Culbone or Kitnore, Somerset

Henry Alford

Half-way upon the cliff I musing stood
O'er thy sea-fronting hollow, while the smoke
Curled from thy cottage chimneys through the wood
And brooded on the steeps of glooming oak;
Under a dark green buttress of the hill
Looked out thy lowly house of sabbath prayer;
The sea was calm below; only thy rill
Talked to itself upon the quiet air.
Yet in this quaint and sportive-seeming dell
Hath, through the silent ages that are gone,
A stream of human things been passing on,
Whose unrecorded story none may tell,
Nor count the troths in that low chancel given,
And souls from yonder cabin fled to heaven.

There is no road to the small coastal village of Culbone. The village is surrounded by woods of rare trees, and is situated beneath high cliffs which keep it in shade much of the winter.