The Baptistery, or the way of eternal life :: :: University of Virginia Library

A scene beneath the wicket gate,
Most beautiful, most desolate!
It was St. David's ancient pile,
Chancel, nave, tower, and window'd aisle,
And skirting all the western side
A Palace fair in ruin'd pride;
With storied range in order set,
And portal, arch, and parapet.
There hiding from the haunts of men
In hollow of the mountain glen,
Religion's venerable hold,
With wrecks and ruin manifold,
Burst full on the astonish'd eye,
Hoar in sublime antiquity.

An evening mist which o'er it hung
A deeper desolation flung,

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While 'neath its skirts were dimly seen,
Within a shaggy drear ravine,
Black grazing herds in pastures rude,
In ivy-wallèd solitude,
Signs of wild life which, wandering near,
Made dreariness itself more drear.
That mist it seem'd a fitting shroud
For desolation, and the cloud
Oblivion's pall, that dropp'd in tears,
As peopled with long vanish'd years,
Waving their shadowy wings in gloom,
And hovering o'er their ancient home.

O sight forlorn, and yet so fair
In ruin, that transfixèd there
I gaz'd, until I seem'd to stand
Upon a strange unearthly land,
Between the dying and the dead!
So many centuries o'er my head
Their solemn shade in silence spread;
So awful was the drear around,
The desolation so profound:
While beauty and magnificence
Strove with a beam, calm but intense,
To pierce the darkly-mantling gloom,
Like star-light through a broken tomb;
Or like the dimly-labouring Moon
That now stood nigh on her white throne,
Struggling in vain to penetrate
The mist that wrapt her shrouded state,
And where her twilight radiance fell
Made desolation visible.

Then wonder not, in such a scene,
If what now is and what hath been

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Come o'er us, with so deep a thrill,
That though the surface seems so still,
They waken thoughts that lie most deep,
Amid the ruin'd scene to weep.

It seem'd the gathering of past years,
The place of penitence and tears:
And where in cell or roofless shrine
The saintly Dead in peace recline,
In thoughts of them that slumber by,
We seem to feel the Judgment nigh,
And from the fellowship that's there
Shrink with a something like despair:—
To think that when we rise again
We must awake 'mid holy men,
'Mid those who so could live and die,
With pure resolve and purpose high,
As thus to leave for days to come
A fragrance breathing o'er their tomb.
In that despair past deeds arise,
And each a voice of shame supplies;
Till a new will, to hope allied,
Hath conscience to the altar tied,
And speaks amendment which shall last,
And years far better than the past.

And if of old they so could feel
Who at this altar came to kneel;—
Nor superstition mar the sense
Of heart-exalting reverence;
'Twere well if pilgrims would repair
Again to drink this sacred air.
Thus thought I while in dim moonlight
I slowly wander'd through the site

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Of crumbling walls, half-falling tower,
Mullions and arch, which darkly lower,
And o'er the intruder seem to frown,
Putting on size beyond their own,
Like giants in enchanted tale,
As dimly seen through misty veil.
While soft and wild a mountain rill,
Which only broke the twilight still,
Had caught an ancient chime forlorn,
And 'mid the ruins seem'd to mourn,
As by the palace walls it pass'd,—
A mouldering bridge-way o'er it cast.

And there was one who said that he
(Speaking in his simplicity)
Had oft been here at dead of night,
But yet no form had met his sight,—
By that negation bringing nigh
His secret deep expectancy;
But that the midnight tombs around
Strange floatings by were said to sound,
And through the aislèd stillness deep,
Strains indistinct were heard to sweep.
Blest wisdom, dress'd in fancy's hue!
Such legends, if they be not true,
Speak what our nature here divines
'Mid holy sepulchres and shrines!
Such thoughts in me a place have found
'Mid contemplations more profound,
And seem to mingle with my themes:
More true than life such holy dreams;—
I deem in them more truth to lie
Than all man's cold philosophy.

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And they, I ween, who sleep below
Had more of wisdom than we know;
With alms and prayers and penitence,
They sternly conquer'd things of sense.
And with them, in their slumbers deep,
Their fastings and their vigils sleep,
And shall awake with them to stand,
When the last Judgment is at hand.
Well may we hope their peaceful rest,
Whose labours thus their life attest!
They built in marble, built as they
Who wish'd these stones should see the day
When Christ returns, and these vast walls
May stand o'er them when Judgment calls.
Not that the shrines in grandeur built
Can do away the stains of guilt;
But witnesses they are of love
Which only shall unfailing prove—
Of paths in stern abasement trod—
Of self that died to live to God.
What, if in marble they recline,
It is not idle pomp, but sign
Of Resurrection,—and a state
Which doth in awful stillness wait
The opening of the Eastern gate.

The saint who fix'd this sacred site
Liv'd once a holy Anchorite,
By old Llanthony's honour'd cell,
Where mount-encircl'd Ewias' dell

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Clos'd darkly round his solitude.
The forest wild supplied his food,
And all his drink lone Honddy's spring;
That men to God might anthems sing
In pillar'd choirs of marble; then
What if our God, apart from men,
Should plant His honour in this place
To witness 'gainst their fallen race;—
Something that might His Name express—
A voice, for sure it is no less,
Of warning in the wilderness;
What if He thus their pious deeds
Remembers in their children's needs!

No sound is here of ruder mirth,
Yet if there be a peace on earth,
Here with religion shall she dwell,
And rear again her hermit cell,—
By flowing years more sanctified,
And nearer to the end allied.
Glorious was the design ye drew,
Yet Time itself hath built for you
A house of wisdom, far above
All ye design'd; as if in love
He mellows down the stony tress
Into a solemn tenderness:
And clothes yon beauteous roof on high
With a more dread sublimity:

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With quiet awe around them lingers,
Touching, as loath to harm, with soft and reverend fingers.

And he who loves the mystic lore
Hath haunts unseen he may explore;
The Misereres here have place,
As hiding from the day of Grace
The quaint device, and snakes that twine,
And dogs impure, and unclean swine,
Which speak the serpent's brood below,
Whereon the feet of Faith shall go,
Ways of the wicked overthrown,
And all their pride “turn'd upside down .”
Or with distorted tortur'd face
They fly the music-haunted place.

Stay yet, in holy stillness tread,
This is the mansion of the Dead;
Their City doth in quiet lie,
The living here may learn to die.
Like fabled town, as legends tell,
Where by some spell invincible
Its inmates, turn'd to marble, sleep;
Where Silence, wont her watch to keep,
With felt-shod footsteps softly went,
And o'er the sleepers stilly bent;
But nothing their deep trance shall break
Till the Enchanter's trump shall wake.
Thus peopling nook and shrine and cell,
Here stony forms around in sacred slumber dwell.

Holy Enchantment, linger still,

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And all my deep-fraught bosom fill!
The Dead seem breathing all around,
And we alone are shadows found.
Religion hath her reverence lent,
And o'er them spreads her solemn tent,
Not as in close-built cities pent;
For hills which bound the distant ken
Banish the thoughts and feet of men,
And make a solemn quiet here,
So calm, so beautiful, so drear!
No thought of cities must intrude
Upon this mountain solitude.
For this that mitred Saint of old
Withdrew his charge—made this the hold
Of grave Religion in the wild,
Pillar'd, and arch'd, and shrin'd, and aisl'd,
Deeming her strength the world to save
Were greater, from the noisy wave
Withdrawn to stillness of the grave.
That greater was her power to bless
From this the mountain wilderness,
Than 'mid the stir of civil life,
The feast—the party—and the strife!
She here a Heavenly power might gain
Without which all their toil was vain;
And from this fastness on the strand
Might send forth Priests to all the land.

O night, O place with wisdom fraught,
How deep your soul hath in me wrought,
And still I linger on the thought;
How do ye o'er my bosom swell,
Feelings too big for words to tell!

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This is the place of hallow'd peace,
Where sounds of worldly wisdom cease,
To Heaven in solemn music led,
And converse with the saintly dead.
Here could I bid the world good night,
And live a pensive anchorite.

No sound is here of tables spread,
Where Joyance lifts her festive head;
But yet of peace a deeper sense
Than in their glad magnificence:
And if you ask the reason why,
Nature must own it with a sigh,
'Tis suited more for those that die.
E'en at the feast is conscience stirr'd,
Her scourge is felt, unseen, unheard;
Where, though aloud the laughter swells,
Her secret in the bosom dwells:
There is a sadness in the strain,
As from a heart o'ercharg'd with pain.
The Sabine bard of love and wine
Sighs while the flowers his brows entwine;
How touching still recurs his lay,
Of poor delights that cannot stay,
Of death that doth alone remain!—
To sad regrets it turns again.

Ever unsated strong Desire
Builds high, and ever rises higher,
And there his mate, dark-bosom'd Care,
Her cradle rocks with troublous air,
Nestling her brood of sorrows there.
Peace here in rocks may build her nest,
Or charm the halcyon wave, and brood at rest.

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The night hath pass'd—the morn hath come,
And through the village height I roam—
It is a bright and summer day;
Where Thought hath led her pensive way,
Beside an ancient Cross I stand,
Which overlooks the distant land.
Before the face of golden dawn
Th' enshrouding mist hath now withdrawn,
And lifting up its canopy
Discloses near the dark blue sea,
Close circling with its ridge of blue,—
And craggy isles that come to view;—
Upon the dark and ruin'd scene
Throwing a beautiful serene,
Taking from that their sombre face,
And adding to their tranquil grace.

O day, O place with beauty fill'd,
How deep have ye my fancy thrill'd;
The spirit so of ages gone
Hath mark'd this spot to be his own!
Ancient Menevia, o'er thee still
I linger, sea, and rock, and hill
Peopling with recollections high
Of more divine antiquity.
Sons of a happier, holier day,
I cannot deem ye gone away,
The moaning wind your requiem sings,
To all around your memory clings,
No crowded town, no fertile scene,
To stand yourselves and us between!
And what if marble tombs must die,
Nature doth monuments supply:

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Yon craggy Isles that skirt the strand
Tradition marks as her own band:
In echoing shore and wild sea-bird
The Organ and the Choir are heard.
And in yon rocks with billows hoar,
Which seem to watch and guard the shore,
“The Bishop and his Clerks ” are seen.
O firm-set, ever-during scene!
May those thy Pastors thus with thee
Share the strong rock's stability,
And in their place be faithful found,
Deep-rooted in the hidden ground,
That though the sea and tempest roar,
Their firm foundations move no more!

Yea, lov'd Menevia, if to thee
O'er mount and vale my spirits flee;
Yea, if to thee my fancy yearns,
If early love within me burns
At thy dear name, my native land,—
If thrills a pulse in heart or hand
For home, or shrine, or Church below,
This is the dearest wish I know.

Where Llanthony Abbey now stands in the vale of Ewias, which is surrounded by the Black mountains. Mr. Southey thus speaks of the circumstance:

“Here was it, stranger, that the patron saint
Of Cambria pass'd his age of penitence
A solitary man: and here he made
His hermitage: the roots his food, his drink
Of Honddy's mountain stream.”

And the poet Drayton:

“He did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,
And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields.”

Small shelving seats, with grotesque carvings under them, remarkable in this cathedral.

Ps. cxlvi. 9.

Ramsey Island, one part of which is called the Organ, from the sound of the sea, and another the Choir, from the noise of the seabirds.

Seven insulated rocks near the coast, known by the name of “the Bishop and his Clerks.”