_At Sennen_

Thrice-blest, alone with Nature!--here, where gray Belerium fronts the spray Smiting the bastion'd crags through centuries flown, While, 'neath the hissing surge, Ocean sends up a deep, deep undertone,

As though his heavy chariot-wheels went round: Nor is there other sound Save from the abyss of air, a plaintive note, The seabirds' calling cry, As 'gainst the wind with well-poised weight they float,

Or on some white-fringed reef set up their post, And sentinel the coast:-- Whilst, round each jutting cape, in pillar'd file, The lichen-bearded rocks Like hoary giants guard the sacred Isle.

--Happy, alone with Nature thus!--Yet here Dim, primal man is near;-- The hawk-eyed eager traders, who of yore Through long Biscayan waves Star-steer'd adventurous from the Iberic shore

Or the Sidonian, with their fragrant freight Oil-olive, fig, and date; Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes, Or Tyrian azure glass Wavy with gold, and agate-banded globes:--

Changing for amber-knobs their Eastern ware Or tin-sand silvery fair, To temper brazen swords, or rim the shield Of heroes, arm'd for fight:-- While the rough miners, wondering, gladly yield

The treasured ore; nor Alexander's name Know, nor fair Helen's shame; Or in his tent how Peleus' wrathful son Looks toward the sea, nor heeds The towers of still-unconquer'd Ilion.

Belerium; The name given to the Land's End by Diodorus, the Greek historical compiler. He describes the natives as hospitable and civilized. They mined tin, which was bought by traders and carried through Gaul to the south-east, and may, as suggested here, have been used in their armour by the warriors during the Homeric Siege of Troy.