The Poetical Works of the Rev. George Croly :: :: University of Virginia Library

The porch is fill'd with rich-escutcheon'd cars,
And glossy jennets, plumed and ribbon-rein'd,
Pure Arab blood, their foreheads bright with stars,
Quick-eyed, full-crested, high and purple vein'd:
They stand with nostrils wide and chests thick panting;
For all their passage up that causeway slanting
Had been a mimic combat, many a spear
Had cross'd the saddle in that gay career.
The sight within was splendid; from the porch
The aisle's long vista shew'd the lamp, and torch,
And holy urn of frankincense and myrrh,
Filling the air with fragrance and with gloom,
And, twined round shrine and time-worn sepulchre
In lovely mockery, the rose's bloom;
Within the stone what darker mockeries lie
Of man and pomp! Oh vain mortality!

All to the chancel gates was pearl, and plume,
And ermined cap, and mantle stiff with gold,

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For there the tide of knights and dames had roll'd,
And there had stopp'd: beyond was like a tomb,
Shut from the daylight, high barr'd, silent, cold;
And in it beings scarcely of man's mould
Were moving, scatter'd, swift, and soundlessly,
Shadows that rose and perish'd on the eye.
Now sounds come echoing, such as spirits breathe
On their night watches, if the tale be true,
Around the loved in life, the loved in death,
Calling them upwards to the concave blue:
And on the walls, as far as eye can gaze,
Floats through the dusk a torch's wavering blaze
Above a throng of mitre, cross, and cope,
In pale and vision'd lustre. Sudden ope
The chancel gates; the stately abbot comes.
Down to the ground are stoop'd the knightly plumes,
And every lady bows her gemm'd tiar,
That shoots down light like an earth-stooping star.