Monday 4 May 2009

Cold feet at Lovers' Leap

Lovers' leap is a legendary place on the Dart, somewhere I have long wanted to go, since reading the name on the Ordnance Survey map. There are various old prints of it, suggesting it was a notable beauty spot for the Victorians and the like. We found a rugged cliff face, with rusting fencing at the top. At the bottom, there is a slow, dark, tempting pool. In 1843, a Devon poet, John Bradford, was here. These are the opening lines of his "Sonnet written at Lovers Leap on the Banks of the Dart."
I'd live a hermit on the craggy side
Of this rude rock, which juts its rugged breast,
Where murmuring at delay the waters glide,
Running the restless race in search of rest.

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