Gaston de Blondeville, or The court of Henry III Keeping festival in Ardenne, a romance. St. Alban's Abbey, a metrical tale; With some poetical pieces. By Anne Radcliffe ... To which is prefixed: A memoir of the author, with extracts from her journals. In four volumes |
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 | Gaston de Blondeville, or The court of Henry III |  |
XV.
Others there were, who volumes boundIn silk, or velvet, 'broidered round
And 'bossed with gold and gems of price,
Enclasped with emerald palm-leaf thrice.
105
Transparent, the memorial line
Of him, who once had wrought below,
With patient hand and earnest brow;
Him, whose small pencil thus enshrined
In book of Golden Record true,
The image and the noble mind,
And thanks to benefactor due.
There shadowed Kings and Abbots pass,
In crowned pomp, or sweeping palle,
Like spectres o'er some wizard's glass.
There, as the lifted pages fall,
They rise to view and disappear,
As year steals silent after year,
Till came the blank leaf, turned o'er all!
Even o'er him, while here he wrought
On the dull page the living thought.
In after-time were here impressed
Those wondrous characters combined,
That stamp upon the paper vest
At once, the image of the mind.
The second Abbey this in all the land,
That stretched to learning a preserving hand.
| Gaston de Blondeville, or The court of Henry III | |