ECCLESIASTICAL

SKETCHES.

PART II.

TO THE CLOSE OF THE TROUBLES IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES I.

I.

CISTERTIAN 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 Cistertian 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 desires;
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.

II.

MONKS AND SCHOOLMEN.

RECORD We too, with just and faithful pen,
That many hooded Cenobites there are,
Who in their private Cells have yet a care
Of public quiet; unambitious Men,
Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken;
Whose fervent exhortations from afar
Move Princes to their duty, peace or war;
And oft-times in the most forbidding den
Of solitude, with love of science strong,
How patiently the yoke of thought they bear!
How subtly glide its finest threads along!
Spirits that crowd the intellectual sphere
With mazy boundaries, as the Astronomer
With orb and cycle girds the starry throng.

III.

OTHER BENEFITS.

AND not in vain embodied to the sight
Religion finds even in the stern Retreat
Of feudal Sway her own appropriate Seat;
From the Collegiate pomps on Windsor's height,
Down to the humble altar, which the Knight
And his Retainers of the embattled hall
Seek in domestic oratory small,

For prayer in stillness, or the chanted rite;

Then chiefly dear, when foes are planted round,
Who teach the intrepid guardians of the place,
Hourly exposed to death, with famine worn,
And suffering under many a perilous wound,
How sad would be their durance, if forlorn
Of offices dispensing heavenly grace!