How, when the rude Dane burned their pile, The monks fled forth from Holy Isle ; O'er Northern mountain, marsh, and moor, From sea to sea, from shore to shore, Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore. They rested them in fair Melrose ; But though, alive, he loved it well, Not there his relics might repose ; For, wondrous tale to tell! In his stone coffin forth he rides, A ponderous bark for river tides, Yet light as gossamer it glides
Downward to Tilmouth cell. Nor long was his abiding there, For southward did the saint repair; Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw His holy corpse ere Wardilaw
Hailed him with joy and fear; And, after many wanderings past, He chose his lordly seat at last Where his cathedral, huge and vast, Looks down upon the Wear.
There, deep in Durham's Gothic shade, His relics are in secret laid;
But none may know the place,
Save of his holiest servants three, Deep sworn to solemn secrecy,
Who share that wondrous grace.
may his miracles declare?
Even Scotland's dauntless king and heir
Although with them they led
Galwegians, wild as ocean's gale,
And Loden's knights, all sheathed in mail, And the bold men of Teviotdale
Before his standard fled.
'T was he, to vindicate his reign, Edged Alfred's falchion on the Dane, And turned the Conqueror back again, When, with his Norman bowyer band, He came to waste Northumberland.
But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn If on a rock, by Lindisfarne,
Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame The sea-born beads that bear his name: Such tales had Whitby's fishers told, And said they might his shape behold,
And hear his anvil sound;
A deadened clang, -a huge dim form, Seen but, and heard, when gathering storm And night were closing round.
But this, as tale of idle fame, The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim.
While round the fire such legends go, Far different was the scene of woe Where, in a secret aisle beneath, Council was held of life and death.
It was more dark and lone, that vault, Than the worst dungeon cell;
Old Colwulf built it, for his fault
In penitence to dwell,
When he for cowl and beads laid down
The Saxon battle-axe and crown.
This den, which, chilling every sense
Of feeling, hearing, sight,
Was called the Vault of Penitence,
Excluding air and light,
Was by the prelate Sexhelm made A place of burial for such dead As, having died in mortal sin, Might not be laid the church within.
'T was now a place of punishment ; Whence if so loud a shriek were sent
As reached the upper air,
The hearers blessed themselves, and said
The spirits of the sinful dead
Bemoaned their torments there.
But though, in the monastic pile, Did of this penitential aisle Some vague tradition go,
Few only, save the Abbot, knew
Where the place lay, and still more few Were those who had from him the clew To that dread vault to go. Victim and executioner
Were blindfold when transported there. In low dark rounds the arches hung, From the rude rock the side-walls sprung; The gravestones, rudely sculptured o'er, Half sunk in earth, by time half wore, Were all the pavement of the floor; The mildew-drops fell one by one, With tinkling plash, upon the stone. A cresset, in an iron chain,
Which served to light this drear domain, With damp and darkness seemed to strive, As if it scarce might keep alive;
And yet it dimly served to show
The awful conclave met below.
There, met to doom in secrecy,
Were placed the heads of convents three,
All servants of Saint Benedict,
The statutes of whose order strict On iron table lay;
In long black dress, on seats of stone, Behind were these three judges shown
By the pale cresset's ray.
The Abbess of Saint Hilda's there Sat for a space with visage bare, Until, to hide her bosom's swell, And tear-drops that for pity fell, She closely drew her veil ; Yon shrouded figure, as I guess, By her proud mien and flowing dress, Is Tynemouth's haughty Prioress,
And she with awe looks pale;
And he, that ancient man, whose sight Has long been quenched by age's night, Upon whose wrinkled brow alone
Nor ruth nor mercy's trace is shown, Whose look is hard and stern, Saint Cuthbert's Abbot is his style, For sanctity called through the isle The Saint of Lindisfarne.
Before them stood a guilty pair;
But, though an equal fate they share,
Yet one alone deserves our care.
Her sex a page's dress belied;
The cloak and doublet, loosely tied,
Obscured her charms, but could not hide. Her cap down o'er her face she drew; And, on her doublet breast,
She tried to hide the badge of blue,
Lord Marmion's falcon crest.
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