Of poets song, inspirer oft,--yet still
Many of thy sweet changes wait unsung,--
Differing as are the hearts thine echoes fill,
As various the thoughts then through them rung:--
Who may define these pleasures that arise
Within the soul by quickening spell set free?
As lief may hand essay to paint the skies,
Whose passing glories change eternally.
Is it because we know not whence they come,
And only feel the magic of their power?
Outside our ken, from some Elysian home,
Spring the delights that charm the passing hour;
And heaven itself, beyond thought's bounding line,
Lies pictured still as wishful hearts incline.
Thus ends our visit to what was once the grand earthly home and
possessions of '_the extravagant Lord Cheney_'--one more strange, but
not altogether uncommon phase of human life. How many of these
historic apparitions have crossed the path of our desultory wanderings
over the west-country, flashing like meteors through the gloom of the
past, when summoned by the wizard hand of research, and as quickly
fading and disappearing when its sympathetic power is withdrawn. In
the glance of their happier, or more fortunate, transitory radiance,
may shine the pre-eminent glory of the crown, the mild lustre of the
mitre, the bold glow of the rod of office, or brilliant flash of the
sword; yet thickly interspersed albeit with the lurid gleam of the
axe, and perchance, as to-day, with the pitiful, hasty flicker of the
spendthrift.
So do the glimpses of these noted actors on the passing stage of human
existence, and the memories of their short but eventful careers, come
back to us, with intensely interesting, because real power, alongside
which the strongest flight of Romance is as a phantom. He who affects
to contemn such investigations, and lives only in and for the
present,--ignorant, careless, or indifferent as to the past, and bent
on enjoying, as it is termed, the passing hour,--little wots of the
care, the pain, and the strife, through which those who have gone
before, have fought and toiled and suffered;--lives but half a life,
in itself barren and ephemeral, as it is disassociated from all that
has preceded it and built the foundations of that life up. Whether for
good or for evil, matters not, the continuity of influence cannot be
dissevered, for
"In to-day already walks to-morrow."
From Toddington and our musing over his collateral descendants, our
story finally leads us back to the giant Knight himself, and the
solemn grandeur of Salisbury Cathedral. We take a final look at the
armoured form of this son of Anak, and as we glance at the lines of
recumbent forms,--ecclesiastics,--statesmen,--soldiers, and others,
that held high place during their lives in the government of their
native land, for the five or six eventful centuries, in which, through
much contention, that government was slowly determining and
settling,--the thought arises, how comprehensively this grand
building, as a sheep-fold, whose door is the Gate of Death, hath
silently and surely gathered together here these erstwhile great ones
of the earth at last,--even all sorts and conditions of men,--the
consecrated, the peaceful, the devoted, rest side by side with the
ambitious, the restless, the proud,--
"They live with God, their homes are dust;
But here their children pray."
To the passing wayfarer the glowing desires and anxious longings, that
animated their lives, are now well-nigh forgotten or unknown, and have
vanished in the past as a tale that is told,--"in the sight of the
unwise they seemed to die, but they are in peace," even the peace that
passeth all understanding.