Walter Scott - Marmion

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 deaden’d 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 call’d 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.

‘Twas now a place of punishment;
Whence if so loud a shriek were sent,
As reach’d the upper air,
The hearers bless’d themselves, and said,
The spirits of the sinful dead
Bemoan’d 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 grave-stones, 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 seem’d 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 quench’d 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 call’d, 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,
And raised the bonnet from her head,
And down her slender form they spread,
In ringlets rich and rare.

Constance de Beverley they know,
Sister profess’d of Fontevraud,
Whom the Church number’d with the dead,
For broken vows, and convent fled.

When thus her face was given to view,
(Although so pallid was her hue,
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, bur her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eye and head,
And of her bosom, warranted
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, sear’d and foul,
Feels not the import of his deed;

One, whose brute-feeling ne’er aspires
Beyond his own more brute desires.
Such tools the Tempter ever needs,
To do the savagest of deeds;

For them no vision’d terrors daunt,
Their nights no fancied spectres haunt,
One fear with them, of all most base,
The fear of death,-alone finds place.

This wretch was clad in frock and cowl,
And ‘shamed not loud to moan and howl,
His body on the floor to dash,
And crouch, like hound beneath the lash;

While his mute partner, standing near,
Waited her doom without a tear.

Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek,
Well might her paleness terror speak!
For there were seen in that dark wall,
Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall;-

Who enters at such grisly door,
Shall ne’er, I ween, find exit more.
In each a slender meal was laid,
Of roots, of water, and of bread:

By each, in Benedictine dress,
Two haggard monks stood motionless;
Who, holding high a blazing torch,
Show’d the grim entrance of the porch:

Reflecting back the smoky beam,
The dark-red walls and arches gleam.
Hewn stones and cement were display’d,
And building tools in order laid.

These executioners were chose,
As men who were with mankind foes,
And with despite and envy fired,
Into the cloister had retired;

Or who, in desperate doubt of grace,
Strove, by deep penance, to efface
Of some foul crime the stain;
For, as the vassals of her will,
Such men the Church selected still,
As either joy’d in doing ill,
Or thought more grace to gain,

If, in her cause, they wrestled down
Feelings their nature strove to own.
By strange device were they brought there,
They knew not how, and knew not where.

And now that blind old Abbot rose,
To speak the Chapter’s doom,
On those the wall was to enclose,
Alive, within the tomb;