| |
| HOW wildly sweet, by Hartland Tower, | |
| The thrilling voice of prayer; | |
| A seraph, from his cloudy bower, | |
| Might lean to listen there. | |
| |
| For time and place and storied days | 5 |
| To that gray fane have given | |
| Hues that might win an angel’s gaze, | |
| Mid scenery of heaven. | |
| |
| Above, the ocean breezes sweep | |
| With footsteps firm and free; | 10 |
| Around, the mountains guard the deep; | |
| Beneath, the wide, wide sea. | |
| |
| Enter! the arching roofs expand, | |
| Like vessels on the shore, | |
| Inverted, when the fisher-band | 15 |
| Might tread their planks no more. | |
| |
| But reared on high in that stern form, | |
| Lest faithless hearts forget | |
| The men that braved the ancient storm | |
| And hauled the early net. | 20 |
| |
| The tracery of a quaint old time | |
| Still weaves the chancel screen; | |
| And tombs, with many a broken rhyme, | |
| Suit well this simple scene. | |
| |
| A Saxon font, with baptism bright, | 25 |
| The womb of mystic birth; | |
| An altar where, in angels’ sight, | |
| Their Lord descends to earth. | |
| |
| Here glides the spirit of the psalm, | |
| Here breathes the soul of prayer; | 30 |
| The awful church, so hushed, so calm,— | |
| Ah! surely God is there. | |
| |
| And lives no legend on the wall? | |
| No theme of former men? | |
| A shape to rise at fancy’s call, | 35 |
| And sink in graves again? | |
| |
| Yes! there, through yonder portal stone, | |
| With whispered words they tell, | |
| How once the monk with name unknown | |
| Prepared that silent cell. | 40 |
| |
| He came with griefs that shunned the light, | |
| With vows long breathed in vain: | |
| Those arches heard, at dead of night, | |
| The lash, the shriek, the pain, | |
| |
| The prayer that rose and fell in tears, | 45 |
| The sob, the bursting sigh: | |
| Till woke with agony of years | |
| The exceeding bitter cry. | |
| |
| This lasted long,—as life will wear, | |
| E’en though in anguish nursed,— | 50 |
| Few think what human hearts can bear, | |
| Before their sinews burst. | |
| |
| It lasted long, but not for aye; | |
| The hour of freedom came: | |
| In that dim niche the stranger lay, | 55 |
| A cold and silent frame. | |
| |
| What sorrows shook the strong man’s soul, | |
| What guilt was rankling there, | |
| We know not,—time may not unroll | |
| The page of his despair. | 60 |
| |
| He sleeps in yonder nameless ground, | |
| A cross hath marked the stone: | |
| Pray ye, his soul in death hath found | |
| The peace to life unknown. | |
| |
| And if ye mourn that man of tears, | 65 |
| Take heed lest ye too fall; | |
| A day may mar the rest, that years | |
| Shall seek but not recall. | |
| |
| Nor think that deserts soothe despair, | |
| Or shame in cells is screened; | 70 |
| For Thought, the demon, will be there, | |
| And Memory, the fiend. | |
| |
| Then waft, ye winds, this tale of fear, | |
| Breathe it in hall and bower, | |
| Till reckless hearts grow hushed to hear | 75 |
| The Monk of Hartland Tower. | |
| |
