Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832/The Valley of Rocks
73
THE VALLEY OF ROCKS, NEAR LINTON, DEVONSHIRE.
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THE VALLEY OF ROCKS,
NEAR LINTON, DEVONSHIRE.
This valley is bounded by huge naked rocks, piled one upon the other, and resembling extensive ruins: vast fragments overspread the ground, and exhibit on every side awful vestiges of convulsion and desolation.
Summer, thou hast lost thy power;
Nor thy sunshine, nor thy shower,
Can, from out the stubborn earth,
Call the beautiful to birth!
Never springs the green grass here,
Filled with insects, and with flowers,
Musical and fragrant life,
Making glad the passing hours;
Groweth not one ancient tree
Here; the eye can only see
Broken mass of cold gray stone;
Never yet was place so lone!
Yet the heart hath many a mood
That would seek such solitude,
When the summer earth and sky
Mock those who but pine to die.
Wherefore should the flowers be bright,
When they yield us no delight?
What avails the gladsome spring!
Misery is a selfish thing;
And the wretched one would fain
That all nature shared his pain.
Then, the piled and riven rock,
Of earth's agony the sign,
And the lone and barren place,
Seem like sorrow's fitting shrine.
Gloomy vale! if thou couldst be
Haunt for human misery,
Half our life were spent with thee.