Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (262 page)
Read Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Online
Authors: Ann Radcliffe
St Alban’s Cathedral
CONTENTS
The Battle of St Alban’s
Of the poetical powers of MRS. RADCLIFFE, apart from those examples of the
spirit
of poetry which breathe so vividly through her prose romances, there has hitherto been no adequate impression conveyed to the public — perhaps because they have only been presented, for the most part, in subordinate connection with her prose writings. It is intended, by the present collection of such of her detached productions as wear expressly the outward garb of the poetic muse, to give to her merits as a writer of compositions in verse a fairer opportunity for appreciation. The tale of “St. Alban’s Abbey” must doubtless prove, in an eminent degree, welcome to the imaginative reader, as superadding to the graces of poetic treatment the charm of a romantic story — that charm in which Mrs. Radcliffe so conspicuously excelled; and it may be safely affirmed, both of that production and of the minor poems which follow it, that, when examined, they will be found replete with rich imagery and felicitous expression.
A POETICAL ROMANCE.
SPIRIT of ancient days! who o’er these walls,
Unseen and silent, hold’st thy solemn state,
Thy presence known where the gloom deepest fells;
And by th’ unearthly thoughts that on thee wait:
Descend, and touch my heart with thine own fire,
And nerve my trembling fancy to aspire
To the dread scenes that thou hast witnessed here!
Teach me, in language sipiple and severe,
(Such best may harmonize with ruder times)
With place and circumstance of awful crimes,
To paint th’ awakening vision thou hast spread
Before mine eyes — tale of the mighty dead!
And let not modern polish throw the light
Of living ray within thy vaults of night,
But give thy elder words, whose sober glow,
Like to th’ illumined gloom of thine own aisles,
Touching the mind with more than light may show,
Wakes highest rapture while it darkly smiles.
Presumptuous wish! Ah! not to me are given
Those antients keys, that ope the Poet’s heaven,
Golden and rustless! NOT TO ME ARE GIVEN!
But, if not mine the prize, not mine the crime
Lightly to scorn them, nor the simple chime,
Though tuneless oft, when to the scene more true
Than flowing verse, bright with Castalian dew.
Like Grecian goddess, placed in Saxon choir,
Is the false union of the cadenced rhime
And measured sweetness of the tempered lyre
With subjects darkened by the shroud of Time.
As Gothic saint sleeping in Grecian fane
Is ancient story, shrined in polished strain;
Truth views th’ incongruous scene with stern farewell,
And startled Fancy weeps and breaks her spell.
THE ABBEY.
I.
KNOW ye that pale and ancient choir,
Whose Norman tower lifts it’s pinnacled spire?
Where the long Abbey-aisle extends
And battled roof o’er roof ascends;
Cornered with buttresses, shapely and small,
That sheltered the Saint in canopied stall; ‘
And, lightened with hanging turrets fair,
That so proudly their dental coronals wear,
They blend with a holy, a warlike air;
While they guard the Martyr’s tomb beneath,
And patient warriors, laid in death?
II.
Know ye that transept’s far-stretched line,
Where stately turrets, more slenderly fine,
Each with a battlement round it’s brow,
Win the uplifted eye below?
How lovely peers the soft blue sky
Through their small double arch on high!
Deepening the darkness of it’s shade,
And seeming holier peace to spread.
More grandly those turrets, mossed and hoar,
Upon the crimson evening soar.
Yet lovelier far their forms appear
When they lift their heads in the moonlight air
And softening beams of languid white
Tip their shadowy crowns with light.
But most holy their look, when a fleecy cloud
O’er them throws it’s trembling shroud,
Then palely thinly dies away,
And leaves them to the full bright ray.
Thus Sorrow fleets from Resignation’s smile;
The virtue lives — the suffering dies the while.
III.
And, as these moonlight-towers we trace,
A living look, a saintly grace
Beams o’er them, when we seem to hear
The midnight-hymn breathe soft and clear,
As from this choir of old it rose.
Each hallowed thought they seem to own,
Expressed by music’s heavenly tone;
And patient, sad, and pale and still,
As if resign’d to wait Time’s will.
Such choral swell and dying close
Stole on the Abbot’s hour of rest,
Like solemn air from spirit blest,
And shaped his vision of repose.
The pious instinct of his soul,
Not even slumber might control:
Soon as he caught the distant lay,
His gathering thoughts half woke to pray
Celestial smile came o’er his brow,
Though sealed in sleep the lid below;
And, when in silence died the strain,
The lingering prayer
His lips forbear,
And deep his slumbers fell again.
IV.
Bold is this Abbey’s front, and plain;
The walls no shrined saint sustain;
Nor tower, nor airy pinnet crown;
But broadly sweeps the Norman arch
Where once in brightened shadow shone
King Offa, on his pilgrim-march
And proudly points the mouldered stone
Of the high-vaulted porch beneath,
Where Norman beauty hangs a wreath
Of simple elegance and grace;
Where slender columns guard the space
On every side, in clustered row,
The triple arch through arch disclose,
And lightly o’er the vaulting throw
The thwart-rib and the fretted rose.
Beside this porch, on either hand,
Giant buttresses darkly stand,
And still their silent vanguard hold
For bleeding Knights, laid here of old;
And Mercian Offa and his Queen
The portal’s guard and grace are seen.
This western front shows various style,
Less ancient than the central pile.
No furrows deep upon its brow
The frown of seven stern centuries show;
Yet the sad grandeur of the whole
Gives it such a look of soul,
That, when upon it’s silent walls
The silvered grey of moonlight falls,
And the fixed image dim appears,
It seems some shade of parted years
Left watching o’er the mouldering dead;
Who here for pious Henry bled,
And here, beneath the wide-stretched ground
Of nave, of choir, of chapels round.
For ever — ever, rest the head.
V.
Now know ye this pale and ancient Choir,
Where the massy tower lifts a slender spire?
Here forty abbots have ruled and one, —
Twenty with pall and mitre on,
And bowed them to the Pope alone.
Their hundred monks, in black arrayed,
The Benedictine rules obeyed;
O’er distant lands they held their sway;
Freed from Peter’s-pence were they;
The gift of palle from Pope they claimed,
And Cardinal-Abbots were they named;
And even old Canterbury’s lord
Was long refused the premier board;
For this was the first British Martyr’s bier,
And the Pope said “ His priest shall have no peer
Now know ye St. Alban’s bones rest here.
VI.
Kings and heroes here were guests
In stately halls, at solemn feasts.
But now, nor dais, nor halls remain
Nor fretted, window’s gorgeous pane
Twilight illuminated throws
Where once the high-served banquet rose
VII.
No fragment of a roof remains
To echo back their wassail strains;
But the long aisles, whose? holy gloom
Still mourns and veils the martyr’s tomb.
The broad grey tower, the turrets wide,
Scattered o’er tower and transept, guide
The distant traveller to their throne,
Where they high-seated watch alone,
And seem, with aspect sad, to tell,
That they of all their Abbey’s power
Remain to point, where heroes fell,
And monarch met his evil hour,
And guileless, meek, and pious, bowed
To doubtful right’s victorious crowd.
VIII.
Now, if this cloister, fallen and gone,
Ye fain would view, as once it shone,,
Pace ye, with reverend step, I pray,
The grass-grown and forgotten way,
While murmurs low the fitful wind.
Winning to peace the meekend mind;,
And Evening, in her solemn stole,
With stillness o’er those, woods afar,
Leads in blue shade her brightening star,
As spreads the slow gloom from the pole,
And these old towers their watch more awful keep,
(Where once the Curfew spoke with solemn rule)
And the feint hills and all the valley sleep
In misty grey beneath the “dewy cool.”
Yet, if a worldly heart ye wear,
These visioned-shades forbear — forbear!
To thee no dim-seen halls may gleam,
For thee no hallowed tapers beam
On the pale visage through the gloom
Bending in prayer by shrine, or tomb.
Turn thou thy wearied step away;
Go thou where dance and song are gay,
Or where the sun is flaming high,
And leave these scenes to Evening’s sigh.
IX.
But ye, with measured step and slow,
Whose smile is shaded soft with woe;
And ye, who holy, joy can know.
The glow beyond all other glow, — ?.
Ye, whose high spirit dares to dwell
Beyond the reach of earthly spell,
And tread upon the dizzy verge
Of unknown worlds; or downward urge,
Through ages dim, your steadfast sight,
And trace their shapes of shadowed light,
O come “with meek submitted thought,”
With lifted eye, by Rapture taught,
And o’er your head the gloom shall rise
Of monkish chambers, still and wide,
As once they stood; and to your eyes
Group after group shall slowly glide,
And here again their duties ply,
As they were wont, long ages by.
The twilight broods not yet so deep,
But we may trace where now they sleep
Beneath the sullen turf, aloof,
And where each solemn chamber’s roof
Drew it’s strong vaulting o’er their frames,
But urged on human praise no Claims,
Nor always bore their living mimes.
X.
On yonder brow, that fronts the West,
Where glimmering beams in stillness rest,
Once rose the Abbot’s Hall of Right,
That wont to view Ver’s stream below
And shallow valley Westward go
To farthest hills, that owned his might;
And from those farthest hills were teen,
Through oaken boughs of stretching green,
The fretted window of that hall,
The pinnacle, that crowned it’s wall,
And seemed to watch it’s portal grey,
With crimson light tinged by the setting ray.
XI.
Thus rose the Abbot’s vaulted Hall,
Where he, in virtue of the palle,
Spoke doom to all his vassal throng;
For life and death were on his tongue,
And scarce less ready to fulfill
His worldly, than his better will,
Were peasant, vavasour, and knight,
From London’s wall to Beechwood’s height.
His weighty robe of velvet fold
Was ‘broidered round, and clasped with gold.
A Prior helped his office to sustain,
A hundred monks did dignify his reign.
Pale were they and closely shorn,
Heedless they were of human scorn
And arts that wait on human pride;
In patience each with other vied.
‘Mong such had Matthew Paris stood,
Pious, learned, wise and good,
Though shrouded in a bigot’s hood.
XII.
Here, where the deeper shadows fall,
Once echoed o’er the paved hall
The weary step and staff of him,
Who, at this lonely hour and dim,
The last chill hour of eventide,
Had heard from yonder bleak hill side,
Where once stood Roman Verulam,
Faint o’er the wintry waters come
The bell of Compline, chiming slow
From forth this Abbey’s unseen tower,
And spied, amid the shades below,
The hearth-blaze in the stranger’s bower;
For here the Pilgrim’s Lodge arose,
Whose porch and hall and parlour warm
And well-dosed chambers of repose
Received him from the rushing storm.
XIII.
And, when he reached the cheering blaze,
How sweet to think upon those ways,
As the shrill wind and sleety rain
Against the casements strove in vain.
But crowding thoughts soon chased repose,
And nigh to sacred rapture rose,
As now he knew himself so near
The object of his long career,
And, safely placed, where all around
Was ancient, consecrated ground;
The precinct sought o’er sea and shore, —
The grave of him, whose sufferings o’er
Had now their glorious triumph found!
XIV.
There the Scriptorium spread it’s gloom,
To dead and living, like one tomb;
The living there like dead might show,
So mutely sat they, ranged in row;
Scarce seen to move, from hour to hour,
Copying the written folio rare,
Or tracing bird, or curious flower,
Round blessed Mary in her bower,
In splendid gold and colours fair,
On missal leaf, with painful care,
Or portraiture of Donor good,
That, closely kept and seldom viewed,
Still fresh and glorious should be
For century following century.
XV.
Others there were, who volumes bouqd
In silk, or velvet, ‘broidered round
And ‘bossed with gold and gems of price,
Enclasped with emerald palm-leaf thrice.
On the high WINDOW near would shine,
Transparent, the memorial line
Of him, who once had wrought below,
With patient hand and earnest brow;
Him, whose small pencil thus enshrined
In book of GOLDEN RECORD true,
The image and the noble mind,
And thanks to benefactor due.
There shadowed Kings and Abbots pass,
In crowned pomp, or sweeping palle,
Like spectres o’er some wizard’s glass.
There, as the lifted pages fall,
They rise to view and disappear,
As year steals silent after year,
Till came the blank leaf, turned o’er all!
Even o’er him, while here he wrought
On the dull page the living thought.
In after-time were here impressed
Those wondrous characters combined,
That stamp upon the paper vest
At once, the image of the mind.
The second Abbey this in all the land,
That stretched to learning a preserving hand
XVI.
Here cloister-walks, in spacious square,
Showed sacred story, painted fair.
And portraiture of famous men,
Who seemed to live and speak again,
In golden maxims from the walls.
Nobly these cloisters ranged along
By chapels, chambers, courts and halls,
Dividing from the cowled throng,
As with a dim and pillared aisle,
The Royal lodging’s stately pile.
There the Queen’s parlour, and her bower,
Hung o’er the sunny southern glade;
And here the place of monarch-power
Gleamed through the Abbey’s farther shade.
The foliaged arch, the well-carved door
Of chamber, hung from vault to floor
With storied scene, or cloth of gold,
Or ‘broidered velvet’s purple fold,
Rose beauteous to the taste of yore.
And slender shafts, entwined with flowers,
Lifted their high o’erarching bowers,
Traced forth with mimic skill so true,
Kings seemed their Windsor’s groves to view.
XVII.
The high-carved chimney’s canopy
Spread broad o’er half a blazing tree,
With pinnacle and mitre wrought
And shielded arms of Mercia’s court,
Three royal crowns; and blazonry
Of many an abbot lying near
In choir, or cloister, on his bier.
High in the midst a marble farm
Stood in it’s tabernacle shade,
Pale as the gleam of April storm;
Oft was the passing monk afraid;
So sternly watched the downcast eye!
Yet hardly might such monk know why.
On the brow a kingly crown it wore,
In it’s hand a Mercian sceptre bore;
‘Twas Offa stood there on his fretted throne,
Whom these holy walls for their founder own,
Who Charlemagne for foe and friend had known.
And in that chamber, not in vain,
With mullions light and roial pane,
Rose th’ oriel window’s triple arch,
That pictured forth the solemn march
Of Offa, with his pilgrim train.
XVIII.
Within these walls there was one scene,
Where worldly matters were discussed;
It was the Prior’s cloister-green;
There ruled he, by the Abbot’s trust.
For not amid the noise of men,
Disturbed by their familiar ken,
Dwelt the Lord Abbot; his recess
Was little easy of access;
No by the southern transept rose
(The shelves with store of learning fraught)
His Lodge and Cloister of repose,
His bower, where all apart he sought,
From convent-state and homage free,
Leisure and learned dignity.
XIX.
Lost now that Study’s farther shade,
Whose peace no stray step might invade,
Nor any sound of breathing life,
Save when the Choir, in faint, sweet strife
Of voice and citole offering
Praise, such as Angel-bands might sing,
Passed o’er the Vision’s patient head,
Like whisper of the spirit fled.