Was the aim frustrated by force or guile, When giants scooped from out the rocky ground, Tier under tier, this semicirque profound? (Giants--the same who built in Erin's isle That Causeway with incomparable toil!)-- 5 O, had this vast theatric structure wound[349][DL] With finished sweep into a perfect round, No mightier work had gained the plausive smile Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas, Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid 10 In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of IS and WAS, Things incomplete and purposes betrayed Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass[350] Than noblest objects utterly decayed.[DM] Malham Cove is a noble amphitheatre of perpendicular limestone rock, lying in regular strata, the height being 300 feet in the centre. The Aire issues from the rock at the base of the cliff, a considerable stream. Possibly Westall's picture of Malham Cove suggested to Wordsworth the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and its legend. They have the same columnar appearance; although the former is limestone, and the latter basalt.--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 348: 1820. Start ... _Blackwood's Magazine_, January 1819. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote DK: Waters (as Mr. Westall informs us in the letterpress prefixed to his admirable views) are invariably found to flow through these caverns.--W. W. 1819.] GORDALE Composed 1819.--Published 1819 One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED. At early dawn, or rather when the air[351] Glimmers with fading light, and shadowy Eve Is busiest to confer and to bereave; Then, pensive Votary! let thy feet repair[352] To Gordale-chasm, terrific as the lair 5 Where the young lions couch; for so,[353] by leave Of the propitious hour, thou may'st perceive The local Deity, with oozy hair And mineral crown, beside his jagged urn, 9 Recumbent: Him thou may'st behold, who hides His lineaments by day,[354] yet[355] there presides, Teaching the docile waters how to turn, Or (if need be) impediment to spurn, And force their passage to[356] the salt-sea tides! There are many legendary stories connected with the Yorkshire caves, particularly in the Giggleswick district; but I have been unable to trace any legend about the "local Deity" of Gordale. There is nothing in the letterpress of Westall's views, or in the "addenda" to West's _Guide to the Lakes in Cumberland_, about these legends. The chasm is a very remarkable cleft in the limestone rock, near Malham. Gray's description of Gordale, in his _Journal_ (1796), may be referred to.--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 349: 1820. Oh! had the Crescent stretched its horns, and wound _Blackwood's Magazine_, January 1819. ] [Footnote 350: 1837. ... o'er truth's mystic glass, 1819. ] [Footnote 351: 1819.