The progress of this house’s fate.
A nunnery first gave it birth,
(For virgin buildings oft brought forth)
And all that neighbour-ruin shows
The quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy cloister’s gates,
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwaites,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir,
Which might deformity make fair;
And oft she spent the summer’s suns
Discoursing with the subtle Nuns,
Whence, in these words, one to her weav’d,
As ’twere by chance, thoughts long conceiv’d:
‘Within this holy leisure, we
Live innocently, as you see.
These walls restrain the world without,
But hedge our liberty about;
These bars inclose that wilder den
Of those wild creatures, callèd men,
The cloister outward shuts its gates,
And, from us, locks on them the grates.
Here we, in shining armour white,
Like virgin amazons do fight,
And our chaste lamps we hourly trim,
Lest the great Bridegroom find them dim.
Our orient breaths perfumèd are
With incense of incessant prayer;
And holy-water of our tears
Most strangely our complexion clears;
Not tears of grief, but such as those
With which calm pleasure overflows;
Or pity, when we look on you
That live without this happy vow.
How should we grieve that must be seen
Each one a spouse, and each a queen,
And can in heaven hence behold
Our brighter robes and crowns of gold!
When we have prayèd all our beads,
Some one the holy Legend reads,
While all the rest with needles paint
The face and graces of the Saint;
Some of your features, as we sewed,
Through every shrine should be bestowed,
And in one beauty we would take
Enough a thousand Saints to make.
And (for I dare not quench the fire
That me does for your good inspire)
’Twere sacrilege a man to admit
To holy things for heaven fit.
I see the angels in a crown
On you the lilies showering down;
And round about you glory breaks,
That something more than human speaks.
All beauty when at such a height,
Is so already consecrate.
Fairfax I know, and long ere this
Have marked the youth, and what he is;
But can he such a rival seem,
For whom you heaven should disesteem?
Ah, no! and ’twould more honour prove
He your devoto were than Love.
Here live belovèd and obeyed,
Each one your sister, each your maid,
And, if our rule seem strictly penned,
The rule itself to you shall bend.
Our Abbess, too, now far in age,
Doth your succession near presage.
How soft the yoke on us would lie,
Might such fair hands as yours it tie!
Your voice, the sweetest of the choir,
Shall draw heaven nearer, raise us higher,
And your example, if our head,
Will soon us to perfection lead.
Those virtues to us all so dear,
Will straight grow sanctity when here;
And that, once sprung, increase so fast,
Till miracles it work at last’ ”
What reply was given by the heiress to these arguments, and others of a still more seductive hue, the poet does not tell, but turns to the eager lover who asks, What should he do? He hints that a nunnery is no place for a virtuous maid, and that the nuns (unlike himself, I hope) are only thinking of her property. He complains that though the Court has authorised him to use either peace or force, the nuns still stand upon their guard.
“Ill-counselled women, do you know
Whom you resist or what you do?”
Using a most remarkable poetic licence, the poet refers to the fact that this barred-out lover is to be the progenitor of the great Lord Fairfax.
“Is not this he, whose offspring fierce
Shall fight through all the universe;
And with successive valour try
France, Poland, either Germany,
Till one, as long since prophesied,
His horse through conquered Britain ride?”
The lover determines to take the place by assault. It was not a very heroic enterprise, as Marvell describes it.
“Some to the breach, against their foes,
Their wooden Saints in vain oppose;
Another bolder, stands at push,
With their old holy-water brush,
While the disjointed Abbess threads
The jingling chain-shot of her beads;
But their loud’st cannon were their lungs,
And sharpest weapons were their tongues.
But waving these aside like flies,
Young Fairfax through the wall does rise.
Then the unfrequented vault appeared,
And superstition, vainly feared;
The relicks false were set to view;
Only the jewels there were true,
And truly bright and holy Thwaites,
That weeping at the altar waits.
But the glad youth away her bears,
And to the Nuns bequeathes her tears,
Who guiltily their prize bemoan,
Like gypsies who a child have stol’n.”
The poet then goes on to glorify the results of this union and to describe happy days spent at Nunappleton by the descendants of Isabella Thwaites.
“At the demolishing, this seat
To Fairfax fell, as by escheat;
And what both nuns and founders willed,
’Tis likely better thus fulfilled.
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remainèd hers;
Though many a nun there made her vow,
’Twas no religious house till