Devon

    Deep-wooded combes, clear-mounded hills of morn,
        Red sunset tides against a red sea-wall,
        High lonely barrows where the curlews call,
    Far moors that echo to the ringing horn,--
    Devon! thou spirit of all these beauties born,
        All these are thine, but thou art more than all:
        Speech can but tell thy name, praise can but fall
    Beneath the cold white sea-mist of thy scorn.

    Yet, yet, O noble land, forbid us not
        Even now to join our faint memorial chime
    To the fierce chant wherewith their hearts were hot
        Who took the tide in thy Imperial prime;
    Whose glory's thine till Glory sleeps forgot
        With her ancestral phantoms, Pride and Time.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

To Clare

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Craven

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Rilloby-Rill

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

The Old Superb

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Cadland,[1] Southampton River.

If ever sea-maid, from her coral cave,
Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved
To pass delighted from her green abode,
And, seated on a summer bank, to sing
No earthly music; in a spot like this,
The bard might feign he heard her, as she dried
Her golden hair, yet dripping from the main,
In the slant sunbeam.
So the pensive bard
Might image, warmed by this enchanting scene,
The ideal form; but though such things are not,
He who has ever felt a thought refined;
He who has wandered on the sea of life,
Forming delightful visions of a home
Of beauty and repose; he who has loved,
With filial warmth his country, will not pass
Without a look of more than tenderness
On all the scene; from where the pensile birch
Bends on the bank, amid the clustered gr...

William Lisle Bowles

Waggon Hill

Drake in the North Sea grimly prowling,
    Treading his dear Revenge's deck,
Watched, with the sea-dogs round him growling,
    Galleons drifting wreck by wreck.
    "Fetter and Faith for England's neck,
    Faggot and Father, Saint and chain,---
Yonder the Devil and all go howling,
    Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!

Drake at the last off Nombre lying,
    Knowing the night that toward him crept,
Gave to the sea-dogs round him crying,
    This for a sign before he slept:---
    "Pride of the West! What Devon hath kept
    Devon shall keep on tide or main;
Call to the storm and drive them flying,
    Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"

Valour of England gaunt and whitening,
    Far in a South land brought to bay,
Locked in a deat...

Henry John Newbolt

April On Waggon Hill

Lad, and can you rest now,
    There beneath your hill!
Your hands are on your breast now,
    But is your heart so still?
'Twas the right death to die, lad,
    A gift without regret,
But unless truth's a lie, lad,
    You dream of Devon yet.

Ay, ay, the year's awaking,
    The fire's among the ling,
The beechen hedge is breaking,
    The curlew's on the wing;
Primroses are out, lad,
    On the high banks of Lee,
And the sun stirs the trout, lad;
    From Brendon to the sea.

I know what's in your heart, lad,---
    The mare he used to hunt---
And her blue market-cart, lad,
    With posies tied in front---
We miss them from the moor road,
    They're getting old to roam,
The road they're on's a sure road
    And n...

Henry John Newbolt

Yattendon

Among the woods and tillage
    That fringe the topmost downs,
All lonely lies the village,
    Far off from seas and towns.
Yet when her own folk slumbered
    I heard within her street
Murmur of men unnumbered
    And march of myriad feet.

For all she lies so lonely,
    Far off from towns and seas,
The village holds not only
    The roofs beneath her trees:
While Life is sweet and tragic
    And Death is veiled and dumb,
Hither, by singer's magic,
    The pilgrim world must come.

Henry John Newbolt

A Southern Night

The sandy spits, the shore-lockd lakes,
Melt into open, moonlit sea;
The soft Mediterranean breaks
At my feet, free.

Dotting the fields of corn and vine
Like ghosts, the huge, gnarld olives stand;
Behind, that lovely mountain-line!
While by the strand

Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the lighthouse beacons bright
Far in the bay.

Ah, such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vext heart deplore!

But now that trouble is forgot;
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,
Possess me quite.

The murmur of this Midland deep
Is heard to-night around thy grave
There where Gibraltars cann...

Matthew Arnold

Northumberland

Between our eastward and our westward sea
The narrowing strand
Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee
Even here where English birth seals all men free
Northumberland.
The sea-mists meet across it when the snow
Clothes moor and fell,
And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow
For joy that none less nobly born may know
What love knows well.
The splendour and the strength of storm and fight
Sustain the song
That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite,
To live, to love, to lay down life that right
Might tread down wrong.
They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed,
And left us glad
Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast
The proud old love no change can overcast,
No chance leave sad.
None save our no...

Algernon Charles Swinburne