nature his guide, and his companion Ray:
And when some long-sought plants their race disclose,
The sage, with philosophic rapture, glows;
Pleas'd with the green anatomy, now roves
Thro' untrod paths, and vegetable groves;
The curious texture of each herb to find,
Whether of bulbous, or umbellous kind,
This search, great Cowly! thy last hours employ'd,
When with gay life, and courtly duty cloy'd;
The fields then saw their fugitive again,
And bloom'd a fresh in his botanic strain.

Here flowers amidst rude precipices grow,
And with wild sweets, and untaught beauty grow:
Pale pinks, and purple stocks the air perfume,
And fragrant woodbinds in the desart bloom.
Yon lonely beasts browse on the savage weed,
And o'er the vast abyss securely feed.
In the deep vale astonish'd travellers stand,
Fenc'd with aspiring rocks on either hand:
Before the view unfathom'd vistas lie,
And theatres of horror fill the eye;
Each winding sound reactive hills repeat,
And echoing flocks from distant pastures bleat.
Thus thro' the parting sea, great Moses fled;
While the uplifted waves forsook their bed,
And pil'd on high, in terrible array,
Silent withdrew, and made, and fenc'd the way.

Tir'd with romantic scenes again we rise
On Mendip hills, and breathe serener skys.
Far off monastic Wells its domes erects,
And from its gilded spires the sun reflects.
Wells whose Cathedral with majestic pride
Once with Italian Architecture vy'd:
Nor cou'd Turin, or Florence fair display
Columns more splendid, or a Front more gay.

A neighbouring scene here gives a new surprize,
And Wookey Cave attracts our wond'ring eyes.

Low in the covert of a rural vale,
Where mighty dews from weeping rills exhale,
Deep sunk beneath a hill the cave profound,
With awful gulph! divides the gaping ground;
With shade Cimmerian, and tremendous look,
Dark as the passage to th' infernal brook;
Vast, and impervious! not one beam of light,
There sheds its lustre, to dispel the night.
Only faint tapers guide our doubtful way,
And scatter thro' the gloom a sickly ray.

As when Æneas, led by fond desire
To see the shade of his departed sire,
Felt when he first approach'd those awful plains,
A sudden horror shudder thro' his veins.
So at the entrance seiz'd with pannic dread,
We seem to trace the regions of the dead.
Thro' subterranean grottos winding stray,
Entomb'd alive-and wish for absent day.
Here secret paths, and labyrinths are found,
Like Delphian shades, or Sybils cave profound.
The weeping rocks distil with constant dews,
And still a new-form'd drop the last pursues.
With solemn sound the silent moments mark,
And mock the adder hissing in the dark.
A gentle lake, here calm as Lethe stands,
And like a mirror shews transparent sands:
A hollow rock the silver flood contains,
Which never sinks with drought, or swells with rains.
Here a low track, anon a spacious room,
Where the arch'd vault collects substantial gloom:
So vast the arch, the cavity so wide,
Scarce can the eye extend from side to side.
High o'er the roof alternate murmurs wave,
And every step reverberates round the cave;
From cell to cell the wand'ring accents rove,
Like winding Zephyrs whispering thro' the grove:
Unnumber'd echos ring from rock to rock,
And all the cavern trembles with the shock.

A Silver stream, like Nile, of unknown source
Here peaceful glides its solitary course:
Thro' dark meanders bends its silent route,
And at the cave's wide conduit issues out:
Fam'd Alpheus' stream is story'd thus to rise,
And see new light beneath Sicilian skys.

Nor shall the neighb'oring piles of Stanton-drew,
Tho' unobserv'd, escape the Muses view.
Whose monuments might once with Stone Henge boast,
Now sunk in ruins, and in buildings lost.

Thy birth-place next, immortal Locke we trace,
And Wrinton owns the consecrated place.
Whose towering mind forsook the servile croud,
And chas'd th' enchantment of the schoolmen's cloud.
Who taught the youth on reason's wings to rise,
And bid new morning dawn thro' misty skies.

Here nobler subjects, call for nobler strains,
To sing O! Somerset, thy fruitful plains;
Thy shady forests, and romantic rocks,
Thy smiling meadows, and thy numerous flocks;
But see yon gilded towers attract the sight,
And smoaky Bristol stops the Muse's flight.