Marmion

X

In Saxon strength that Abbey frown’d,
With massive arches broad and round,
That rose alternate, row and row,                        170
On ponderous columns, short and low,
Built ere the art was known,
By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,
The arcades of an alley’d walk
To emulate in stone.                                  175
On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
Had pour’d his impious rage in vain;
And needful was such strength to these,
Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
Scourged by the winds’ eternal sway,                      180
Open to rovers fierce as they,
Which could twelve hundred years withstand
Winds, waves, and northern pirates’ hand.
Not but that portions of the pile,
Rebuilded in a later style,                                185
Show’d where the spoiler’s hand had been;
Not but the wasting sea-breeze keen
Had worn the pillar’s carving quaint,
And moulder’d in his niche the saint,
And rounded, with consuming power,                        190
The pointed angles of each tower;
Yet still entire the Abbey stood,
Like veteran, worn, but unsubdued.

XI

Soon as they near’d his turrets strong,
The maidens raised Saint Hilda’s song,                    195
And with the sea-wave and the wind,
Their voices, sweetly shrill, combined,
And made harmonious close;
Then, answering from the sandy shore,
Half-drown’d amid the breakers’ roar,                      200
According chorus rose:
Down to the haven of the Isle,
The monks and nuns in order file,
From Cuthbert’s cloisters grim;
Banner, and cross, and relics there,                      205
To meet Saint Hilda’s maids, they bare;
And, as they caught the sounds on air,
They echoed back the hymn.
The islanders, in joyous mood,
Rush’d emulously through the flood,                        210
To hale the bark to land;
Conspicuous by her veil and hood,
Signing the cross, the Abbess stood,
And bless’d them with her hand.

XII

Suppose we now the welcome said,                          215
Suppose the Convent banquet made:
All through the holy dome,
Through cloister, aisle, and gallery,
Wherever vestal maid might pry,
No risk to meet unhallow’d eye,                            220
The stranger sisters roam:
Till fell the evening damp with dew,
And the sharp sea-breeze coldly blew,
For there, even summer night is chill.
Then, having stray’d and gazed their fill,                225
They closed around the fire;
And all, in turn, essay’d to paint
The rival merits of their saint,
A theme that ne’er can tire
A holy maid; for, be it known,                            230
That their saint’s honour is their own.

XIII

Then Whitby’s nuns exulting told,
How to their house three Barons bold
Must menial service do;
While horns blow out a note of shame,                      235
And monks cry ‘Fye upon your name!
In wrath, for loss of silvan game,
Saint Hilda’s priest ye slew.’-
‘This, on Ascension-day, each year,
While labouring on our harbour-pier,                      240
Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.’-
They told how in their convent-cell
A Saxon princess once did dwell,
The lovely Edelfled;
And how, of thousand snakes, each one                      245
Was changed into a coil of stone,
When holy Hilda pray’d;
Themselves, within their holy bound,
Their stony folds had often found.
They told, how sea-fowls’ pinions fail,                    250
As over Whitby’s towers they sail,
And, sinking down, with flutterings faint,
They do their homage to the saint.

XIV