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Coblenz is the place which many years ago gave me my first associations with the Rhine. From a neighboring town we often drove to Coblenz, and the wide, calm flow of the river, the low, massive bridge of boats and the commonplace outskirts of a busy city contributed to make up a very different picture from that of the poetic "castled" Rhine of German song and English ballad.
It is the Teutonic mystery which has us in its grip, a thing as readily recognizable as the Celtic glamour or the Egyptian gloom a thing of the shadows of eld, stern, ancient, of a ponderous fantasy, instinct with the spirit of nature, of dwarfs, elves, kobolds, erlkings, the wraiths and shades of forest and flood, of mountain and mere, of castled height and swift whirlpool, the denizens of the deep valleys and mines, the bergs and heaths of this great province of romance, this rich satrapy of Faëry.
And when either of us turned his thoughts to home and childhood, what a strange dissimilarity must there not have been in these pictures of the mind when I beheld that old, gray, castled city, high throned above the firth, with the flag of Britain flying, and the red-coat sentry pacing over all; and the man in the next car to me would conjure up some junks and a pagoda and a fort of porcelain, and call it, with the same affection, home.
The golden shafts twinkled on the huge colonnade, the vast ruined arch, the crumbling walls, and the huge castled oval of Humayoon's tomb. In the dark night, the monsoon winds wailed over the wreck of Hindu, Pathan, and Mogul magnificence. The dark demons of Bowanee rejoiced at a new sacrifice to the gloomy goddess; and the straggling jungle was alive again.
One looked over the castled heights of Clithero; the woody eminences of Bowland; the bleak ridges of Thornley; the broad moors of Bleasdale; the Trough of Bolland, and Wolf Crag; and even brought within his ken the black fells overhanging Lancaster.
Not greater share did Mars acquire of trophies and renown, Than great Gazul took with him from Gelva's castled town; And when he to Sanlucar came his lady welcomed him, His cup of happiness at last was beaded to the brim. Alone the joyful lovers stood within a garden glade; Amid the flowers, those happy hours fled to the evening shade.
"'Twas cruel rage, not jealous love, That urged this wicked act." And midway, on thy journey down To fair Sidonia's castled town, Mayst thou alone, with no retreat, The valiant Garci-Perez meet; And mayst thou, startled at the sight, Lose all the vigor of thy might; Thy reins with palsied fingers yield; And find no shelter in thy shield.
At such a season it is impossible to behold from afar the heights of Windsor, crowned, like the Phrygian goddess, by a castled diadem, and backed by lordly woods, and withhold a burst of enthusiasm and delight.
The "castled steep" is still crowned by a massive fragment of the old fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm and stress. A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and the natural defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine on the east and the river with its steep banks on the south made it practically unassailable at these points.
They were the pioneers of the trans-Atlantic sky-builders, were those old burghers, who, shut in about their castled hill by the two lochs, one of which is now the enchanting Princes Street, were fain to build heavenwards as population grew.
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