MARMION. CANTO SECOND. THE CONVENT. I. THE breeze, which swept away the smoke, It curl'd not Tweed alone, that breeze, It freshly blew, and strong, Where, from high Whitby's cloister'd pile,1 The Abbey of Whitby, in the Archdeaconry of Cleaveland, on the coast of Yorkshire, was founded A.D. 657, in consequence of a vow of Oswy, King of Northumberland. It contained both monks and nuns of the Benedictine order; but, contrary to what was usual in such establishments, the Bound to St. Cuthbert's Holy Isle,1 It bore a bark along. Upon the gale she stoop'd her side, Furrow the green sea-foam. Much joy'd they in their honour'd freight; abbess was superior to the abbot. The monastery was afterwards ruined by the Danes, and rebuilded by William Percy, in the reign of the Conqueror. There were no nuns there in Henry the Eighth's time, nor long before it. The ruins of Whitby Abbey are very magnificent. 66 1 Lindisfarne, an isle on the coast of Northumberland, was called Holy Island, from the sanctity of its ancient monastery, and from its having been the Episcopal seat of the see of Durham during the early ages of British Christianity. A succession of holy men held that office; but their merits were swallowed up in the superior fame of St. Cuthbert, who was sixth bishop of Durham, and who bestowed the name of his patrimony" upon the extensive property of the see. The ruins of the monastery upon Holy Island betoken great antiquity. The arches are, in general, strictly Saxon; and the pillars which support them, short, strong, and massy. In some places, however, there are pointed windows which indicate that the building has been repaired at a period long subsequent to the original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building, being of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as described in the text. Lindisfarne is not properly an island, but rather, as the venerable Bede has termed it, a semi-isle; for, although surrounded by the sea at full tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and the opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it is about three miles distant. The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed, With five fair nuns, the galley graced. II. 'Twas sweet to see these holy maids, One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail, One at the rippling surge grew pale, Then shriek'd, because the seadog, nigh, Perchance lest some more worldly eye III. The Abbess was of noble blood, Or knew the world that she forsook. And gave the relic-shrine of cost, IV. Black was her garb, her rigid rule Her cheek was pale, her form was spare; 1 [MS.-"'Twas she that gave her ample dower 'Twas she, with carving rare and quaint, Who deck'd the chapel of the saint."] |