Beeny
Beeny is a hamlet in north Cornwall, England, UK. It is in a sheltered valley near the coast two miles (3 km) north-east of Boscastle.[1]
| Beeny | |
|---|---|
Beeny Cliff | |
Beeny Location within Cornwall | |
| OS grid reference | SX1192 |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BOSCASTLE |
| Postcode district | PL35 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Cornwall |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| 50°42′03″N 4°40′13″W / 50.70075°N 4.67022°W | |
Literary allusions Edit
Very specifically there is a poem by Thomas Hardy, perhaps better known for his prose works.
Beeny Cliff
March 1870 - March 1913
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free -
The woman who I loved so, and who loyally loved me.
The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.
A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain.
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.
- Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?
What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is - elsewhere - whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.
Further, in "A Death-Day Recalled," collected in Satires of Circumstance (1914), Thomas Hardy wrote:
Beeny did not quiver,
Juliot grew not gray,
Thin Vallency's river
Held its wonted way.
Bos seemed not to utter
Dimmest note of dirge,
Targan mouth a mutter[2]
To its creamy surge.
Yet though these, unheeding,
Listless, passed the hour
Of her spirit's speeding,
She had, in her flower,
Sought and loved the places
Much and often pined
For their lonely faces
When in towns confined.
Why did not Vallency
In his purl deplore
One whose haunts were whence he
Drew his limpid store?
Why did Bos not thunder,
Targan apprehend
Body and Breath were sunder
Of their former friend?
Notable residents Edit
- Henry Chidley Reynolds (1849–1925), a New Zealand farm manager, butter manufacturer and exporter, was born at Beeny.
References Edit
- ^ Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 190 Bude & Clovelly ISBN 978-0-319-23145-6
- ^ I.e. Pentargon
External links Edit
Media related to Beeny at Wikimedia Commons