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CORRUPTIONS OF THe higher CLERGY 49

XVII

WICLIFFE

ONCE more the Church is seized with sudden fear,
And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed:

Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed

And flung into the brook that travels near;

4

Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind, Though seldom heard by busy human kind)— "As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear "Into the Avon, Avon to the tide

"Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,

"Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst

"An emblem yields to friends and enemies

"How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified

10

"By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.'

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XVIII

CORRUPTIONS OF THE HIGHER CLERGY

"WOE to you, Prelates! rioting in ease

"And cumbrous wealth-the shame of your estate;

* The Council of Constance condemned Wicliffe as a heretic, and issued an order that his remains should be exhumed, and burnt. "Accordingly, by order of the Bishop of Lincoln, as Diocesan of Lutterworth, his grave, which was in the chancel of the church, was opened, forty years after his death; the bones were taken out and burnt to ashes, and the ashes thrown into a neighbouring brook called the Swift." (Southey's Book of the Church, vol. i. p. 384.) "Thus this brook," says Fuller, "hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." (The Church History of Britain from the Birth of Christ until the year MDCXLVIII. endeavoured, book iv. p. 424.) In the note to the 11th Sonnet of Part I., Wordsworth acknowledges his obligations to Fuller in connection with this Sonnet on Wicliffe.

See Charles Lamb's comment on this passage of Fuller's, Prose Works (1876), vol. iv. p. 277.-ED.

VOL. VII

E

"You, on whose progress dazzling trains await
"Of pompous horses; whom vain titles please;
"Who will be served by others on their knees,
"Yet will yourselves to God no service pay;
"Pastors who neither take nor point the way
"To Heaven; for, either lost in vanities
"Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know
"And speak the word-
'Tis the most fearful when the people's eye
Abuse hath cleared from vain imaginings;
And taught the general voice to prophesy
Of Justice armed, and Pride to be laid low.

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Alas! of fearful things

5

II

XIX

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER

AND what is Penance with her knotted thong;
Mortification with the shirt of hair,
Wan cheek, and knees indúrated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;

If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong

The pious, humble, useful Secular,*

And rob1 the people of his daily care,

5

Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong? Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives 2

1 1827.

And robs

2 1827.

1822.

Scorning their wants because her arm is strong?
Inversion strange! that to a Monk, who lives

1822.

*The secular clergy are the priests of the Roman church, who belong to no special religious order, but have the charge of parishes, and so live in the world (seculum). The regular clergy are the monks belonging to one or other of the monastic orders, and are subject to its rules (regula).—ED.

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS

For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him 1
Who on the good of others builds his own!

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XX

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS

YET more,—round many a Convent's blazing fire
Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun;
There Venus sits disguisèd like a Nun,-
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire-

To stay the precious waste.

Through every brain

The domination of the sprightly juice

Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,2

Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse

Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,

Whose votive burthen is—“OUR KINGDOM'S HERE!

1 1845.

And hath allotted, in the world's esteem,
To such a higher station than to him

That to a Monk allots, in the esteem
Of God and Man, place higher than to him

21832.

1822

1827.

In every brain

Spreads the dominion of the sprightly juice,
Through the wide world to madding Fancy dear,

* See Wordsworth's note to the next Sonnet.-ED.

1822.

5

ΙΟ

XXI

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES

THREATS Come which no submission may assuage,
No sacrifice avert, no power dispute;

The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,
And, 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage;
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit ;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age." *
The owl of evening and the woodland fox

For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose: †
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks-
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.‡

5

ΙΟ

XXII

THE SAME SUBJECT

THE lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek
Through saintly habit than from effort due
To unrelenting mandates that pursue
With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak)

* These two lines are adopted from a MS., written about the year 1770, which accidentally fell into my possession. The close of the preceding Sonnet on monastic voluptuousness is taken from the same source, as is the verse, "Where Venus sits," etc. [W. W. 1822], and the line, "Once ye were holy, ye are holy still," in a subsequent Sonnet.-W. W. 1837.

Waltham Abbey is in Essex, on the Lea.-ED.

Alluding to the Roman legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity into Britain, and built Glastonbury Church. See Part I. Sonnet 11. (p. 5) and note §.-ED.

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES

Goes forth-unveiling timidly a cheek 1
Suffused with blushes of celestial hue,

While through the Convent's 2 gate to open view
Softly she glides, another home to seek.

Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,
An Apparition more divinely bright!
Not more attractive to the dazzled sight
Those watery glories, on the stormy brine

53

Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine, And the green vales lie hushed in sober light!

5

IO

XXIII

CONTINUED

YET many a Novice of the cloistral shade,
And many chained by vows, with eager glee 3

The warrant hail, exulting to be free;

Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed In polar ice, propitious winds have made

Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,

Their liquid world, for bold discovery,

In all her quarters temptingly displayed!

5

Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass The threshold, whither shall they turn to find

The hospitality—the alms (alas!

ΙΟ

Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed? Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind

To keep this new and questionable road?

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