'The glasses, pure and thinner than we can See from the sea-betroth'd Venetian, Were all of ice, not made to overlast One supper, and betwixt two cowslips cast. A prettier hath not yet been told, So neat the glass was, and so feat the mould. A little spruce elf then (just of the set Of the French dancer or such marionette), Clad in a suit of rush, woven like a mat, A monkshood flow'r then serving for a hat; Under a cloak made of the Spider's loom: This fairy (with them, held a lusty groom) Brought in his bottles; neater were there none; And every bottle was a cherry-stone, To each a seed pearl served for a screw, And most of them were fill'd with early dew.' Now and again in his verses there peeps out a joyful pride in his county, and his love of the Tavy is deep to his heart's core. Some way below Tavistock is Buckland Abbey, founded by Amicia, Countess of Devon, in 1278, and for long years the home of Cistercians. At the Dissolution the Abbey was granted for a small sum to Sir Richard Grenville (grandfather of the hero of the _Revenge_), who altered it into a dwelling-house. Sir Richard, his grandson, sold it to John Hele and Christopher Harrys, who were probably acting for Sir Francis Drake, and he formally bought it of them ten months later. The house was built in the body of the church, and it is still easy to trace its ecclesiastical origin from some of the windows and architecture. In the hall is a fine frieze, with raised figures in high relief and an elaborate background, the subject a knight turned hermit. The knight, wearing a hermit's robe, is sitting beneath spreading boughs, and a skull is lodged in a hollow of the tree-trunk. His charger and his discarded armour lie near him. In the same hall rests the famous drum that went round the world with Drake, the drum referred to in the traditional promise that Mr Newbolt has put into verse: 'Take my drum to England, hang it by the shore; Strike it when the powder's running low; If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port of Heaven, An' drum them up the Channel, as we drummed them long ago.'