Flower Pieces and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sir Hugh de la Pole was a sturdy old knight,
Who in war and in peace had done every man right;
Had lived with his neighbours in loving accord,
Save the Abbot and Monks, whom he fiercely abhorr'd,
And to their feet alone refused oak-floor and sward.

II

With guests round his table, good servants at call,
His laughter made echo the wide castle-hall;
He whoop'd to the falcon, he hunted the deer;
If down by the Abbey, his comrades could hear—
‘A plague on these mummers, who mime all the year!’

III

And now see him stretch'd on his leave-taking bed.
Five minutes ago with a calm smile he said,
‘I can trust my poor soul to the Lord God of Heaven,
‘Tho' living unpriested and dying unshriven.
‘Say all of you, friends, “May his sins be forgiven!”’

168

IV

But some who are near to him sorely repine
He thus should decease like an ox or a swine;
So a message in haste to the Abbey they send,
When the voice cannot ring, and the arm cannot bend;
For this reign, as all reigns do, approaches an end.

V

Says my lady, ‘Too long I have yielded my mind.’
Son Richard ‘to go with the world’ is inclined.
‘Sweet Mother of Mercy!’ sobs Jane, his young spouse,
‘O Saviour, forget not my tears and my vows!’
In pray'r for the dying her spirit she bows.

VI

At once the good Abbot forgets every wrong,
And speeds to the gate which repell'd him so long;
The stair (‘Pax vobiscum!’) is strange to his tread;
He puts everyone forth. Not a sound from that bed;
And the spark from beneath the white eyebrow is fled.

VII

Again the door opens, all enter the place,
Where pallid and stern lies the well-beloved face.
‘The Church, through God's help and Saint Simon's, hath won
To her bosom of pity a penitent son.’
See the cross on his breast; hark, the knell is begun.

169

VIII

Who feasts with young Richard? who shrives the fair Jane?
Whose mule to the Castle jogs right, without rein?
Our Abbey has moorland and meadowland wide,
Where Hugh for his hunting and hawking would ride,
Full of priest-hating whimsies and paganish pride.

IX

In the chancel the tomb is of Hugh de la Pole.
Ten thousand fine masses were said for his soul,
With praying, and tinkling, and incense, and flame;
In the centre whereof, without start or exclaim,
His bones fell to dust. You may still read the name,
'Twixt an abbot's and bishop's who once were of fame.