ABBEY.]

POETICAL TRIBUTES.

115

These objections have been repeated by other writers of unquestionable taste; but we may venture to predict, that among the numerous strangers who annually resort to these deserted shrines, few will return home without expressions of unqualified admiration of "Tinterne, as it is." The care employed by its noble owner in arresting the progress of decay, is creditable to his taste and reverence for antiquity. Had these ruins been consigned, as some would have had them, to the wasting hand of time, their vaulted wonders would long ere now have fallen piecemeal into the area beneath; but wherever a stone is observed to be losing its hold, the hand of art is immediately applied to restore it to its original place and thus, what might have passed away in a few inclement seasons, has been propped up and secured for the delight of many generations to come.

And lo, these mouldering fragments to sustain,

Her graceful network nature's hand hath hung;
Bound every arch with a supporting chain,

And round each wall her living verdure flung;
And o'er the floor that sepulchres the dead-

The saints and heroes of departed years;
The flower of memory lifts its modest head,

And morning sheds her tributary tears.-W.B.

Poetical Votaries.-Having quoted so largely from chroniclers and other prose writers in the preceding pages, we must not quit the subject of Tinterne Abbey, without selecting a few stanzas from those minstrels who have sought and found inspiration on the spot. Wordsworth, from whose poem on the Wye we have already quoted, addresses the following

Lines to a Cistercian Monastery.

'Here man more purely lives, less oft doth fall,
More promptly rises, walks with nicer heed,
More safely rests, dies happier; is freed
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal
A brighter crown.' On yon Cistercian wall
That confident assurance may be read;
And, to like shelter, from the world have fled
Increasing multitudes. The potent call
Doubtless shall cheat full oft the heart's desire;
Yet, while the rugged age on pliant knee
Vows to rapt Fancy humble fealty,
A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;
Where'er they rise the sylvan waste retires,
And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea.

Tinterne Abbey on the Wye.

Sudden the change; at once to tread
The grass-grown mansions of the dead.
Awful to feeling, where, immense,
Rose ruin'd grey magnificence;
The fair wrought shaft all ivy-bound,
The tow'ring arch with foliage crowned,
That trembles on its brow sublime,
Triumphant o'er the spoils of time.
There, grasping all the eye beheld,
Thought into mingling anguish swell'd,
And checked the wild excursive wing,
O'er dust or bones of priest or king;

Or rais'd some Strongbow warrior's ghost,
To shout before his banner'd host.

But all was still. The chequered floor
Shall echo to the step no more;

No airy roof the strain prolong,

Forgive me, abbey of the watered vale-
Forgive that, when I feel my spirit swell
With an unwonted energy, I fail
To hymn thy desolated glories well!
Not yet the chrysalis has burst its shell-

Not yet expanded its immortal wings;
The restless rudiments of vast powers tell

The soul a deathless thing; from earth she springs,
But fast and feebly falls, the while of thee she sings.

J. C. Earle, St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford.

Appendir.

*

Or the Abbots of Tinterne the historical notices are very scanty. The following occur in the "Parliamentary Writs," by Sir Francis Palgrave ::A.D. 1294.—Abbas de Tynterne is summoned to a council of the clergy, to be held before the King in person, at Westminster, on the Feast of St. Matthias the Apostle, on the twenty-first day of September, and twenty-second of Edward I. Again—

1295.-The Abbas de Tynterne is summoned to Parliament at Westminster, on Sunday next after the feast of St. Martin, thirteenth day of October, and twenty-third year of the reign of Edward I., prorogued to Sunday next, before the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, the twenty-seventh of November. Thirdly—

1296.-Summoned to Parliament at Bury St. Edmund's, on the morrow of All-Souls, November the third day, and twenty-fourth year of the reign of Edward I.

1300.—Abbas de Tynterne-Letter of Credence addressed to him concerning the expedition against the Scots—at Blith, the seventeenth day of January, and twenty-eighth year of the reign of Edward I. Again, the same year, the abbot was summoned to Parliament in London, on the second Sunday in Lent, being the sixth day of March. 1301.-Abbas de Tynterne is summoned to Parliament at Lincoln—in eight days of St. Hilary—the twentieth day of January, and twentyeighth year of the reign aforesaid.

1305.-Summoned to Parliament at Westminster, on Tuesday, in fifteen days

of the Purification, the sixteenth of February; afterwards prorogued to Sunday next, after the Feast of St. Matthias the Apostle, the twenty-eighth day of February-but to which he was not resummoned and thirty-third year of the reign of Edward I.

1316.-Abbas de Tynterne, certified pursuant to writ, tested at Clipston, March the fifth, as one of the lords of the township of Acle,† in the county of Norfolk, in the ninth year of the reign of Edward II.

Published by order of Parliament, 1827.

Acle, or Oakley, eleven miles east from Norwich, and situated near the Bure, on grounds which rise sud

denly from the marshes below. The church, dedicated

to St. Edmund, is a rectory, value £20.