WOODSPRING ABBEY, 1836.[14]
These walls were built by men who did a deed
Of blood:—terrific conscience, day by day,
Followed, where'er their shadow seemed to stay,
And still in thought they saw their victim bleed,
Before God's altar shrieking: pangs succeed,
As dire upon their heart the deep sin lay,
No tears of agony could wash away:
Hence! to the land's remotest limit, speed!
These walls are raised in vain, as vainly flows
Contrition's tear: Earth, hide them, and thou, Sea,
Which round the lone isle, where their bones repose,
Dost sound for ever, their sad requiem be,
In fancy's ear, at pensive evening's close,
Still murmuring Miserere, Domine.
[14] Three mailed men, in Canterbury Cathedral, rushed on the Archbishop of Canterbury, and murdered him before the altar. Conscience-stricken, they fled and built Woodspring Abbey, in the remote corner of Somersetshire, near Western Super Mare, where the land looks on the Atlantic sea. There are three unknown graves on the Flat Holms.
LACOCK NUNNERY.
JUNE 24, 1837.
I stood upon the stone where Ela lay,
The widowed founder of these ancient walls,
Where fancy still on meek devotion calls,
Marking the ivied arch, and turret gray—
For her soul's rest—eternal rest—to pray;[15]
Where visionary nuns yet seem to tread,
A pale dim troop, the cloisters of the dead,
Though twice three hundred years have flown away!
But when, with silent step and pensive mien,
In weeds, as mourning for her sisters gone,
The mistress of this lone monastic scene
Came; and I heard her voice's tender tone,
I said, Though centuries have rolled between,
One gentle, beauteous nun is left, on earth, alone.
[15] "Eternam Requiem dona."