The pillared arches were over their head,
And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead.
Spreading herbs, and flow'rets bright,
Glistened with the dew of night;
Nor herb, nor flow'ret, glistened there,
But was carved in the cloister arches as fair.
The monk gazed long on the lovely moon,
Then into the night he looked forth;
And red and bright the streamers light
Were dancing in the glowing north.
So had he seen, in fair Castile,
The youth in glittering squadrons start; Sudden, the flying jennet wheel,
And hurl the unexpected dart.
He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright, That spirits were riding the northern light.
By a steel-clenched postern door,
They entered now the chancel tall;
The darkened roof rose high aloof
On pillars lofty, and light, and small ;
The key-stone, that locked each ribbed aisle,
Was a fleur de-lys, or a quatre feuille;
The corbells were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars with clustered shafts so trim,
With plinth and with capital flourished around,
Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound.
Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven,
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,
Around the screened altar's pale;
And there the dying lamps did burn,
Before thy low and lonely urn,
O gallant chief of Otterburne
And thine, dark knight of Liddesdale !
O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!
The moon on the east oriel shone,
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
By foilaged tracery combined;
Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand
Twixt poplars straight, the osier wand,
In many a freakish knot had twined;
* Corbells, the projections from which the arches spring, usually cut into a fantastic face or mask,
Then framed a spell when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone.
The silver light so pale and faint,
Showed many a prophet, and many a saint
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his cross of red
Triumphant Michael brandished,
And trampled the apostate's pride.
The moon-beam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.
They sate them down on a marble stone
(A Scottish monarch slept below ;)
Thus spoke the monk, in solemn tone-
"I was not always a man of wo;
For Paynim countries I have trod,
And fought beneath the cross of God;
Now strange to my eyes thine arms appear,
And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.
"In these far climes it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me;
And, warrior, I could say to thee,
The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:
But to speak them were a deadly sin;
And for having but thought them my heart within, A treble penance must be done.
"When Michael lay on his dying bed,
His conscience was awakened ;
He bethought him of his sinful deed,
And he gave me a sign to come with speed:
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.
The words may not again be said,
That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his grave.
"I swore to bury his mighty book,
That never mortal might therein look;
And never to tell where it was hid,
Save at his chief of Branksome's need;
And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.
I buried him on Saint Michael's night,
When the bell tolled one and the moon was bright;
And I dug his chamber among the dead,
Where the floor of the chancel was stained red,
That his patron's cross might over him wave,
And scare the fiends from the wizard's grave.
"It was a night of woe and dread,. When Michael in the tomb I laid!
Strange sounds along the chancel past;
The banners waved without a blast".
-Still spoke the monk, when the bell tolled one!I tell you, that a braver man
Than William of Deloraine, good at need,
Against a foe ne'er spurred a steed;
Yet somewhat was he chilled with dread,
And his hair did bristle upon his head.
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