Might bear her on her course.
XI.
And, when the mingled crowd was passed
Of living and of dead,
And the great portal, closed so fast,
Echoed no sound of dread,
On noiseless foot pale Florence paced
The Abbey-court — and cloister traced
And hall and chamber’s gloom,
Forsaken gallery, dim stair,
Remote from steps of ceaseless care,
Fast thronging round the tomb.
No voice through stillness stole, no sound
Through all the widely vacant round.
Door after door, in long display,
Still led where distant chambers lay,
Shown by fixed lamp, or taper’s ray.
XII.
By such ray, trembling on the gloom,
She passed through many a vaulted room;
In one she paused, flung back her hood,
And, with an eager frenzy, viewed
What, silent, in the centre stood.
The board, that feasted living guest,
Behold! was now the dead man’s rest!
For banquet-cloth — a winding sheet!
That, lifted by the face and feet,
Veiled, yet made known, some form of death,
Laid out, unwatched, unwept, beneath!
Honour had watched his living course,
Terror and Pity wound his corpse,
But Sorrow bends not by his bier!
Though now, perchance, her steps are near.
XIII.
A shuddering instinct yet withheld
Florence from seeking, who was veiled;
And even the dread uncertainty
Whose countenance she here might see —
Even this seemed momentary shield
From truth, that might be there revealed.
With eyes fixed on that winding shroud,
Powerless she stood beside the dead;
Came o’er her sight a misty cloud;
Through all her frame a tremour spread;
A stillness of the heart — a trance
Held her, like statue in advance;
One hand just raised to lift the veil,
But checked, as life itself must fail,
If one loved face should there lie pale.
A moment passed — she raised the shroud,
Fell o’er her sight a darker cloud!
No cry she uttered; dropped no tear;
But sunk beside the Warrior’s bier.
There by a lay-monk was she founds
When passing on his wonted round;
There, like a broken lily, laid
Half-hid, within her pilgrim-shade;
And thence, with hopeless care, conveyed.
XIV.
Though closed the Abbey’s outer gate,
Still, through low porch and postern-door,
Pikemen the dead and dying bore
To the near aisles, where monks await,
And watch around th’ expiring chief,
With aiding pity, silent grief;
And every form of horror view,
Yet calm their duteous task pursue.
Clement, the Monk, was, on this night,
Shrine-watcher on the southern aisle,
Pacing o’er brass-bound graves the while,
By the pale, sickly, waning light
Of yellow tapers, ranged in state
O’er tombs of the departed great.
Under the transept’s shrined shade
No victim of the war was laid;
Yet, as with slow and heavy tread
Passed on the bearers of the dead,
Clement a prayer of requiem said.
XV.
From these new relics of War’s rage
Turning, it did his pain assuage
To look on marble sepulchre,
And ponder Latin register
Of those, who ruled here in past age.
He thought of FREDERICK THE BOLD,
Laid out in monumental brass,
Who, casting off his cope of gold,
Armed at all points stood in the pass,
When Norman William came of old;
And, sprung himself from royal race,
(Canute, the Dane, spoke in his vein)
Defied the Conqueror to his face.
Clement now almost saw his form —
That warlike Abbot, rising dim
From the grave’s sleep, as roused by storm
Of battle, then approaching him;
And could have thought his armour’s gleam
Did through the chancel-shadows stream;
Nay that his very shape stood there,
With face all haggard, wan and spare,
And plumage staring o’er his crest,
As if wild horror it expressed.
XVI.
Was this a vision that he viewed,
Wrought by o’er watching of the mind?
It seemed along the shade to wind,
And rest in thoughtful attitude.
All in the aisle was lone and still,
But from the distant nave a thrill,
A murmur deep and stifled broke;
Where monks, as they the dead laid out,
In voice of strange lamenting spoke,
As if half fearing, half devout.
Clement, the way that moaning came,
One moment turned his eye:
What was it shook his lofty frame?
What wrung from him that sigh?
He drew upon his face his hood,
Deep rapt awhile in thoughtful mood; —
When able to lift up his mien,
On the choir-step that vision stood,
That unknown shade, so dimly seen.
So woe-begone and stern it’s look,
The Monk with sudden terror shook.
He signed himself, and passed the way
Where other shrine-watch yet might stay.
XVII.
It waved him back with lofty sign,
Then trod the aisle alone,
In stately step, to Catherine’s shrine,
And spoke in stifled tone.
But Clement, still o’ercome with dread,
Before that warlike image fled.
It was no phantom that stood there,
But a true knight of Lancaster;
Who, ‘mid a crowd of monks, that bore
A warrior through St. Mary’s door.
Had here a dreadful refuge ta’en
Among the dying and the slain.
He craved of Clement secrecy,
That he might here in shelter be,
Having escaped, at midnight hour,
From those, who watched around this tower.
XVIII.
The Monk, well pleased with fear to part,
And aid Lancastrian Knight distressed,
Welcomed the stranger to his heart,
And freely granted all his quest.
He pointed to a little stair
Wound upward o’er the transept there;
He pointed, but they heard, remote,
Dull, measured footsteps fall,
And saw through Mary’s portal float
Slowly, a sable pall.
Distant, upon the aisle it turned,
Where Gloucester’s chantry-tapers burned.
The stranger stood, with brow intent
Upon that mournful vision bent:
So pale and still, though stern, his look,
Image he seemed, forsook of life.
But that his cresting plumage shook,
And told of passion’s strife.
All reckless of himself he stood,
While on the bearers drew,
Till Clement roused him from his mood,
And led him from their view.
XIX.
Within a little secret door
Of this side aisle, they now explore
A stair, that goes within the wall
To galleries on high;
These run behind close arcades small
Along the transept nigh.
The arches round, the pillars short,
(With capitals uncarved and square,)
Changing each single arch to pair,
Seem by rude hand of Saxon wrought,
Or Norman William’s earliest train:
So massy is their shape and plain.
Hid in these galleries, unknown,
A stranger long might be,
Yet on the shrines and tombs look down,
And all there passing see.
Such channels run, in double tier,
Through every aisle and transept here;
Yet goes not one, unchecked, the round
And bendings of this mystic ground,
But, broke by window, arch, or pier,
The narrow way is often found.
XX.
Within that little secret door,
A few steps of the Choir before,
Clement the mournful stranger led,
While passed, upon his funeral bed,
Unwept, unknown, that warrior dead.
The pall had shifted from it’s hold,
And showed a casque of steel and gold,
A LION PASSANT CREST;
And, just beneath the vizor raised,
The eyes, for ever fixed and glazed,
A warrior’s death confessed.
Two men-at-arms stepped slowly near
A Poursuivant, before the bier;
And, as they passed, the Knight could hear
The watch-monk, Clement, feebly say,
“Who passes to his grave, I pray.”
The herald deigned not word to give,
Save “ Live King Henry! Henry live!— “
The Knight then, in his secret cell,
No longer might his feelings quell;
But stepped upon the aisle to learn,
What friend or comrade he must mourn.
XXI.
The bier had passed away the while,
The herald at it’s side,
And, as he turned upon the aisle,
Where nave and choir divide,
The stranger did PORTCULLIS know,
And princely Somerset laid low.
With bended head and downward eye,
He mused in grief to see
The Chief so oft of victory,
Whom last he viewed ‘mid banners high
And trumpets’ pride and shout of joy.
While thus the warrior dwelt in thought,
The Monk, respectful of his pain,
No word of consolation sought,
Impertinent and vain;
But watched him, with a low-breathed sigh,
And look of gentle sympathy:
Till the Knight, fearing further stay,
Turned round and signed the Monk away;
And Clement led him up the flight,
That opened on the gallery height.
XXII.
The beams, that rose from shrine and tomb,
Broke on that stair-flight’s distant gloom,
As now the Knight and Monk ascend;
And, seen beyond low arches there,
Tall fretted windows rose in air,
And with the transept-shadows blend
Dim form of warrior and of saint,
Traced gloomily by moonbeam faint.
These words the Monk at parting gave,
“Sir Knight, whatever you may see
Within this hidden gallery,
Sir Knight, be watchful, mute, and brave;
The way is little known,
And you are safe from human ill
If you shall secret be and still: —
“I leave you not alone!”
The Stranger yielded to his will,
But answer made he none.
Yet much he mused on the dark word,
That might some inward hint afford
Of those he feared, this night, to see
Changed by Death’s awful mystery.
XXIII.
Within the pillared arch, unseen,
He stood and looked beneath;
Transept and aisle lay deep between
This angle and the Nave’s long scene
Of suffering and death.
Obscure in that far distance, lay
This scene of mortal misery;
And, where tall arches rose,
Each arch, discovering the way
To what beyond might passing be,
Did some dread group disclose.
Pale phantoms only seemed to glide
Among the torches there,
And stoop upon the tomb’s low side,
In busy, silent care:
Unseen the deathly form below,
Unseen the pale, reflected woe
On miens, that each woe share;
The sable cowl appeared alone,
Or glimpse of helm, or corslet, shown
By the red torch’s glare.
XXI.
Distinct, no sound arose, nor word
Along the vaults and arches spread,
Save that low murmur, shrill and dread,
Which in the Choir the Warrior heard;
While still the heavy march, afar,
Brought on new victims of the war.
Down the long south aisle swept his eye,
Upon whose verge two hermits lie;
Athwart that aisle, in farthest gloom,
The frequent torch was seen to glide,
Borne by the heralds of the tomb;
And, hurrying to the cloister-side,
Lay-monks oft bore upon the bier,
Into the dormitory near,
Bodies where life might yet abide.
And, ever as the Knight beheld
Those mournful shadows go,
Terror and high impatience swelled,
The fate of friends to know.
XXV.
Then sadly he withdrew his eye
From scene of Death’s dark pageantry,
Shaped out in garb so strange,
And bent it on the view below,
The southern transept’s gorgeous-show,
In long and ordered range
Of chantry, chapel, and of shrine,
Where lights for ever were to shine,
And priests for ever — ever pray
For soul of those, whose mortal clay
Within the still, cold marble lay.
On high, the broad round arches rose,
That prop the central tower,
Where, north and south, the long roof goes,
That either transept grandly shows
In full perspective power.
Dimly those arches hung in night,
Interminable to the sight.
While rose the massy piers to view,
The distant torch their shadows threw
Broad, dark, and far around.
Like Warders o’er this gloomy ground,
Those Norman pillars stood and frowned.
XXVI.
On either side, in transept-wall,
Where rise four pointed arches small,
Now silent, dark and lone,
Four dedicated chapels lay,
Receding from the open way,
Whence rose due orison.
Tapers beamed on each altar there,
‘Mid image carved and picture fair.
In one the priest sang nightly prayer
For Tynemouth’s Prior, Delamere,
Once ruler of the Abbey here.
Not that within this chapel’s shade,
His coffined bones were ever laid;
But in the chancel, graved on brass,
His stately form, with mitred head,
Still guards his low and silent bed,
Where he such happy hours did pass.
Calm is the countenance and wise,
With lids, that shade the thoughtful eyes.
So exquisite the graven plate,
So fine the form, so old the state,
Oh! may it long be spared the fate
Of other sad memorials near,
Torn ruthlessly from reverend bier
Of abbot, knight, of prince and peer.
XXVII.
As now the Stranger caught some strain,
Memorial of the newly slain,
Or heard the tender notes that plead
For spirit freed from mortal weed,
Pity and grief his eyes oppressed,
And tears fell on his warrior breast;
Such requiem might his father need!
He turned him from the moving strain,
And paced the gallery dim again;
With quick unequal step he paced,
And oft that gallery retraced.
Once, as he reached the farther end,
Another pathway, low and small,
Winding within the eastward wall,
Seemed far away to bend.
CANTO VII.
SCENE IN THE MONASTERY.
I.
THE Warrior stood, and marvelled where
The secret way he spied might go,
Whether to turret high in air,
Or to some penance-cell below;
When, as he looked, a beam of light
Dawned through the gallery’s long night.
He passed upon that silent way,
And came where many a darting ray
Through the broad Saxon mouldings stray
Of a deep, jealous door,
With massy iron studded o’er.
Unclosed it stood, yet nought between
Of cell, or winding stair was seen.
II.
He paused, and anxious bent his head,
For a faint wailing seemed to rise,
Like that of mourner o’er the dead:
He would not mourner’s tears surprise.
But soon the murmur died remote,
Nor any sounds on silence float.
It might have come from hearse of death,
In chancel-aisle, unseen, beneath.
He passed the jealous Saxon door.
And stepped upon a covered floor!
Within appeared a chamber small,
Crowned with a vaulting, rich and tall,
With slender central staff for stay,
Whence the traced branch of leaf and flower
Spread, like a shadowing summer-bower,
Where evening’s slant beams stray.
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 255
