10 NOVEMBER 1877, Page 16

P OETRY.

PENARD CASTLE.

FAST on their craggy foot-hold, 'spite decay And all the powers of air 'twixt sea and land, Thy walls, weird, solitary Penard, stand, High o'er the stream that, winding in its way, Reluctant creeps to taste the bitter spray, And sink exhausted on the ocean-strand. A barren vale, a windy realm of sand, Are all that fear thy frown or own thy sway.

Thou bast no record,—livest in no verse With names heroic ; and the sons of Gower

Say thou wert built by magic in an hour, And still art fairy-haunted. It were worse To be, for centuries of brutal power, A tameless fabric, blasted with a curse II. N.