“Its outlet dash’d into a deep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes—like an infant made
Quiet—sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allay’d,
Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue,
According as the skies their shadows threw.
“A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile
(While yet the church was Rome’s) stood half apart
In a grand arch, which once screen’d many an aisle;
These last had disappear’d—a loss to art;
The first yet frown’d superbly o’er the soil,
And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,
Which mourn’d the power of time’s or tempest’s march,
In gazing on that venerable arch.
“Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,
Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone;
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,
But in the war which struck Charles from his throne,
When each house was a fortalice—as tell
The annals of full many a line undone—
The gallant cavaliers who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.
“But in a higher niche, alone, but crown’d,
The Virgin-Mother of the God-born child,
With her son in her blessed arms, look’d round;
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil’d;
She made the earth below seem holy ground,
This may be superstition, weak or wild,
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.
“A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepen’d glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun like seraph’s wings,
Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their hallelujah quench’d like fire.
“Amidst the court, a Gothic fountain play’d
Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint—
Strange faces like to men in masquerade,
And here perhaps a monster, there a saint;
The spring rushed through grim mouths of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man’s vain glory, and his vainer troubles.
“The mansion’s self was vast and venerable,
With more of the monastic than has been
Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable,
The cells too, and refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able,
Still unimpair’d to decorate the scene;
The rest had been reform’d, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.
“Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, join’d
By no quite lawful marriage of the arts,
Might shock a connoisseur: but when combined,
Form’d a whole, which, irregular in parts,
Yet left a grand impression on the mind,
At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts:
We gaze upon a giant for his stature,
Not judge at first if all be true to nature.”
[EVESHAM (Mitred Benedictine)]
692, Founded by Egwin, Bishop of the Hwicci and dedicated to the Virgin—Egwin subsequently first abbot—709, Kenredus, King of Mercia, and Offa, Governor of the East Angles, endows it with many possessions—941, Secular canons replace the monks—960, Monks again restored—977, Monks expelled once more, and estate given to Godwin—1014, King Ethelred elects Aifwardus, a former monk of Ramsey, abbot of Evesham—1066-87, Walter of Cérisy appointed abbot by William the Conqueror—He rebuilds the church—1163, The abbot receives the mitre—1265, Battle of Evesham, and interment of Earl Simon de Montfort in the Abbey—1539, Tower completed—Abbey dismantled and given to Sir Philip Hoby, who uses the buildings as a quarry. Annual revenue, £1183, 12s. 9d.