LINES ON A PICTURE OF RESTORED GLASTONBURY.
Short-sighted Reason pondered long alone;Experience and Deduction lent their aid;They measured well and carefully each stone,And calculated where each groin was laid;But still th' elusive vision of the PastEvaded each attempt to hold it fast!Then came Imagination, Maid Divine,And forthwith, wakened from its resting-place,The Past arose, till pictured line on lineThe Abbey stood in all its ancient grace.Awestruck, they gazed upon that House of Prayer,Then silently went in, and worshipped there.Thus, in the places waste and desolate,Where saintly spirits struggled through the night,In ages past, you still may find the GateOf Heaven open, letting down the light;Still find on Yniswitrin's altars, pale,The gleaming vision of the Holy Grail.
Short-sighted Reason pondered long alone;Experience and Deduction lent their aid;They measured well and carefully each stone,And calculated where each groin was laid;But still th' elusive vision of the PastEvaded each attempt to hold it fast!Then came Imagination, Maid Divine,And forthwith, wakened from its resting-place,The Past arose, till pictured line on lineThe Abbey stood in all its ancient grace.Awestruck, they gazed upon that House of Prayer,Then silently went in, and worshipped there.Thus, in the places waste and desolate,Where saintly spirits struggled through the night,In ages past, you still may find the GateOf Heaven open, letting down the light;Still find on Yniswitrin's altars, pale,The gleaming vision of the Holy Grail.
Short-sighted Reason pondered long alone;Experience and Deduction lent their aid;They measured well and carefully each stone,And calculated where each groin was laid;But still th' elusive vision of the PastEvaded each attempt to hold it fast!
Short-sighted Reason pondered long alone;
Experience and Deduction lent their aid;
They measured well and carefully each stone,
And calculated where each groin was laid;
But still th' elusive vision of the Past
Evaded each attempt to hold it fast!
Then came Imagination, Maid Divine,And forthwith, wakened from its resting-place,The Past arose, till pictured line on lineThe Abbey stood in all its ancient grace.Awestruck, they gazed upon that House of Prayer,Then silently went in, and worshipped there.
Then came Imagination, Maid Divine,
And forthwith, wakened from its resting-place,
The Past arose, till pictured line on line
The Abbey stood in all its ancient grace.
Awestruck, they gazed upon that House of Prayer,
Then silently went in, and worshipped there.
Thus, in the places waste and desolate,Where saintly spirits struggled through the night,In ages past, you still may find the GateOf Heaven open, letting down the light;Still find on Yniswitrin's altars, pale,The gleaming vision of the Holy Grail.
Thus, in the places waste and desolate,
Where saintly spirits struggled through the night,
In ages past, you still may find the Gate
Of Heaven open, letting down the light;
Still find on Yniswitrin's altars, pale,
The gleaming vision of the Holy Grail.
John Alleyne.
1917.
PLATE III.GLASTONBURY ABBEY.Conjectural reconstruction of interior (drawn in 1908) as seen from the north transept, looking towards the Quire. N.B.—The arch in the foreground, communicating with a supposed western aisle, is an artistic license.Frontispiece to Part II.
PLATE III.
GLASTONBURY ABBEY.Conjectural reconstruction of interior (drawn in 1908) as seen from the north transept, looking towards the Quire. N.B.—The arch in the foreground, communicating with a supposed western aisle, is an artistic license.Frontispiece to Part II.
GLASTONBURY ABBEY.
Conjectural reconstruction of interior (drawn in 1908) as seen from the north transept, looking towards the Quire. N.B.—The arch in the foreground, communicating with a supposed western aisle, is an artistic license.
Frontispiece to Part II.