Cornish Mining and the World Heritage Site
"Hast ever seen a mine? Hast ever been
Down it in its
fabled grottoes, walled with gems,
And canopied with torrid
mineral belts,
That blaze within the fiery orifice?
Hast ever,
by the glimmer of a lamp,
Or the fast waning taper, gone down,
down,
Towards the earth's dread centre, where wise men
Have
told us that the earthquake is conceived,
And great Vesuvius hath
his lava-house,
Which burns and burns forever, shooting forth
As from a fountain of eternal fire?
Hast ever heard, within this
prison house,
The startling hoof of fear? the eternal flow
Of
some dread meaning whispering to thy soul?"
(John Harris, Miner and Poet; from "The Mining Scene" - c1853)
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