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 | The works of Washington Irving |  |
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
When I behold, with deep astonishment,
To famous Westminster how there resorte.
Living in brasse or stoney monument,
The princes and the worthies of all sorte;
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie.
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,
And looke upon offenselesse majesty,
Naked of pomp or earthly domination?
And how a play-game of a painted stone
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites,
Whome all the world which late they stood upon
Could not content nor quench their appetites.
Life is a frost of cold felicitie,
And death the thaw of all our vanitie.
To famous Westminster how there resorte.
Living in brasse or stoney monument,
The princes and the worthies of all sorte;
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie.
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,
And looke upon offenselesse majesty,
Naked of pomp or earthly domination?
And how a play-game of a painted stone
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites,
Whome all the world which late they stood upon
Could not content nor quench their appetites.
Life is a frost of cold felicitie,
And death the thaw of all our vanitie.
Christolero's Epigrams, by T. B. 1598.
On one of those sober and rather melancholy
days, in the latter part of autumn,
when the shadows of morning and evening
almost mingle together, and throw a
gloom over the decline of the year, I
passed several hours in rambling about
Westminster Abbey. There was something
congenial to the season in the
mournful magnificence of the old pile;
and, as I passed its threshold, seemed
like stepping back into the regions of
antiquity, and losing myself among the
shades of former ages.
I entered from the inner court of Westminster
School, through a long, low,
vaulted passage, that had an almost subterranean
look, being dimly lighted in
one part by circular perforations in the