Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Dartmoor

Dartmoor

By Noel Thomas Carrington (1777–1830)

*****

IN sunlight and in shade,

Repose and storm, wide waste! I since have trod

Thy hill and dale magnificent. Again

I seek thy solitudes profound, in this

Thy hour of deep tranquillity, when rests

The sunbeam on thee, and thy desert seems

To sleep in the unwonted brightness, calm,

But stern; for, though the spirit of the Spring

Breathes on thee, to the charmer’s whisper kind

Thou listenest not, nor ever puttest on

A robe of beauty, as the fields that bud

And blossom near thee. Yet I love to tread

Thy central wastes, where not a sound intrudes

Upon the ear but rush of wing or leap

Of the hoarse waterfall. And O, ’t is sweet

To list the music of thy torrent streams;

For thou too hast thy minstrelsies for him

Who from their liberal mountain-urn delights

To trace thy waters, as from source to sea

They rush tumultuous.