Those moments, tasted once and never done, <br />Of long surf breaking in the mid-day sun. <br />A far-off blow-hole booming like a gun- <br /> <br />The seagulls plane and circle out of sight <br />Below this thirsty, thrift-encrusted height, <br />The veined sea-campion buds burst into white <br /> <br />And gorse turns tawny orange, seen beside <br />Pale drifts of primroses cascading wide <br />To where the slate falls sheer into the tide. <br /> <br />More than in gardened Surrey, nature spills <br />A wealth of heather, kidney-vetch and squills <br />Over these long-defended Cornish hills. <br /> <br />A gun-emplacement of the latest war <br />Looks older than the hill fort built before <br />Saxon or Norman headed for the shore. <br /> <br />And in the shadowless, unclouded glare <br />Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where <br />A misty sea-line meets the wash of air. <br /> <br />Nut-smell of gorse and honey-smell of ling <br />Waft out to sea the freshness of the spring <br />On sunny shallows, green and whispering. <br /> <br />The wideness which the lark-song gives the sky <br />Shrinks at the clang of sea-birds sailing by <br />Whose notes are tuned to days when seas are high. <br /> <br />From today's calm, the lane's enclosing green <br />Leads inland to a usual Cornish scene- <br />Slate cottages with sycamore between, <br /> <br />Small fields and tellymasts and wires and poles <br />With, as the everlasting ocean rolls, <br />Two chapels built for half a hundred souls.<br /><br />John Betjeman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cornish-cliffs/
