Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Bodrigan’s Leap
By Henry Sewell Stokes (1808–1895)F
His king a mangled corse,
With many a dint Sir Harry came,
And spurred his blood-stained horse;
Which all that day in that fierce fray
Had borne him proudly through,
But still for leagues must carry him,
Since fast the foes pursue.
With followers few and faint;
Resting brief while in forest drear
By well of some old saint:
On, on from day to day they fared,
Shunning each bower and hall,
Until they sight one starry night
Bodrigan’s castle wall.
And blithe the warder greets him;
And with a smile and with a kiss
His lady-love soon meets him:
And in that high embrasured tower
His war-worn limbs may rest;
For place like that for wealth and power
Was not in all the West.
To prove its ancient fame;
Though but some lowly walls now bear
Bodrigan’s honored name.
Its princely hall, its bastions strong,
Its chapel turrets fair,
Are gone like cloud-built palaces,
And castles in the air.
The Tudor bloodhounds follow;
Trevanion, Edgcumbe, with their pack
Creep through the woodland hollow:
And now they gather round the walls,
Nor care for Cornish kin;
Certain if they can seize the knight
His ample lands to win.
He knows their purpose stern,
And not with his heart’s blood that day
Shall they their wages earn.
Down by a secret way the knight
Has left his home for aye,
And for the cliff he makes that hangs
Over the Goran bay.
He hears their footsteps nigh;
Bold from the cliff he leaps, while shrill
The baffled hunters cry.
In the dark sea they think him drowned,
As on the giddy steep
They stand and look, and only see
The waters wild and deep.
Ring with their savage shout;
And still they looked, perchance to see
His dead bones tossed about:
And then they saw a boat dash through
The surge, and as she went
The rescued knight above the roar
His parting curses sent.