Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Widemouth Bay

Featherstone’s Doom

By Robert Stephen Hawker (1803–1875)

The Blackrock is a bold, dark, pillared mass of schist, which rises midway on the shore of Widemouth Bay, near Bude, and is held to be the lair of the troubled spirit of Featherstone the wrecker, imprisoned therein until he shall have accomplished his doom.

TWIST thou and twine! in light and gloom

A spell is on thine hand;

The wind shall be thy changeful loom,

Thy web the shifting sand.

Twine from this hour, in ceaseless toil,

On Blackrock’s sullen shore;

Till cordage of the sand shall coil

Where crested surges roar.

’T is for that hour when from the wave

Near voices wildly cried;

When thy stern hand no succor gave,

The cable at thy side.

Twist thou and twine! in light and gloom

The spell is on thine hand;

The wind shall be thy changeful loom,

Thy web the shifting sand.