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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 544, April 28, 1832

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Дата написания1970-01-01

Язык книгиen

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THE SKETCH BOOK

THE ABBOT OF TEWKESBURY

(For the Mirror.)

"After life's fitful fever be sleeps well."

Shakspeare.

(In opening the tomb of the founder of the Abbey at Tewkesbury, the body of the Abbot was found clothed in full canonicals. The crosier was as perfect as when, perhaps, first put in the coffin, while the body showed scarcely any symptom of decay, though it had been entombed considerably above six hundred years. On exposure to the air, the boots alone of the Abbot were seen to sink, when the tomb was ordered to be sealed up, and his holiness again committed in his darkness. On the above circumstance this sketch is founded.)

Is this to be dead? Am I not clad in all pontifical splendour? Do I not feel the crosier on my breast? The holy brethren of the Abbey surround me. That which distinguished the Abbot when alive, is even here in collected magnificence. I feel the priestly consequence of the Abbot. Is this then the Chamber of the Dead? The pious monks are weeping. The tears which have flowed before the marble shrine are recalled to weep for a departed brother. The incense is full fragrant. I enjoy the perception of its odour. It dilates in my stiffened nostrils, but it supplies me not the breath of life. I hear the loud Hosanna chanted for a soul which dies in the Lord. I will repeat the strain. No. My voice refuses to fall back upon the ear. Where is my heart that it beats not swelling to the anthem's measure? Cold! cold! cold! Nay; I will rise. I will respond unto the funeral dirge. I will shout. Oh! my trunk is hardened, and my tongue is glued. Silence! they pause. Say, do they hear me? No. Silence, horrible and awful. Hark! they mourn with lamentation on my fate. O, Heaven! must I endure all this? Must the living weep for the dead, and the conscious dead be doomed to dismal silence. Horror! horror! horror! IS THIS TO BE DEAD?

A convocation! Yes. The holy brothers in assembled synod to elect a brother holier than themselves. Nay, I do forbid. I, the Abbot who have loved ye all, refuse permission to your meeting. Disperse, disperse. Do ye not hear? Is there no charity alive? Who dares usurp my chair, and I not yet entombed? What! is justice driven out where heavenly men should dwell? I see it. I mark it. The leaven of pride is kneaded in the brotherhood. Intriguing hypocrites usurp the House of God. What! brother John, the fat, the corpulent, the lazy! of whom I know ten thousand heinous sins; the least sufficient to condemn a soul. An Abbot, chosen by the holy, is the elect of God. But he—no, no, no. It shall not be. God will forbid it. They put the crosier in his hand. For shame! for shame! Let not the vicious living sit in the chair of virtue that is departed. Why see! he kneels. He kneels before the shrine, where, until now, he never bent to pray. He grasps the crosier with loving firmness. It shall not be. Is there no interposing Deity to slay the sinner in his wickedness? I, I will seize the crosier from his filthy hand. No. My arm lays idly at my side. Is THIS TO BE DEAD?

They chant the funeral dirge. The mighty torches flash their blazing light upon the frozen features of the dead. Mine eyes are sealed. I strain to open them. No. Light gleams in upon me as through a clear veil. Ah! monster of hateful mien! demon deceitful in religious robes! avaunt! Thou shalt not touch my corpse. No. Thank God! It is a foretaste of thy love to come. He passes on. He dares not lay polluted hands upon the dead, whose becalmed face is looking up to thee. The dead, the sacred dead. The living are for the world, the dead are Thine. Incense, and prayer, and psalms for the departed. It is respectful, but what heed I? Man comes into the world only to go out thereof. What then? The grave! Horror. I have preached thereof. I have shocked others with the enormities of life until they clung unto the grave. Now, I who have bidden the virtuous look to the hopes beyond it, myself would cry to live. But no! they bear me on. He, the foul monster, grins as he looks upon my outstretched limbs. Wolf, I'll pray for thee. Breathe, breathe hardly, ye distended nostrils; it is your last pulsation with the air of earth. No. Sealed as the marble figures by which they bear me. Is this my Tomb. Is this the narrow house appointed for the living? Is this the Abbot's palace after death? Nay, I pray thee, brethren, close me not up in yon receptacle. Where the cold air might shiver on my flesh I may be happy. Yon tomb is dark and dismal, shut from the eye of day. Louder and louder grows your chant, I know its terminating cadence. It falls upon mine ear. Take off this stony lid. Nay, I will knock, knock, knock. My arms are still unraised. They hear me not. Brethren! men! christians! no, monks, monks, monks, cold as the stone ye place upon my breast! Have ye no ears? no hearts? Do I not shout? Do I not pray? Ah! my tongue is one of marble. It is cold and fixed. They will not hear me. Listen! their parting and receding steps. Nay, hasten not away. Silence. No. One step is lingering behind. Thank God! I shout. Brother! what, ho! He hears. Brother! He pauses. What ho! He goes. Brother! Silence is around, hushed as my own attempts to burst a voice. Hark! a noise. No. Silence. Is THIS TO BE DEAD?

Yet in the grave. Years have rolled away. Successors to my chair sleep in the stony sepulchres around me. Monks whom I have awed or blessed, slumber in death. Men, whom I have known not, walk in the cloisters I have built. I am but mentioned as a thing that was—the memory of a name. Enough. There is no communion among the dead. Methought the spirits of the other world held converse on the joys they left on earth. But all is still. I cannot hear a lament, even for a rotted bone. The dead are tongue-tied. In yonder chancel sleeps a monarch, murdered by bloody relations. Should not such a spirit shriek aloud for vengeance, or weep a wailing for his destiny? But all is still. I hear no night owl screech. Earth is the only dwelling place of noise. Death knows it not. Methinks a shriek were music, a sigh were melody, a groan a feast. But no. Time has almost used me to its sombre sameness. Is not time tired to have gone so long the same unchanging course? I cannot move. My joints are aching with continued rest. I cannot turn:—my sides are sunken in. Would I could turn and crush them into bones with my reclining weight. Is my heart sinful that it weighs down all my body. Is this the gnawing and undying worm? Is THIS TO BE DEAD.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 544, April 28, 1832

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THE SKETCH BOOK

THE ABBOT OF TEWKESBURY

(For the Mirror.)

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