Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839/Dunstanburgh Castle
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DUNSTANBURGH CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
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DUNSTANBURGH CASTLE.
This commanding position was originally occupied by a British fortress, to which a Roman castellum succeeded: it was strengthened subsequently, at several periods, and rebuilt on a more extensive plan, by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. In the year 1642 it was unroofed by order of Edward IV, from which period its decay has proceeded with a rapidity to be expected from a position so exposed. The castle and outworks covered nine square acres: the cliffs on the north side present a mural precipice of considerable height: and on the east front of the rock is a deep wave-worn excavation, called Rumble Churn, into which the tide rushed with so much violence, that the report of its lashes is heard at the distance of a mile from the spot.
There was no flag upon the mast,
None knew the vessel’s name,
What were the seas where she had past,
The country where she came.
The first grey dawn of morning light,
Shone through the sky of clouds;
But yet the darkness of the night
Was on that vessel’s shrouds.
The night now passing from the west,
But only served to show
The tumult of the ocean’s breast
The deeper night below.
Men gathered fast upon the sands
With eager aid—in vain—
What is might of human hands
To struggle with the main?
The beacon-fires upon the height
Are stronger than the day;
In vain their warning gleam was bright,
They could not point the way,
On high their crimson gleam is tost,
High on the hill-tops shed;
The first faint light of day is lost
Amid their fiercer red.
The crimson tints the sea-bird’s wing
At every downward sweep;
Yet even they in mid air spring,
As if they shunned the deep.
How white and wan their wings appear
Amid the dusky air!
One pale, as if with conscious fear—
One dark, as with despair.
On struggles still the gallant ship,
But every time more weak:
Amid the waves her rent sails dip,
The billows o’er her break.
No human hands are on her deck,
No cry is on the air,
The waves have swept above the wreck—
Death is the monarch there.
Darker and darker grows the sky,
And darker grows the sea,
And darker grows the human eye,
That such a sight must see.
There rises an appealing cry,
But only from the shore.
One last black wave has burst on high—
That ship is seen no more.
For many days to come were flung
Strange relics on the strand,
Wealth over which wild whispers hung,
And foreign gun and brand.
And of a dark and mingled race
The bodies washed ashore;
Hardships were marked on every face
And wild the garb they wore.
Day after day the waves restore
To land th’ unburied dead;
And old men, as they came ashore,
Watched each dark face, and said,
That God was good—and still his power
Avenged the course of ill;
That winds and waters knew the hour
In which to work his will.