XIX

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER

1821 1822

AND what is Penance with her knotted thong; Mortification with the shirt of hair,

Wan cheek, and knees indurated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;

If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong
The pious, humble, useful Secular,

And rob the people of his daily care,

Scorning that world whose blindness makes her

strong?

Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives
For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him
Who on the good of others builds his own!

XX

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS

YET more,

1821 1822

round many a Convent's blazing fire

Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun;

There Venus sits disguisèd like a Nun, -
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire ·

To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice

Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,

Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse

Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,

Whose votive burthen is -"OUR KINGDOM'S HERE!"

XXI

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES

1821 1822

THREATS Come which no submission may assuage,
No sacrifice avert, no power dispute;

The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,
And, 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage;
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age. 59

The owl of evening and the woodland fox
For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose:
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.

THE lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek
Through saintly habit than from effort due
To unrelenting mandates that pursue

With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak)
Goes forth unveiling timidly a cheek

Suffused with blushes of celestial hue,

While through the Convent's gate to open view
Softly she glides, another home to seek.
Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,
An Apparition more divinely bright!
Not more attractive to the dazzled sight

Those watery glories, on the stormy brine
Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine,
And the green vales lie hushed in sober light!

XXIII

CONTINUED

1821 1822

YET many a Novice of the cloistral shade,
And many chained by vows, with eager glee
The warrant hail, exulting to be free;

Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,

Their liquid world, for bold discovery,

In all her quarters temptingly displayed!

Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass The threshold, whither shall they turn to find

The hospitality the alms (alas!

Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed?

Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind
To keep this new and questionable road?