Chapter III: Part II: =The Pilgrimage.=

They dug his grave e’en where he lay,
But every mark is gone;
Time’s wasting hand has done away
The simple cross of Sybil grey.—_Sir W. Scott._

I.

’Tis Autumn—golden Harvest crown’d
Upon his throne of sheaves sits smiling;
The farmer’s feast goes gaily round,
His summer’s ardent toils beguiling:
When tired of the world’s bustling scene,
I seek the flowery fields again,
To snatch a pleasant holiday
Before their lustre die away;
To tread once more by rural Tyne
A pilgrimage to Baldred’s shrine;
Another votive wreath to shed,
Like hapless poet’s, soon to fade!

II.

In Tyningham’s delicious woods
Her early song the milk-maid sings,
While from the deep’ning solitudes
The spotted plover upward springs;
The woodlark, on the lofty spray,
Pours forth the soul of harmony;
The shrill-toned linnet, in the bush,
Chimes music with the mellow thrush;
And nameless birds of speckled wing,
And golden hues, their offerings bring,
To hail the pilgrim as he gleams
By coppiced woods and shaded streams;
And as I blithely pace the mead,
Fresh with the morning dew,
The flowery carpet which I tread
Glistens with glassy hue;
Enamour’d of the cloudless day
Each floweret woos the sunny ray:
Here, gleaming through its mossy hair.
The wild-rose waves in scented air,
While blue-bells hang their star-like gems,
And pinks and cowslips scatter’d near,
In nature’s varied colours clear,
Gleam lovely on their dewy stems.
Above, arcades tower o’er my head
Like sculptured arches wove on high,
Which round a solemn grandeur spread,
Veiling with clouds of leaves the sky.

III.

Where, shining through the flowery glade,
The mouth of Tyne translucent streams,
Within a lilac covert’s shade
St Baldred’s shrine romantic gleams.
Two Saxon arches still remain;
But, Time, alas! with viewless hand
Completes the labours of the Dane,
And triumphs o’er the brand:
For thou didst feel the shock of war
When fiery Anlaf storming came,
And horrid shrieks were heard afar
As church and town were given to flame.
Alas! that vengeance did not fall
Upon the minstrel-muffled Dane,
When harping bold in Brunsbury hall
He stood before King Athelstane:
Had the snake been crush’d in its gilded fold,
The tide of war might have backward roll’d.

IV.

In this fair mansion of the dead,
Where rests illustrious Hamilton,
’Neath arched niche, with pillowed head,
A statue lies of sculptured stone,
The image of a lady fair,
Whose hands are claspt in silent prayer.
The blessed lamb kneels at her feet—
The lady of Tyningham we greet;
Or, borrowing tradition’s tale,
Shall we the form of Baldred hail?

V.

This were the sweetest spot below
For saint or anchorite to repose;
So mild the morning breezes blow,
So calm the summer evening’s close;
Here, seated in mosaic grot,
With scrip, and book, and rosary,
Devotion, by the world forgot,
Might charm the leaden hours away,
Could man, to reason’s dictates true,
His wayward passions e’er subdue!

VI.

Old Tyningham! thy nut-brown ale
In reaming bumpers flowing,
Once roused the woodman’s sober tale,
And set his heart a-glowing;
Around yon elm, with nimble feet,
They danced—conversed—where green-boughs wave;
The tree which screen’d from summer’s heat,
Now shades their viewless grave!
Thy ancient village, stone by stone,
Removed—its rural inmates gone!
But oft a mossy stone appears
Amidst the leafy solitude,
That marks, where met in other years
The aged tenants of the wood.

VII.

The cheering sea-breeze fans my cheek,
As o’er the thick-strewn furze I seek
A pathway to the glorious ocean,
Whose waters glow in peaceful motion;
Spreading wide her whit’ning wings
The startled seagull soaring springs,
And mingles in the clouds away
As morning melts into the day.
And now I stand on Whitberry’s steep,
And gaze upon the mighty deep,
Where trembles ’neath the wild wave’s shock,
St Baldred’s cradle in the rock;
On which his venerable form
Once rode the billows of the storm.

VIII.

Far, in the blue haze, dimly seen,
I view the beacon-beaming isle,
Stretching its sides in waves serene,
Like a gaunt rugged crocodile
Bathed in the waters of the Nile;
While farther on the horizon’s line
The Fifean shores in shadows shine;
And as through tansied meads I fly,
New images burst on mine eye;
For, hark! the wild bee leaves the flower,
And pilots me to Aldham’s tower.

IX.

Aldham! the wall-flower’s scented bloom
Gleams lovely on thy turrets grey,
And, like the rose strewn on a tomb,
A fragrance sheds around decay.
No more before thy gates is heard
The herald’s trump; thy stable-yard
Is empty now, and netted o’er
With weeds, and hingeless stands each door;
No harps are murmuring in the hall;
No armour glittering on the wall;
For gone are knight and seneschal,—
The voice of man is dumb!
And nought but ghosts, so gaunt and tall,
At dreary midnight come,
Denouncing vengeance on the spade
That gave to levelling Time its aid;
For Aldham church is gone!
Nor bust nor cipher left to show,
Where death has laid the mighty low.
Time does not spare the mundic urn,
The ruthless ploughshare robs the worm,
O man to fortune blind!
Despite what power and art devised,
The saint whom nations canonized
Is scatter’d by the wind.
But let me leave this darker scene,
And seaward hold my course again,
While brighter scenes before me rise,
Where yon high rock in grandeur lies.

X.

Proud Bass! amidst the crystal sea
Thou’rt like a fairy-haunted isle,
Now echoing blithe the sportsman’s glee,
Now bright with Beauty’s radiant smile.
Upon the wave right glad we hail
Thy rugged face, and strike the sail;
And land upon thy rocky shore,
Stunn’d by the breakers rising roar.
Escap’d the perils of the deep,
We almost kneel to kiss thy steep.

Alas! we may not mark the spot
Where stood the hermit’s holy cell;
Its sacred precincts are forgot,
And if we find his crystal well,
’Tis but the stubborn truth to tell
That streams and rocks remain the same—
Man rather makes the change of scene
Than nature; for she shineth now
With birds in many a snowy flock,
As bright as when the priest did bow
Before the altar of the rock!—

XI.

Here Pleasure steers her painted barge—
Joy smiling on the prow;
And soon her votaries roam at large
On thy romantic brow;
Now gazing o’er the dark-blue sea,—
Now seated on the ground,
The cold collation circles free,
While every heart is big with glee,
And jests are passing round;
And as the malt foams by in tides,
Droll Humour holds his shaking sides;
While on their feet, a joyful band
Tread lightsome measure, hand in hand,
To the violin’s dancing voice,
Mellow’d with the flute’s deep tone,
That bids them, while they may, rejoice,
For Pleasure’s blossoms soon are blown.

XII.

Here, oft the boatman rests his oar,
While o’er the rock the fowler hung,
Like the bold youth of Kilda’s shore,
Descends to seek the solan’s young.
That bird, which on gigantic wing,
Like Cormorant, delights to soar,
Then downward makes her deadly spring,
Unfathom’d waters to explore.
Wo to the silvery shoals that lie
’Neath the bright lustre of her eye,
When, like a shark, she cleaves the wave,
To make—but not to find a grave.

Where fissures in the rock are riven,
Birds cluster thick as stars of heaven.
The tarrock shines, like snowy speck;
The pewit gleams with dusky neck;—
The puffin with her crimson bill,
Deem’d sacred by the lone Kurile,
Beholds the fishers shooting by,
And mimics man with mournful cry.
Till, hark! explodes the thund’ring gun,
And feathery myriads veil the sun;
Unnumber’d as the flakes of snow,
When drifting gales o’er Soutra blow.

XIII.

This rock! where Pictish chiefs held sway,
Was patriots’ boast of latter day;
Men, who, by Freedom’s watch-word led,
With Wallace for their country bled;
First to oppose tyrannic laws,
The last to leave their sovereign’s cause.
Would’st thou inquire the honour’d name
For whom the muse her meed would claim?
Go to North Berwick’s aisles elate,
And read of Lauder good and great!
These ancient lairds did long retain
The Bass. The solan was their crest,—
And much they loved her lofty nest,
Which kings had coveted in vain.
“I’ll hae my auld crag back again!”
Said Lauder to his lord’s request:
“But come ye here in weal or woe,
“My sword is ready for your foe;
“As erst, in treason’s gloomy hour,
“On faction’s billows wildly driven,
“My holde did shelter Scotia’s flower,
“When from its parent stem ’twas riven.”

XIV.

Proud rock! thou’st seen a motley race,
Since here St Baldred rear’d his cell;
Like shadows o’er thy rugged face,
I see their forms around me swell:
There gleams the Pict a warrior brave,
And Covenanter plodding grave;
And murderous Pirate, bath’d in gore,
Frowning defiance on the shore;
Where silken-streamer’d barges flock,
Plied dusky chiefs in light carrock;
And where the modern villa glows,
Huts like the Indian wigwam rose;
And lands were bleak where tempest’s scowl’d,
And monsters ‘mid the brushwood prowl’d;
In marshes deep the otter play’d,
Lit by the vapour’s deadly shade;
Till culture on the ploughshare smiled,
And gardens glitter’d in the wild!—
Ere Meikle, with inventive mind,
Abridged the labours of mankind.
Man also changed;—’twas but in name
His selfish passions were the same!
With more of specious shew and art
He bore conceal’d a savage heart!
Was there in Goran’s gloomy reign
A darker page, of redder stain,
Than that which British annals show’d,
When persecution’s torches glow’d,
And men were at their altars shriven,
Because, as conscience bid, they worshipp’d heaven!

XV.

Then Scotia wept, on Bothwell’s plain,
O’er her lone Covenanters slain;
Her zealous clergy chased abroad,
(Deem’d martyrs in the cause of God,)
Before the fierce militia fled,
Denied a home to rest their head;
But as the harmless fawn will bay
When hope has left him for dismay,
So, in affliction’s furnace school’d,
The blood grew warm that might have cool’d,
And firmer for their rights they stood,
And burst their chains though link’d in blood;
Then in the Bass’s dungeons strong
Was pouring Babel’s captive song;
And kiss’d their bonds those sterner few,
Whom threats nor torture could subdue.
Peden, who, with prophetic eye,
Did Bothwell’s fatal fight descry;
Brave Earlston (of Gordon’s line,)
Whose sword sharp-edged for Christ did shine;
Hogg, Rule, and Erskine, men of yore,
Who Scotland’s pulpit honours bore;
And Blackadder, whose pious toil
Resembled his of Patmos isle,
Till, like the dove that found no rest,
He sought in heaven a peaceful nest.

XVI.

Farewell! the pilgrim seeks the shore,
Once more we ply the sounding oar;
And as I leap upon the strand,
By Fancy’s form-creating wand,
Their watch the warders keep,
As by Tantallon’s towers I stand,
That crown the wave-worn steep;
Fair Clara waves her hand on high,
While lordly Marmion gallops by;
Till rising, like a warrior’s ghost,
I see the Douglas’ form in awful shadows lost!

Here, like some veteran seared with scars,
The castle’s front appears sublime,
Which braved the brunt of civil wars,
As now it mocks the siege of time;
For, jealous of proud March’s power,
The Douglas built this mighty tower;
And soon that baron held command
O’er the most powerful of the land;
His country’s friend, his sov’reign’s dread,
From royalty he ask’d no meed,
Save that applause his bosom gave,
Turbulent as the Pentland’s wave!
Now bell’d the cat at Lauder bridge;
Now bearded James on Stirling’s ridge;
With haughty heart, unknown to yield,
Stubborn as that upon his shield;
For he whom thousand hearts obey’d,
Ill brook’d when wavering monarchs sway’d;
But when the sound of Southron’s horn
Among his native valleys ran,
All private feuds were held in scorn,
And mighty Douglas led the van;
As witness Cheviot’s fatal fray,
As witness Flodden’s bloody day;
The Stuart never held command
O’er truer heart and firmer hand.

XVII.

Near to Tantallon is a spring,—
St Baldred’s well
The maidens tell,
Where birds will dip their charmed wing,
And more melodious sing.
As the parch’d Arab sips the brook
Devotedly, a draught I took,
When all was shining as a dream,
And round romantic forms did teem.
Methought I saw a beauteous maid
Steal softly from the greenwood shade,
And, as she knelt her rosary counting,
Thus spake the spirit of the fountain:

Spirit.

Maid, why lov’st thou Baldred’s spring?
Does its sedge-crown’d waters bring
Forgetfulness, like that dull stream
That sooth’d the Grecian’s noonday dream?
Do its fallings, whispering near,
Charm thy love-enchanted ear,
And with the music of its voice
Bid thy parched heart rejoice?

Maid.

Stranger! in that font I trace
Sorrows in my faded face,
Where, within its waters clear,
Brighter shadows did appear,
When like dryad, young and fair,
I lean’d to busk my bridal hair,—
Bridal hair that ne’er was tied;
The morn arrived—the bridegroom died!
Now, I deem some spirit dwells
In that fountain’s crystal wells,
Where the echoes of a voice
Bid me still, rejoice! rejoice!
Since life’s short and stormy day,
Like noiseless waters, steals away,
Till on heaven’s bosom it doth lie,
Mingled with Eternity.

XVIII.

I woke, but, lo! this vestal maid
Had vanish’d to her native shade;
When leaving Baldred’s sacred rill,
And winding round by Hamer’s hill,
Beside her ancient church I stood,
And the blithe priests of Holyrood
Came, marshalling, in merry mood.
But soon they flit, an aerial train,
Like rustling of the wind;
And, though the harp’s lone chords complain;
Deign not to look behind.
I sought St Mary’s chapel fair,—
The holy font was dry!
No priests were there to mutter prayer
For pilgrim passing by;
All, tomb-like, was her silent quire,
As when the ruthless Edward came,
And gave, in retributive ire,
The lady’s white-robed church to flame,
When on these shores he saw his navy driven,
And strove with mortal arm to strike at heaven!

XIX.

To Binning Wood I wander’d on,
Where leafy labyrinths darkly shone;
I walk’d upon enchanted ground,
’Neath boughs that clustering met around,
Where a lone flowery circle spreads
In beauty. Fays their small harps sound
Reclining on their violet-beds,
When here in moonlight hours they meet
Beneath the fox-glove’s purple bell,
To shake their soft elastic feet,
As loves, unearthly deem’d, they tell.

And, O! ’tis sweet among these bowers
The blushing hermit-rose to seek;
For still this lovely queen of flowers
Reminds me of Maria’s cheek;
While sylvan spirits hover bland,
And verdant deck the lady’s shrine
Who bade these canopies expand,
In Gothic-fashion’d wreathes to twine.

XX.

In spiral clouds, through holly’s green,
The meadow-hamlet’s smoke I spy,
As hastening, ere the fall of e’en,
To Preston’s sacred shades I fly;
While playful in my path appears
The house-dog pricking up his ears,
And rosy boys that struggling seek
Who first a parent’s name may speak;
And, as expression warms each face,
Rush fondly to their sire’s embrace.

Short greetings were as shortly made,
When winding by the river’s shade,
Where fertile pastures shine,
I stood by Baldred’s noisy wheel,
Where, serpent-like, the waters steal
Bright, through the groves of Tyne.
I sought in Preston’s holy fane,
But all my search was given in vain
To find his sacred shrine;
Here wakes no midnight anthem’s swell,
No croslet mark remains to tell
Where the saint’s relics lie;
For time, alas! long since has thrown
Oblivion o’er the moulder’d stone,
And veil’d it from the eye!
The moralist may homeward turn,
The futile works of man to mourn;
If mean and lowly be his lot,
The great alike will be forgot!
If earthly glory dims his eyes,
Here let him ponder, and be wise!

END OF ST BALDRED.

NOTES TO SAINT BALDRED.

=Introductory Stanzas.=

1.

Stanza i. page 9.

_Here ocean’s waves usurp the rural scene,
And the blue waters gird the mountain’s zone,
Where spread of yore the verdant blooming plain._

There are some ingenious observations on the sea-coast, in the appendix to the Agricultural Survey of East Lothian, wherein the writer supposes that the ancient fortress of Tantallon, which is now nearly insulated, once stood at a considerable distance from the sea. He imagines that the perpendicular shore on each side of the castle, which consists for the most part of soft earth, and upwards of two hundred feet in height, leads the mind back to the time when this shore ended in a gentle slope, and extended greatly beyond the Bass.

2.

Stanza v. page 11.

_Where breezes creep
O’er Fidrey’s sacred isle._

As early as the reign of William, a chapel stood on the isle of Fidrey, near the shore of Elbotle, (now forming part of the parish of Dirleton,) dedicated to St Nicolas. The ruins still remain.

3.

Stanza v. page 11.

_The sea-calf roll’d by,
Forsook her briny pool, and lick’d the patriarch dry._

_Bede_ relates of St Cuthbert, that when on a visit to the Abbess of Coldingham, one of the monks having discovered that the saint left the monastery in the night, had the curiosity to trace his steps, when he discovered him on the sea-shore, standing up to the neck in water, where he spent the hours in prayer till the time of the morning devotions. Having retired from the waves, two sea calves came forth from the sea, and, approaching the saint, warmed his feet with their breath, and wiped them dry with their skins, after which, on receiving his benediction, they retired to the deep.

4.

Stanza viii. page 13.

_He also taught
To rear the rustic dome, which, formed of stone,
Fair architecture to perfection brought._

Fenan, the successor of Aidan at Lindisfarn, built a church in the Scottish fashion, of beams and planks of oak, covered with reeds, which in those times was judged fit for the seat of a bishop.—See _Bede_, book iii. chap. 25. The splendid cathedral of York, which is esteemed the largest and most magnificent in Europe, owes its origin to a church built hastily of wood about the time of this poem, and dedicated to St Peter. These rustic houses of prayer were held in such veneration, that afterwards, as was the case with York Minster, when churches of stone began to be built, they commonly comprehended the old fabric within their walls. From various passages in Bede, it appears that the monks employed their leisure hours in the cultivation of agriculture and of the arts. Easterwin, colleague of the abbot of Weremouth, though a man of noble birth, and who had been the minister of King Egfrid, yet having abandoned secular affairs, he sought not to be distinguished from the other brethren, but would fan, grind, milk cows or sheep, guide the plough, beat out iron, work in the bakehouse, &c., and employ himself in any business relative to the monastery as an example to others.—See _Border Hist. Scot._

5.

Stanza ix. page 13.

_And, fair, her house of prayer was seen to rise,
Where the Cistertian sisters loved to dwell,
Beneath the mighty shade of Lothian’s Alpine hill._

The ruins of the Cistertian nunnery of North Berwick stand on an eminence south-west from the town, and command a delightful view of the sea, the shores of Fife, the Bass, and an immense conical hill, called North Berwick Law, which rises at least 800 feet above the level of the sea. Of this nunnery there are three views in Grose’s Scottish Antiquities. It was consecrated to the Virgin Mary, and founded by Malcolm, son of Duncan, Earl of Fife, in 1216. Besides the patronage of the church of Kilconchar, granted to this place by the Earls of Carrick, and other advowsons, Dame Isabel Home, daughter to Alexander Home of Polwart, prioress of this nunnery, gave to her kinsman, Alexander Home, in feu, the teind sheaves of Largo church in Fife, in 1532; and Dame Margaret Home, her successor, and daughter to the same family, gave a tack of the parsonage-teinds of Logie, in the diocese of Dunblane, to Sir Patrick Home of Polwart and his heirs, in 1555.—See _Spotswood’s Acct. Religious Houses_. But Sir James Dalrymple states, that the elder Earl Duncan, who died in 1154, was the founder, whose father gave to the monastery the lands of Muthritht in Fife, and other lands, which were confirmed by King William, as also those of Kirkamstown, and of two hospitals. The church had been originally the cell or kirk of a religious person, called Campston.

At the Reformation the revenues of the nunnery were converted by operation of law into a lordship for Sir Alexander Home, a favourite of James VI. At this epoch the nunnery was inhabited by eleven nuns, who had each L.20 a year.—See _Caledonia_, vol. ii. p. 506.

A picturesque ruin stands on a sandy eminence, near the harbour of North Berwick. The adjacent ground seems to have been a burial place, from the number of human bones scattered around.—_Grose_.

At Elbotle and Golyn there were also convents of Cistertians; but what may appear remarkable, these cells belonged not to North Berwick, but to _South_ Berwick.

6.

Stanza xi. page 14.

_Methinks, oft gazing o’er Bodotria’s tide,
King Brude and Baldred sat in cavern’d shade._

_Bodotria Æstuarium_, the mouth of the Frith of Forth.

NOTES TO SAINT BALDRED.