207 Ecclesiastical Sketches. "A verse may catch a wandering soul, that flies ADVERTISEMENT. DURING the month of December, 1820, I accompanied a much loved and honoured friend in a walk through different parts of his estate, with a view to fix upon the site of a new church which he intended to erect. It was one of the most beautiful mornings of a mild season,-our feelings were in harmony with the cherishing influences of the scene; and, such being our purpose, we were naturally led to look back upon past events with wonder and gratitude, and on the future with hope. Not long afterwards some of the sonnets which will be found towards the close of this series were produced as a private memorial of that morning's occupation. The Catholic question, which was agitated in Parliament about that time, kept my thoughts in the same course, and it struck me that certain points in the ecclesiastical history of the country might advantageously be presented to view in verse. Accordingly I took up the subject, and what I now offer to the reader was the result. When the work was far advanced, I was agreeably surprised to find that my friend, Mr. Southey, was engaged, with similar views, in writing a concise history of the Church in England. If our productions, thus unintentionally coinciding, shall be found to illustrate each other, it will prove a high gratification to me, which I am sure my friend will participate. W. WORDSWORTH. Rydal Mount, January 24, 1822. PART I. FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO BRITAIN, TO THE CONSUMMATION OF THE PAPAL DOMINION. TREPIDATION OF THE DRUIDS. SCREAMS round the arch-druid's brow the seamew*-white [ring As Menai's foam; and towards the mystic Where augurs stand, the future questioning, Slowly the cormorant aims her heavy flight, Portending ruin to each baleful rite, That, in the lapse of ages hath crept o'er Diluvian truths, and patriarchal lore. Haughty the bard;-can these meek doctrines blight His transports? wither his heroic strains? But all shall be fulfilled;-the Julian spear A way first opened: and, with Roman chains, The tidings come of Jesus crucified; They come-they spread-the weak, the suffering, hear; Receive the faith, and in the hope abide. That intimation when the stars were shaped; (truth And still, 'mid yon thick woods, the primal Glimmers through many a superstitious form That fills the soul with unavailing ruth. lost UNCERTAINTY. DARKNESS surrounds us; seeking, we are In vain, upon the growing rill may gaze. PERSECUTION. LAMENT! for Diocletian's fiery sword Works busy as the lightning; but instinct With malice ne'er to deadliest weapon linked, Which God's ethereal storehouses afford: Against the followers of the incarnate Lord It rages;-some are smitten in the field-Some pierced beneath the ineffectual shield Of sacred home;-with pomp are others gored And dreadful respite. Thus was Alban tried, England's first martyr, whom no threats could shake; Self-offered victim, for his friend he died, And for the faith-nor shall his name forsake [riset That hill, whose flowery platform seems to By nature decked for holiest sacrifice. + This hill at St. Alban's must have been an object of great interest to the imagination of the venerable Bede, who thus describes it with a delicate feeling delightful to meet with in that rude age, traces of which are frequent in his works:-"Variis herbarum floribus depictus imò usquequaque vestitus, in quo nihil repentè arduum, nihil præceps, nihil abruptum, quem RECOVERY. As, when a storm hath ceased, the birds But chastisement shall follow peace despised. regain Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim seem. TEMPTATIONS FROM ROMAN REFINEMENTS. WATCH, and be firm! for soul-subduing vice, Heart-killing luxury, on your steps await. Fair houses, baths, and banquets delicate And temples flashing, bright as polar ice, Their radiance through the woods, may yet suffice To sap your hardy virtue, and abate As humanizing graces, are but parts DISSENSIONS. THAT heresies should strike (if truth be scanned [deep Presumptuously) their roots both wide and Is natural as dreams to feverish sleep. Lo! Discord at the altar dares to stand Uplifting toward high heaven her fiery brand, lateribus longè latèque deductum in modum æquoris natura complanat, dignum videlicet cum pro insita sibi specie venustatis jam olim reddens, qui beati martyris cruore dicaretur." A cherished priestess of the new-baptized! The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land By Rome abandoned, vain are suppliant cries, [farewell, And prayers that would undo her forced For she returns not.-Awed by her own knell, She casts he Britons upon strange allies, Soon to become more dreaded enemies Than heartless misery called them to repel. STRUGGLE OF THE BRITONS AGAINST THE BARBARIANS. ask RISE!- they have risen: of brave Aneurin Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross; Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode, [swords, Rush on the fight, to harps preferring And everlasting deeds to burning words! SAXON CONQUEST. NOR wants the cause the panic-striking aid Alluding to the victory gained under Germanus.-See Bede. The last six lines of this sonnet are chiefly from the prose of Daniel; and here I will state (though to the readers whom this poem will chiefly interest it is unnecessary), that my obli Will build their savage fortunes only there; were. MONASTERY OF OLD BANGOR.* scorn Beautiful strangers, stand within the pale craves [eye THE oppression of the tumult-wrath and Angli by name; and not an angel waves swerve To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things [dream; From their known course, or vanish like a Another language spreads from coast to coast; Only perchance some melancholy stream And some indignant hills old names pre[lost! serve, When laws, and creeds, and people all are gations to other prose writers are frequent-obligations which, even if I had not a pleasure in courting, it would have been presumptuous to shun, in treating an historical subject. I: must, however, particularise Fuller, to whom I am in: debted in the sonnet upon Wicliffe, and in other instances. And upon the Acquittal of the Seven Bishops I have done little more than versify a lively description of that event in the memoirs of the first Lord Lonsdale. *Ethelforth reached the convent of Bangor; he perceived the monks, twelve hundred in number, offering prayers for the success of their countrymen : If they are praying against us,' he exclaimed, they are fighting against us; and he ordered them to be first attacked: they were destroyed; and, appalled by their fate, the courage of Brocmail wavered, and he fled from the field in dismay. Thus abandoned by their leader, his army soon gave way, and Ethelforth obtained a decisive conquest. Ancient Bangor itself soon fell into his hands, and was demo Jished; the noble monastery was levelled to the ground: its library, which is mentioned as a large one, the collection of ages, the repository of the most precious monuments of the ancient Britons, was consumed, half-ruined walls, gates, and rubbish, were all that remained of the magnificent edifice."-See Turner's valuable history of the Anglo-Saxons. The account Bede gives of this remarkable event, suggests a most striking warning against national and religious prejudices. Taliesin was present at the battle which preceded this desolation, [sire, Subjects of Saxon ELLA-they shall sing tread, GLAD TIDINGS. FOR ever hallowed be this morning fair, Chanting in barbarous ears a tuneful prayer, Of ignorance, that ran so rough and high, These good men humble by a few bare See the original of this speech in Bede.The conversion of Edwin, as related by him is highly interesting-and the breaking up of this council accompanied with an event so striking and characterístic, that I am tempted to give it at length, in a translation. "Who, exclaimed the king, when the council was ended, shall first desecrate the altars and the temples? I, answered the chief priest, for who more fit than myself, through the wisdom which the true God hath given me to destroy, for the good example of others, what in foolishness I worshipped? Immediately, casting away vain superstition, he besought the king to grant him, what the laws did not allow to a priest, arms and a courser; which mounting, and furnished with a sword and lance, he proceeded to destroy the idols. The crowd, seeing. this, thought him mad-he, however, halted not, but approaching he profaned the temple, casting against it the lance which he had held in his hand, and, exulting in acknowledgment of the true God, he ordered his companions to pull down the temple, with all its inclosures. The place is shown where those idols formerly stood, not far from York, at the source of the river Derwent, and is at this day called Gormund Gaham." |