“…few who have visited this spot, only accessible in the calmest of weather, where not a seabird finds a resting place, can ever forget the impression of silence and solitude which it leaves on the mind.” — General Lefroy, Governor of Bermuda, 1871-1877

“Oh! could you view the scenery dear,
That now beneath my window lies,
You’d think, that nature lavish’d here
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in!
Close to my wooded bank below,
In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show
The coral rocks they love to steep!
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails
That languish idly round the mast.”
— Tom Moore

We were in Bermuda during Hurricane Lee. It was an amazing trip despite the tough weather. The only museum we missed on our itinerary was the National Musuem of Bermuda.

Smith’s Parish
(1) Spittal Pond
St. George’s Island
(2) Unfinished Church (Flickr Album)
(3) Gates Fort
(4) Sea Venture Memorial

“In memory of our great deliverance, both from a mighty storm and leak: we have set up this to the honor of God. It is the spoil of an English ship of three hundred ton, called the Sea Venture, bound with seven ships more (from which the storm divided us) to Virginia or New Britania, in America. In it were two Knights, Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, Governor of the English Forces and Colony there: and Sir Geroge Somers Knight, Admiral of the Seas. Her Captain was Christopher Newport, Passengers and Mariners, she had beside (which came all safe to land) one hundred and fifty. We were forced to run her ashore (by reason of her leak) under a Point that bore Southeast from the Northern Point of the island, which we discovered first the eight and twentieth of July 1609.”

St. David’s Island
(5) St David’s Lighthouse
Pembroke Parish
(6) Bermuda Historical Society Musuem & Public Library
(7) Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity
Southampton Parish
(8) Gibbs Hill Lighthouse
Sandy’s Parish
(9) Somerset Bridge
(10) Scaur Hill Fort
Hamilton Parish
(11) Crystal Caves & Fantasy Caves
(12) Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo
St David’s Island
(13) Carter House
St. George’s Island
(14) St. Peter’s Church
(15) Stella Maris Roman Catholic Church

Related
(1) ‘Full update’ on Fairmont Southampton promised (The Royal Gazette)
(2) Bluck’s of Bermuda Store Closes After 175 Years (Bernews)
(3) Milestone reached in recovery of endangered cahow (The Royal Gazette)
(4) Premier: Fairmont Southampton deal ‘very close to closing’ (The Royal Gazette)
(5) Springfield: Quaint, Charming and Historically Significant (The Bermudian)

Limestone Archives
Bermuda Redux
Weekend 565.0
Odes to Nea written in Bermuda by Tom Moore <<< Transcribed from Tom Moore’s Bermuda Poems by William Zuill

More prose from Tom Moore:

Farewell to Bermuda, and long may the bloom
Of the lemon and myrtle its vallies perfume;
May spring to eternity hallow the shade,
Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has stray’d!
And thou — when, at dawn, thou shalt happen to roam
Through the lime-cover’d alley that leads to thy home,
Where oft, when the dance and the revel were done,
And the stars were beginning to fade in the sun,
I have led thee along, and have told by the way
What my heart all the night had been burning to say —
Oh! think of the past — give a sigh to those times,
And a blessing for me to that alley of limes!