As little she regards the sight1
As a common creature might:
If she be doomed to inward care,
Or service, it must lie elsewhere.
-But hers are eyes serenely bright,
And on she moves-with pace how light!
Nor spares to stoop her head, and taste
The dewy turf with flowers bestrown;
And thus she fares, until at last 2
Beside the ridge of a grassy grave
In quietness she lays her down;
Gentle as a weary wave3
Sinks, when the summer breeze hath died,
Against an anchored vessel's side
-But now again the people raise
With awful cheer a voice of praise ;1
It is the last, the parting song;
And from the temple forth they throng,
And quickly spread themselves abroad,
While each pursues his several road.
But some-a variegated band
Of middle-aged, and old, and young,
And little children by the hand
Upon their leading mothers hung-
With mute obeisance gladly paid
Turn towards the spot, where full in view,2
The white Doe, to her service true,3
Her sabbath couch has made.
It was a solitary mound;
Which two spears' length of level ground
Did from all other graves divide:
As if in some respect of pride;
Or melancholy's sickly mood,
Still shy of human neighbourhood;
Or guilt, that humbly would express
A penitential loneliness.
Look, there she is, my Child! draw near
She fears not, wherefore should we fear?
She means no harm ;"-but still the Boy,
To whom the words were softly said,
Hung back, and smiled, and blushed for joy,
A shamed-faced blush of glowing red!
Again the Mother whispered low,
"C 'Now you have seen the famous Doe ;
From Rylstone she hath found her way
Over the hills this sabbath day;
Her work, whate'er it be, is done,
And she will depart when we are gone;
Thus doth she keep, from year to year,
Her sabbath morning, foul or fair." 1
Bright was the Creature,2 as in dreams
The Boy had seen her, yea, more bright;
But is she truly what she seems ?
He asks with insecure delight,
Asks of himself, and doubts,—and still
The doubt returns against his will:
Though he, and all the standers-by,
Could tell a tragic history
Of facts divulged, wherein appear
Substantial motive, reason clear,
Why thus the milk-white Doe is found.
Couchant beside that lonely mound;
And why she duly loves to pace
The circuit of this hallowed place.
Nor to the Child's inquiring mind
Is such perplexity confined:
For, spite of sober Truth that sees
A world of fixed remembrances
Which to this mystery belong,
1 Inserted in edd. 1815 to 1832, before "Bright was the Creature,"
This whisper soft repeats what he
Had known from early infancy.
If, undeceived, my skill can trace
The characters of every face,
There lack not strange delusion here,
Conjecture vague, and idle fear,
And superstitious fancies strong,
Which do the gentle Creature wrong.
That bearded, staff-supported Sire-
Who in his boyhood often fed 1
Full cheerily on convent-bread
And heard old tales by the convent-fire,
And to his grave will go with scars,
Relics of long and distant wars— 2
That Old Man, studious to expound
The spectacle, is mounting high 3
To days of dim antiquity;
When Lady Aäliza mourned *
Her Son, and felt in her despair
The pang of unavailing prayer;
Her Son in Wharf's abysses drowned,
The noble Boy of Egremound.
From which affliction-when the grace
* “The detail of this tradition may be found in Dr Whitaker's book, and in the poem, 'The Force of Prayer,' &c." (See pp. 90, &c., of this Volume). W. W., 1815.
Of God had in her heart found place-1
A pious structure, fair to see,
Rose up, this stately Priory!
The Lady's work ;—but now laid low;
To the grief of her soul that doth come and go
In the beautiful form of this innocent Doe:
Which, though seemingly doomed in its breast to sustain
A softened remembrance of sorrow and pain,
Is spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright;
And glides o'er the earth like an angel of light.
Pass, pass who will, yon chantry door;
And, through the chink in the fractured floor
Look down, and see a griesly sight;
A vault where the bodies are buried upright!
There, face by face, and hand by hand,
The Claphams and Mauleverers stand;
And, in his place, among son and sire,
Is John de Clapham, that fierce Esquire,
A valiant man, and a name of dread
In the ruthless wars of the White and Red;
Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Banbury church
And smote off his head on the stones of the porch!
Look down among them, if you dare;
Oft does the White Doe loiter there,
From which affliction, when God's grace
At length had in her heart found place,
"At the East end of the North aisle of Bolton Priory Church is a chantry belonging to Bethmesly Hall, and a vault, where, according to tradition, the Claphams' (who inherited this estate, by the female line from the Mauliverers) were interred upright.' John de Clapham, of whom this ferocious act is recorded, was a name of great note in his time; 'he was a vehement partisan of the House of Lancaster, in whom the spirit of his chieftains, the Cliffords, seemed to survive.'"-W. W., 1815.
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