curlew's on the wing:
Primroses are out, lad,
On the high banks of Lee,
And the sun stirs the trout, lad,
From Brendon to the sea.

'I know what's in your heart, lad,--
The mare he used to hunt,
And her blue market-cart, lad,
With posies tied in front--
We miss them from the moor road,
They're getting old to roam;
The road they're on's a sure road,
And nearer, lad, to home.'

H. NEWBOLT: _April on Waggon Hill_.

The charm of the coast-line of North Devon lies partly in its great
irregularity. 'At one spot a headland, some five hundred feet high,
rough with furze-clad projections at the top, and falling abruptly to a
bay; then, perhaps, masses of a low, dark rock, girding a basin of turf,
as at Watermouth; again, a recess and beach, with the mouth of a stream;
a headland next in order, and so the dark coast runs whimsically
eastward, passing from one shape to another like a Proteus, until it
unites with the massive sea-front of Exmoor.' At the eastern ridge of
the county, the hill on which Oldbarrow Camp stands rises more than
eleven hundred feet straight out of the sea.

Ilfracombe's tiny bay is almost surrounded by rocks, but a pier was
built by one of the Bourchiers, Earls of Bath, and his successors--one
Sir Bourchier Wrey after another--have improved and enlarged it.
Westcote speaks of it as 'a pretty harbour for ships of small burden,
but dangerous to come in in some winds, especially for strangers; for
whose better security they keep a continual pharos to direct their
course.' The lighthouse now stands on the Lantern Rock, at the mouth of
the harbour, where once stood a little chapel dedicated to St Nicholas.
The dedication explains its position, for St Nicholas was a sea-saint,
whose protection used to be specially implored as a defence against
shipwreck.

Nowadays Ilfracombe is of no consequence as a port, but six centuries
ago it must have been of some importance, for when Edward III was
besieging Paris it contributed six ships and eighty-two mariners to a
fleet. Although the nucleus of the town is old, and indeed consisted
only of one 'scattering street,' its development is very modern, and has
happened since it became popular as a watering-place.

The architecture of the church is very varied. The tower is probably
Norman, finished by Perpendicular battlements and pinnacles; it is built
above the centre of the north aisle, and projects into the