To farthest shrine of MARY blessed,
Seen through the pointed arches near,
That rose above St. Alban’s bier.
Thus far the Knight may range, and view
The death-scene many a heart shall rue,
The battle’s prey — the mighty slain
Stretched out, and watched on marble plain.
Whence then that gallery might go
Around on high, or deep below;
Or leading o’er the cloister walk,
Where the unconscious monk may stalk;
Or to the Abbot’s secret room,
Where Richard late decreed his doom;
Or to the inmost cell, wrought there;
Or to deep winding fatal stair —
Few living in the Abbey knew.
For, hidden far from searcher’s view,
Was many a flight and passage dim
To vaulted hall and chamber grim;
To crypt and sepulchre and shrine;
And prison cells, that undermine
The cloister-walk, and seem to spread
Almost to lowly Ver’s old bed.
XXII.
Just where nave, choir, and transept met,
And Death with splendour was beset,
Fitzharding stood and looked below
O’er all the scene of varied woe.
And thus it lay beneath his sight —
The western aisles were stretched in night,
Save the shrined transept’s rays
Threw the full splendour of its blaze
‘Thwart the choir-steps and ‘slant the nave.
There, every altar-tomb and grave,
As that long line of glory fell,
Showed its dead warrior, all too well.
Before those steps three altars stood
Arranged in row — Oswyn’s the good,
St. Thomas, and the sad Marie,
Now ‘reft of pomp and imagery.
There priests kept solemn watch around
Three knights, in bleeding armour bound.
XXIII.
The silver censer, burning near,
Sent incense o’er each marble bier;
And poursuivants, in tabard-pride,
Stood mute those warriors beside.
No ‘scutcheon blazoned high was there;
But tattered banners on the air,
Sad witness of their master’s fate,
Now, as mute mourners, seemed to wait.
Rose not the stately canopy,
With crowded lights, o’er hearse on high;
While troops of mourners, watching round,
Might creep to hear the Requiem sound.
Not such the solemn watch held now,
No lofty hearse — no mourners bow;
Nor blaze of tapers high in air;
Nor likeness of the dead was there.
The dead, each in his arms arrayed,
Exposed to many an eye was laid,
Forsaken save by heralds vain,
Nor mourned, but in the death-priests’ strain.
XXIV.
By presence of the state-watch due,
The Knight his dead commander knew;
But, who are those on either hand,
Censed and laid out on altars high?
Nobles they seem of Henry’s band,
Whose poursuivants are watching by.
Vainly Fitzharding might assay
To read each visage where it lay,
Or spell the armour, crest, or shield;
Their glimmer only was revealed
By the long slanting ray.
XXV.
The farthest aisles and westward nave,
Where only gleamed upon a grave
A watch-torch dim and lone,
Gave solemn contrast to the choir,
Which beamed as with celestial lire,
Like to half-clouded sun.
From Alban’s glorious shrine that light
Streamed through the chancel’s gloomy night;
For, though the Abbot’s prudent care
Had moved each jewel rich and rare,
Brought far, as pilgrim-offering,
By noble knight, or prince, or king,
Yet, trusting to the love and dread,
That blessed Alban’s shrine o’erspread,
It’s pillars, laid with golden plate,
Fixed in the pavement, that sustained
The crystal canopy of state
And golden bier, firm-set remained;
And specious show, with truth that vied,
And blazed amid the taper’s beams,
The pendent lamps and torchlight gleams,
Was left to soothe the Victor’s pride.
XXVI.
That rich and lofty canopy,
With ever-burning lights crowned high,
Supported by four golden towers,
Seemed all within as crystal bowers
Branched o’er his coffin laid beneath;
So richly spread each dazzling wreath!
Below the centre arch of three,
That opened to the chapelry,
Were scrolled, in silent eloquence,
Lines from the dread hymn of SEQUENCE,
Where late his golden crown had been;
His priests and monks, in band around.
Watched, patient, o’er the honoured scene,
And Abbey-knights in armour frowned.
XXVII.
St. Cuthbert’s Chapel had not lent
Its wide screen then to veil the choir,
Where now it bounds the nave’s ascent
With the carved niche and Gothic spire:
Nor rose before St. Alban’s shrine,
In lofty state, as now is seen,
The altar’s more elaborate screen;
Of fairy-filagree each line,
Web-work each canopy and cell,
Where many an imaged saint might dwell
Light are the flowery knots, that twine
Round slender columns, clustered fine,
That to the fretwork cornice go,
Where flowers amid the foliage blow.
And wheaten sheafs and roses spread,
Spell of the Abbot and the King
Who raised — to guard St. Alban’s bed —
This rich and glorious offering.
XXVIII.
Not then this beauteous screen appeared
To hide the bier the pilgrim sought,
And cause the object of his thought
To be more tremblingly revered;
But veil of silk, or cloth of gold,
Hung high and broad in sweeping fold,
On days of chief solemnity.
There only this night might you see
A mourning drapery, like a pall,
With ample grace sweep from the wall,
In solemn memory of the dead,
And half conceal the Martyr’s bed;
And seem, like evening-cloud, to throw
Its darkness o’er day’s gorgeous brow.
XXIX.
Westward, the nave, in deeper night,
Brought little certain to the sight.
Yet, where upon its lengthen’d gloom
Was seen to glare a fixed torchlight,
There lay a corpse upon a tomb,
Or on some altar’s marble pride;
And there a monk sat, close beside.
From one the glittering casque was gone,
Whose wounds made known his fate,
And stood, high-plumed, on altar-stone,
Beside the warrior overthrown,
As though it mocked his state.
And many a dead form, from this height,
Seemed semblance but of marble knight
Extended in his sculptured weed,
With ensigns high of daring deed.
Nay, sometimes, side by side were laid
The substance and the mimic shade,
The ma
rble knight and warrior dead:
Now each alike unconscious lay,
And which was corpse ‘twere hard to say!
XXX.
There might be seen, too, side by side,
The slayer and the slain.
Those hostile hands, that shed life’s tide,
Still crimsoned with the stain
Of either combatant’s last blood,
Now powerless lay, as stone, or wood.
Mute now the voice, whose piercing sound
Had sent dismay o’er distant ground,
Whose high command was loved and feared;
Not even its murmur now was heard.
XXXI.
And there, oh, sight of piteous woe!
Lay gallant sire and son below,
Who, hand and heart, for Henry’s right
Did, horse by horse, that morning fight.
And there lay son (oh, thrilling view!)
And father, who each other slew.
Forced by the fate of civil strife,
They struck, unknown, each other’s life; —
And, as they sunk, no more to rise,
Each turned on each his dying eyes,
Wailed the sad deed, and mixed their last drawn
sighs.
XXXII.
By the north pillars of the nave,
Four dedicated altars stood;
Each bore a victim for the grave,
And now was stained with noble blood:
They faced those arches, sharp and tali,
Where Offa and his beauteous queen,
And Edward of the saintly mien,
And mitred Lanfranc still are seen,
Bending from carved capital,
As watching o’er this mortal scene.
Now, listen; for ‘tis fearful all —
All, that beneath Fitzharding’s eye
Lay, as he watched in gallery.
He saw monks to this spot draw nigh,
And o’er a pallid figure bend,
And search again, if living breath
Might linger in such shape of death;
Then, silently, the limbs extend;
And — by the glare the torches threw
On the gashed face beneath his view,
Upon St. Scytha’s altar laid —
Saw them the countenance compose,
O’er the glazed eye the eye-lid close
For ever — ever! in Death’s shade!
And, while he marked that awful sight,
It seemed, by thrill of sympathy,
As if cold fingers did alight
Upon HIS lids, and on them lie.
A horror ran through all his frame;
But this more painful pang o’ercame —
It seemed to him, that his sight now,
While resting on the form below,
Might view his father laid in death!
With frenzied gaze he sought to know
More certainly the face beneath —
In vain! The torch’s wavering glare
To gallery high, through depth of air,
Showed but a wan, dead visage there.
XXXIII.
In very ecstasy of dread
He turned away his straining eyes;
When, near him, through the gallery’s shade,
Where faint the altar-beams arise,
A face — the phantom of his fear —
It seemed his father’s face were here.
A something like a helmet gleamed,
Figure or substance none there seemed
Amid those shadows deep;
Sad was the look, and ashy pale,
As it would speak some dreadful tale,
Yet must dread secret keep.
Was this a face traced on the eye
From the brain’s fiery ecstasy?
A vision sent to warn him, now,
That his dead father lay below?
A trace of soul — a look alone —
A likeness, but as wrought in stone —
So fixed, so absent, and so wan,
Was all that met Fitzharding’s sight,
In glimpse, through shadows of the night;
When soft the requiem from afar,
Breathed blessedness upon the air,
And at the sound it seemed to fade,
And vanish in the distant shade.
XXXIV.
Long gazed the Knight where it had been.
Such look of woe he once had seen
Dwelling upon his father’s mien.
Long gazed he on the dusky space;
Then drew the cowl upon his face.,
And closer folded his dark weed,
And strove that phantasie to read.
Then, bending o’er that gallery,
He sought, once more, the face to see,
So wan in death, below
Features came faintly to his eyes;
But memory, more than sight, supplies
His father’s reverend brow.
XXXV.
To end, at once, his torturing dread,
He straight resolved to quit the shade;
When, lo! from forth King Offa’s aisle,
With look and step of cautious guile, ‘
He marked two armoured men draw near,
And rest them by that warrior’s bier.
So frowned the helmets he had seen
From shade of that aisle’s pillar lean;
So bloomed the white-thorn for their crest
So gleamed the badge upon their breast.
He knew them for the enemy,
And guessed they meant him treachery:
But, wherefore by that bier stood they?
Was it a Yorkist there that lay?
XXXVI.
They bent, and gazed some little space
Upon the warrior’s deathy face.
Fitzharding watched if they might show
Gesture of triumph, or of woe.
Steadfast they stood with bended head,
Nor speech, nor gesture ventured.
Then did the Baron surely know
The warrior had not been their foe.
A Yorkist thus, it seemed, lay here;
And, losing his most pressing fear,
He judged it prudent now to stay,
Till passed Duke Richard’s scouts away.
And oft he marked them watch around,
And draw within the shaded ground.
XXXVII.
In solemn memory of the dead
Now from the choir the low notes spread
Of midnight dirge and requiem;
And to Fitzharding might they seem
As hymn of some angelic band,
Who on those honoured towers might stand
To guide the spirit from below,
And soothe with hope the mourner’s woe.
But, hark! a full and deeper sound
Now answers from the cloister’s bound!
Soon as that mournful chaunt was heard,
A gloom o’er all the choir appeared;
While slowly o’er the high shrine fell
The foldings of the funeral veil,
Placed for the warriors’ obsequy,
And dropped, at midnight DIRIGE!
XXXVIII.
Murmuring far, where vaults unclose,
The melancholy strain arose.
The gallery where Fitzharding stood
Fronted that cloister’s northern door:
Not one of heavy carved wood,
With scroll ill-fancied covered o’er;
But that most richly carved and light,
With slender stems and foliage dight,
As ‘broidered with true leaf and flower,
And traced with Gothic pointings tall,
And canopied with fretwork small.
Issuing beneath this mitred-arch,
The fathers held their solemn march;
Where the long vista-walk withdrew,
Their t
aper lights gave them to view,
And played upon the vaulted roof,
And showed each fretted line aloof;
There stood the tabernacled Saint,
Blessing the porch. Each corbeil quaint
With it’s carved visage, looking down
On all, who passed the arch below,
With smile fantastic, or with frown,
From under helmed, or mitred brow, —
Was graved in light and shade so strong,
Where the gleam waving passed along,
That, as the fleeting shadows roved,
You would have thought the features moved.
XXXIX.
The fathers came with solemn dirge
And midnight chauntings for the dead;
And, as they on the aisle emerge,
Sudden their lifted tapers shed
Long gleams upon each altar-bier,
And showed the warrior resting near.
Each monk, as to the choir he passed,
A glance on the dead soldier cast.
How various was the countenance,
Thus lighted by the taper’s glance!
But, oh! that words each line might trace
Of that appealing look of grace,
(But words may not that glimpse define,)
Which beamed from many a passing eye
Of the cowled throng then crowding by —
The look, that would to Heaven resign
Each object of its sympathy!
XL.
While the choir-steps the train ascend,
The silver censers steam on high;
On them with frankincense attend
The Prior and Sub-Prior nigh.
(The aged Abbot stood not by.)
They paused upon the marble bound,
Where now St. Cuthbert’s screen is found,
And, ranging in half-circle round,
O’er princely Somerset laid low,
Their hundred lights, raised high, appear
A curve of flame, wide round the bier;
And they, to organ’s solemn flow,
Sang DIRIGE and PLACEBO.
Whene’er their mourning voices fell,
Stern spoke above the sudden knell,
And then the farthest choir’s reply
Came murmuring, till, with finest swell,
The loud notes filled the vaults on high,
With grand and mournful harmony;
And these the words that hymned by.
XLI.
THE CHOIR.
“IN REGIONS OF ETERNAL LIGHT.”
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 259