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'Twas he, to vindicate his reign,

Edged Alfred's faulchion on the Dane,
And turned the conqueror back again,

When, with his Norman bowyer band,
He came to waste Northumberland.

XVI.

But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn,
If, on a rock, by Lindisfarn,

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 deadened 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 Lindisfarn disclaim.

XVII.

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 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.

'Twas now a place of punishment;

Where, if so loud a shriek were sent,
As reached the upper air,

The hearers blessed themselves, and said,

The spirits of the sinful dead

Bemoaned their torments there.

XVIII.

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 blind-fold 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,

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Which served to light this drear domain,
With damp and darkness seemed to strive,
As if it scarce might keep alive;
And yet it dimly served to shew

The awful conclave met below.

XIX.

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;

a Antique Chandelier.

N

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's, 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 shown,
Whose look is hard and stern,-
Saint Cuthbert's Abbot is his stile;

For sanctity called, through the isle,
The Saint of Lindisfarn.

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