ON SOME SKULLS IN BEAULEY ABBEY,
IN silent barren synod met
Within these roofless walls, where yet The severed arch and carved fret
The brethren's skulls mourn, dewy wet,
Their creed's undoing.
The mitred ones of Nice and Trent Were not so tongue-tied; no, they went Hot to their councils, scarce content With orthodoxy ;
But ye, poor tongueless things, were meant To speak by proxy.
Your chronicles no more exist, For Knox, the revolutionist, Destroyed the work of every fist
That scrawled black letter;
Well! I'm a craniologist,
This skull-cap wore the cowl from sloth, Or discontent, perhaps from both; And yet one day, against his oath,
He tried escaping ;
For men, though idle, may be loth To live on gaping.
A toper this! he plied his glass More strictly than he said the mass, And loved to see a tempting lass
Come to confession,
Letting her absolution pass
O'er fresh transgression.
ON SOME SKULLS IN BEAULEY ABBEY.
This crawled through life in feebleness, Boasting he never knew excess,
Cursing those crimes he scarce could guess, Or feel but faintly,
With prayers that Heaven would cease to bless Men so unsaintly.
Here's a true churchman !-he'd affect Much charity, and ne'er neglect
To pray for mercy on the elect,
But thought no evil
In sending heathen, Turk, and sect, All to the devil.
Poor skull, thy fingers set a-blaze, With silver saint in golden rays, The holy missal; thou didst craze
'Mid bead and spangle,
While others passed their idler days, In coil and wrangle.
Long time this sconce a helmet wore,— But sickness smites the conscience sore; He broke his sword, and hither bore
His gear and plunder,
Took to the cowl,-then raved and swore At his damned blunder!
This lily-coloured skull, with all
The teeth complete, so white and small, Belonged to one whose early pall
A lover shaded;
He died ere superstition's gall
His heart invaded.
Ha! here is "undivulged crime !" Despair forbade his soul to climb
ON SOME SKULLS IN BEAULEY ABBEY.
Beyond this world, this mortal time
Of fevered sadness,
Until their monkish pantomime
Dazzled his madness,
A younger brother this,-a man Aspiring as a Tartar Khan, But, curbed and baffled, he began
The trade of frightening;
It smacked of power!--and here he ran
To deal Heaven's lightning.
This idiot skull belonged to one, A buried miser's only son,
Who penitent, ere he'd begun
And hoping Heaven's dread wrath to shun,
Gave hell his treasure.
Here is the forehead of an ape,
A robber's mark, and near the nape
That bone, fie on't!
bears just the shape Of carnal passion; theft and rape,
In monkish fashion.
This was the porter! he could sing, Or dance, or play,-do any thing, And what the friars bade him bring
They ne'er were balked of;
Matters not worth remembering,
And seldom talked of.
Enough! why need I farther pore? This corner holds at least a score, And yonder twice as many more
Of reverend brothers;
'Tis the same story o'er and o'er,—
They're like the others.
A SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE.*
What now to her is all the world esteems? She is awake, and cares not for its dreams; But moves, while yet on earth, as one above
Its hopes and fears-its loathing and its love.-CRABBE.
'Tis said she once was beautiful ;—and still (For 'tis not years that can have wrought her ill) Deep rays of loveliness around her form Beam, as the rainbow that succeeds the storm Brightens a glorious ruin. In her face,
Though something touched by sorrow, you may trace The all she was, when first in life's young spring, Like the gay bee-bird on delighted wing, She stooped to cull the honey from each flower That bears its breast in joy's luxuriant bower! O'er her pure forehead, pale as moonlit snow, Her ebon locks are parted ;-and her brow Stands forth like morning from the shades of night, Serene, though clouds hang o'er it. The bright And searching glance of her Ithuriel eye, Might even the sternest hypocrite defy To meet it unappalled;-'twould almost seem, As though, epitomized in one deep beam, Her full collected soul upon the heart, Whate'er its mask, she strove at once to dart : And few may brave the talisman that's hid 'Neath the dark fringes of her drooping lid.
Patient in suffering, she has learned the art To bleed in silence, and conceal the smart,
* From a volume of poems printed for private circulation.
And thence, though quick of feeling, hath been deemed Almost as cold and loveless as she seemed ; Because to fools she never would reveal
Wounds they would probe-without the power to heal. No,-whatsoe'er the visions that disturb
The fountain of her thoughts, she knows to curb Each outward sign of sorrow, and suppress- Even to a sigh-all tokens of distress. Yet some, perhaps, with keener vision than The crowd that pass her by unnoted, can, Through well dissembled smiles, at times, discern A settled anguish that would seem to burn The very brain it feeds upon; and when This mood of pain is on her, then, oh ! then, A more than wonted paleness of the cheek,— And, it may be, a flitting hectic streak,— A tremulous motion of the lip or eye,― Are all that anxious friendship may descry.
Reserve and womanly pride are in her look, Though tempered into meekness; she can brook Unkindness and neglect from those she loves, Because she feels it undeserved; which proves That firm and conscious rectitude hath power To blunt Fate's darts in sorrow's darkest hour. Ay, unprovoked, injustice she can bear Without a sigh-almost without a tear, Save such as hearts internally will weep, And they ne'er rise the burning lids to steep; But to those petty wrongs which half defy Human forbearance, she can make reply With a proud lip, and a contemptuous eye.
There is a speaking sadness in her air, A tinge of languor o'er her features fair, Born of no common grief; as though despair, Had wrestled with her spirit-been o'erthrown--- And these the trophies of the strife alone.
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