Hastening to render Florence aid,
The cowl fell back, that veiled his face,
And his pursuer stayed his pace,
Till, guided by strange sounds of joy,
He came the father to destroy.
XV.
Short time had Florence to revive
From terror and dismay,
Support from tenderness derive,
Or tender tear repay;
Short time for speech had sire and son,
Ere the good monk, her guide, came on.
He warmly urged their instant flight;
For comrades of the fallen were nigh, —
Monks, too, who shelter would deny
When they might view this dismal sight.
He would a hidden passage show,
To serve as screen from menaced woe;
Till day should send Duke Richard hence,
His march for London to commence,
And all his myrmidons of war,
Guarding their captive King afar.
XVI.
Briefly the Knights their thanks repaid;
And looked on him, who bore their crest,
All lifeless on the marble laid, —
Briefly for him their grief expressed:
“Richard Fitzharding — kinsman dear!
On thee will fall the future tear,
When thought may pause upon thy bier!”
Swift on the southern aisle they went
By many a dim-seen monument;
And reached a little shaded door
That led the great west entrance o’er;
Where gallery, that ran between
The crowning battlement, unseen,
Received them in its silent space.
Well knew the Earl this lonely place,
For, even here, at curfew hour,
He refuge sought from Richard’s power;
And here remained, till he in vain
Searched for his son among the slain.
XVII.
Oh! if by care and grief are told
The unseen steps of Time;
How many hours — nay days — had rolled,
Since, lingering in this secret hold,
He heard that curfew chime!
Since, on the northern gallery
His restless steps had strayed,
Where he had viewed, unconsciously,
His son in monkish shade,
Who there the vision of his face
Amid the shadows seemed to trace.
Now joy told forth the time so fast,
The present moment was the past,
Ere yet he marked it glide along,
Stealing the tale upon his tongue.
Full many an hour had D’Arcy passed,
Since o’er the NORMAN SHADE
He marked the sun its low beam cast,
And glow with angry red;
Since he had heard St. Alban’s knell
Sound what had seemed his son’s farewell;
Since from safe nook he turned away,
To seek, where death and danger lay.
XVIII.
Ere now withdrew the monk, their guide.
He bade the warriors here abide
Till morning hour, when they might hear
Drums and the neigh of steeds draw near.
Then, soon-as Richard’s hosts were gone,
He would return, and lead their way
To chamber, where the Abbot lay.
While grateful words the Knights repay,
Florence could only with a tear
Thank the good priest for service dear.
Time had not yet been lent to tell
The acts, on which she fain would dwell:
The kindness, that restored her life
From grief and horror’s mingled strife.
Meekly he bowed his aged head,
And then on soundless foot he sped.
They heard him bar the gallery-door,
And soon, upon the paved floor,
Watched his dark shadow pass away,
Where the high-tombed warriors lay.
XIX.
And now Fitzharding pressed to hear
From Florence all her tale of fear.
She told her sorrows, from the hour
When first she watched St. Alban’s tower;
Of her dark path of dread and grief
Through forest shade; of pilgrim train,
And words exchanged; of wounded chief,
She feared had been Fitzharding slain.
Told of her courser’s sudden flight
Through ruffian-troops fresh from the fight,
His strength, his courage and his speed,
His dexterous course at utmost need;
Till, at St. Alban’s warded gate,
Though courage, skill, nor strength abate,
They seized him as a prize of war,
And Florence for their prisoner.
But, ere they led her to close ward,
Her proffered gold to one on guard
Aided her through the barrier,
(Enfolded in her pilgrim-shroud)
Among an anxious, hurrying crowd,
Seeking their friends within the town.
Words might not tell what she had known,
While, by the dying and the dead,
She passed to gain this Abbey’s shade;
Nor, when she sunk, beside the bier
Of warrior, laid in chamber near.
XX.
‘Twere vain to tell Fitzharding’s pain,
While listening to the fearful strain;
How oft he shuddered, oft reproved,
And blamed her most, when most he loved.
For courage rash, for passage won,
And high exploits for his sake done.
Scarce might the Earl his wonder speak,
That one so gentle and so weak
The meed of heroes thus might claim:
But greater fear the less o’ercame.
Then Sire and Son to other tell
What each in yester fight befell;
Of nobles slain, and friends that failed
At utmost need, though horsed and mailed.
But chief their indignation rose
‘Gainst Wentworth — traitor to his king,
Whose standard basely did he fling
To ground, and fled before his foes!
XXI.
Earl D’Arcy then the story told
Of many a fugitive he met,
Wounded and lorn, both young and old,
Seeking a home ere sun was set.
In a close wood near Alban’s town,
Laid in a wretched cart, alone,
Sore wounded Dorset, he, with pain,
Saw journeying to his domain —
Him must he never see again!
Stafford’s brave Earl on litter borne,
Whose hand by fatal shaft was torn,
Already on his look was laid
Approaching Death’s first warning shade.
His gallant father, too, was near,
Who to his tomb the scar would bear
Received this day for Lancaster;
Through vizor closed the arrow sped,
That sent him from his steed as dead,
And nearly had the life-blood quaffed:
Yet fatal was not deemed the shaft.
Ah! deeply must the shaft of sorrow
Strike to his heart, when, on the morrow,
He o’er his only son shall stand,
And feel the death-dew on his hand!
XXII.
As this sad image rose to view,
Earl D’Arcy, as in sympathy,
Gazed on his son, whose living hue
Awoke his grateful fervency.
A silent tear stood in his eye,
As passed his offered thanks on high.
Well read the son his father’s care;
Rejoiced he in those thanks to
share.
But hark! a low and measured chime
Speaks from the tower the WATCH of PRIME,
Sounding due summons to the knights
For some high pomp of funeral rites.
O’er that west gallery might they bend
And trace nave, choir, from end to end.
The lofty vista, crowned with shade,
On pillars vast was reared,
Where pointed arch, in far arcade,
Mixed with rude Saxon was displayed,
And double tiers above arrayed.
By superstition feared.
Broad rose the Norman arch on high,
That propped the central tower,
And forward led the wondering eye
O’er the choir roof’s bright canopy,
To the east window’s bower.
XXIII.
How solemn swept before their sight
This Abbey’s inner gloom,
Thwarted with gleams of streaming light
And shade from pier and tomb,
Flung by lone torch, or by the ray
Of tapers, sickening at the day.
For now, the thunderclouds o’erpast,
May’s crystal morn its dawning cast
On every window’s untraced pane,
And touched it with a cold, blue stain.
How peaceful dawned that living light
O’er eyes for ever set in night!
O’er eyes, that, but on yesterday,
Viewed distant years in long array,
And lovely gleams of shaded joy
Upon their evening landscape lie.
XXIV.
In solemn thought, while Sire and Son
Beheld the fate of friends below,
Their hearts a various feeling own,
That, saved from every mortal blow,
For them another morning rose,
And brought their wearied limbs repose
Then Pity shed a tender tear
For many a warrior sleeping here.
And thus, at the first dawn of day,
Their duteous orisons they pay.
The grateful thoughts ascend on high,
Like May’s first offerings, to the sky,
That sweet and still and full arise
‘Mid silent dews and peaceful sighs;
Even as the glad lark’s soaring trill,
Heard, when the thunder’s voice is still,
Rejoicing in the breath of May: —
But, oh! that sweet and jocund lay
Now yields to other sounds, and dread —
To bell that mourns the slaughtered dead!
XXV.
But see! a sudden radiance streams
From Alban’s choir and shrined tomb;
The sable veil withdrawn, the beams,
Just kindling, break upon the gloom,
From torch and taper lifted there,
‘Mid burnished gold and image fair.
While through the choir the shrine-lights spread,
Gleamed each tall column’s branching head,
Circled with golden blazonry —
The shielded arms of abbots dead.
These shields, so small and close, like gems
Enclasped the columns’ clustered stems,
That rose in the ribbed arch on high,
And spread, in fan-like tracery,
Upon the choir’s long canopy;
Where visioned angels shed their light
Upon a vault of mimic night.
XXVI.
And now the long perspective line
Extending through those arches three,
Of stately grace, above the shrine,
St. Mary’s Chapel they might see,
Distinct, yet stealing from the sight;
And high, beyond the altar there,
Her image, shrined in flowers fair,
Lessened afar in softer light,
While, miniatured, before it glide
Her priests, who chaunt at morning-tide.
Again that bell, with solemn tongue,
Through vault and aisle and gallery rung
Till distant voices, drawing near,
Fell, deeply murmuring, on the ear.
This was the Requiem-mass of Prime,
The Requiem, sung with honours due,
Of torch and incense, dirge and chime,
When the whole convent, two and two
And the Lord Abbot stately led,
In flowing vest, with mitred head —
‘Twas the full mass for princes said,
When they repose among the dead.
XXVII.
‘Twas then the aged Abbot came,
Obedient to the Monarch’s claim.
Beneath the cloister’s westward arch,
By the great porch, he held his march,
With all the officers of state,
That on the Abbey’s greatness wait.
Of humbler servants twenty-one,
Bearing before him each a torch,
Light the high-sweeping Norman porch
With dusky glare, like setting sun,
When yester battle-day was done.
Then paced his monks in double row,
Bearing their hundred tapers, slow,
That beamed upon each bannered saint
And pageant blazoned high and quaint.
The Abbot came with ready zeal,
Though called from short and needful rest,
And with pale age and grief oppressed,
To give the Requiem’s solemn seal
And passport to a quiet grave;
And weep the tear due to the brave.
XXVIII.
A tear! does Glory claim a tear?
Weeps he upon a Hero’s bier?
The maid, as in the tomb she fades;
The youth, once ‘tranced in Fancy’s shades
The wedded pair, whose hearts are one,
Who lived each other’s world alone;
The infant, that had smiled so fair,
Like cherub, on its mother’s care;
The long-loved parent, sinking slow
Beneath the weight of winter’s snow —
O’er these, when in the grave they lie,
May fall the tears from Pity’s eye;
But o’er the warrior’s tomb should glance
The lightning of a poet’s trance.
Cold was the reverend Father’s mind,
By wisdom, or by age, refined
To simple truth, that scorns the prize.
For which the bard, the hero, dies —
A shade, a sound, a pageant gay,
A morning cloud of golden May,
Glorious with beams of orient hue,
That, while they flatter — melt it too!
And, for such airy charm, he gives
The real world, in which he lives;
And, gazing on the lofty show,
Sinks in the closing tomb below! —
And therefore fell the Abbot’s tear
O’er Glory and a Hero’s bier.
XXIX.
While these last rites, from Pity due,
The Abbot gave, you still might view
In his raised eye, the noble mind
That suffered much, yet shone resigned
Calm and unbreathing was his look,
As though of all, save soul, forsook;
And all his form and air conveyed
The aspect of some peaceful shade,
Contented tenant of a cell,
Who long had bade the world farewell.
Still, as he moved, the verse was sung
For crowds of dead they passed among;
And still the gliding tapers threw
A fleeting, gloomy, livid hue
On every face, on every grave,
Ranged on each side the long wide nave.
Though slaughtered men his pathway bound,
He shrunk not from this dreadful ground.
Now, where around dead Somerset
High pomp of funeral-watch was met,
Where o’er his corpse twelve torches blazed,
Circle of light, by almsmen raised,
And choristers beyond attend;
There, slow the Abbey-train ascend,
And, ranged in triple crescent-rows,
Step above step, the fathers bend,
While requiem and blessed repose
Are sung, with long-resounding breath,
For all in battle slain, beneath.
How high and full the organs swell,
And roll along the distant aisle,
Till, dying on the ear, they fell,
And every earthly thought beguile.
While finely stole the softened strain,
And stately moved the solemn march,
The Knights and Florence view with pain
The scene beneath the Norman arch.
Soon as the chaunted hymn was o’er,
PORTCULLIS, on the steps before,
Cried out with lofty voice of dole,
“Say for the soul — say for the soul
Of Somerset, high duke and prince,
And for each soul departed since
The onset of the battle-fray,
The wonted Requiem — sing and say!”
XXXI.
It was an awful thrilling sight,
Beneath this Abbey’s far-drawn flight,
To view her dark-robed sons arranged,
In memory of those thus changed,
Now seen in death laid out below,
Even while the Requiem’s tender woe
Did for each parted spirit flow.
And first was seen a mourner pace,
His mantle borne with stately grace,
His eyes veiled in his hood,
Bearing the princely offering
Of Henry, his sad lord and king,
Where high the Abbot stood —
The sword of Somerset he bore:
A herald stalked, with casque, before.
He stopped below the Abbot’s feet,
With low-bowed head and gesture meet.
Each pious gift the Father took
With meekest grace and downward eye
And gave it to his Prior nigh,
Who held it, with a reverend look,
At the bier’s head on high.
XXXII.
A second mourner pacing grave,
Attended by a herald-band,
For the mass-penny offering gave
An offering for Northumberland.
No pomp appeared, when he bent down,
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 262