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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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91

Spirit of ancient days! who o'er these walls,
Unseen and silent, hold'st thy solemn state,
Thy presence known where the gloom deepest falls,
And by th' unearthly thoughts that on thee wait:
Descend, and touch my heart with thine own fire,
And nerve my trembling fancy to aspire
To the dread scenes that thou hast witnessed here!
Teach me, in language simple and severe,
(Such best may harmonize with ruder times)
With place and circumstance of awful crimes,
To paint th' awakening vision thou hast spread
Before mine eyes—tale of the mighty dead!
And let not modern polish throw the light
Of living ray within thy vaults of night,

92

But give thy elder words, whose sober glow,
Like to th' illumined gloom of thine own aisles,
Touching the mind with more than light may show,
Wakes highest rapture while it darkly smiles.
Presumptuous wish! Ah! not to me are given
Those antients keys, that ope the Poet's heaven,
Golden and rustless! Not to me are given!
But, if not mine the prize, not mine the crime
Lightly to scorn them, nor the simple chime,
Though tuneless oft, when to the scene more true
Than flowing verse, bright with Castalian dew.
Like Grecian goddess, placed in Saxon choir,
Is the false union of the cadenced rhime
And measured sweetness of the tempered lyre
With subjects darkened by the shroud of Time.
As Gothic saint sleeping in Grecian fane
Is ancient story, shrined in polished strain;
Truth views th' incongruous scene with stern farewell,
And startled Fancy weeps and breaks her spell.