And how, of thousand snakes, each one
Was changed into a coil of stone,
When holy Hilda prayed;
Themselves, within their holy bound,
Their stony folds had often found.
They told, how sea-fowls' pinions fail,
As over Whitby's towers they sail,

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And, sinking down, with flutterings faint,

How, when the rude Dane burned their pile,
The monks fled forth from Holy Isle ;

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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;

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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 Rippon 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:

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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. WHO may his miracles declare!

Even Scotland's dauntless king, and heir, (Although with them they led

Galwegians, wild as ocean's gale,

And Lodon's knights, all sheathed in mail,

Before his standard fled.

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And the bold men of Teviotdale,)

'Twas 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,

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Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame

The sea-born beads that bear his name:

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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.

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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,

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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;

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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.

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Were those, who had from him the clue
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,

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With damp and darkness seemed to strive,

As if it scarce might keep alive;

And yet it dimly served to shew

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In long black dress, on seats of stone,

Behind were these three judges shewn,

By the pale cresset's ray:

The Abbess of Saint Hilda, there,
Sate 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 shewn,
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. But, at the Prioress' command, A monk undid the silken band, That tied her tresses fair,

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WHEN thus her face was given to view, (Although so pallid was her hue,

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It did a ghastly contrast bear

To those bright ringlets glistering fair,)
Her look composed, and steady eye,
Bespoke a matchless constancy;
And there she stood so calm and pale,
That, but her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eye and head,
And of her bosom, warranted

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That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,

You might have thought a form of wax,

Wrought to the very life, was there;

So still she was, so pale, so fair.
HER comrade was a sordid soul,

Such as does murder for a meed;

Who, but of fear, knows no control,
Because his conscience, seared and foul,

Feels not the import of his deed;
One, whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires
Beyond his own more brute desires.

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