Analysis of St. Mawgan Church and Lanhern Nunnery, Cornwall
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
The old Mansion of Lanhern belonged to the Lords Arundell, of Wardour. It was given in 1794 by Henry Eighth, Lord Arundell, as an asylum for a convent of English Theresian nuns, who had migrated from Antwerp, in consequence of the invasion of the French. The sisterhood, or rather their successors, still continue secluded in the old and lonely house now called the Lanhern Nunnery.
It stands amid the sheltering boughs,
A place of peace—a place of rest,
Where the veiled virgin’s hourly vows
By prayer and penitence are blest.
The sunshine rests upon the walls
More golden than the common day,
And there a stiller shadow falls
Than rests on life’s tumultuous way.
Alas ! why should this quiet place
Bring fancies of unrest to me ;
Why looks forth that beloved face
I seem in every place to see ?
Ah, what may not those walls conceal !
The sunshine of that sainted shrine
Might from its inmost depths reveal
Some spirit passionate as mine ;
Some one condemned in youth to part
From all that made her youth so dear,
To listen to her beating heart,
In shame—in solitude and fear :
To know no hope before the grave,
To fear there is no hope beyond,
Yet scarcely dare of heaven to crave.
Forgiveness for a faith too fond :
To feel the white and vestal veil
Grow wet and warm with worldly tears,
To pass the midnight watching pale,
Yet tremble when the day appears
Prostrate before the cross to kneel,
With eyes that may not look above;
How dare the delicate to feel
The agony of earthly love ?
O ! misery, for the young heart doomed
To waste and weep its youth away,
To be within itself entombed,
And desperate with the long decay !
Yes, misery ! but there may he
A yet more desperate despair ;
There is a love whose misery
Mocks all those cells may soothe and share.
There the pale nun at least can keep
One treasured and unbroken dream ;
The love for which she wakes to weep,
Seems ever what it once could seem.
She knows not time’s uncharming touch
Destroying every early hue ;
The false !—she dreameth not of such—
Her love is still the deep, the true.
Not so the love of common life,
’Tis coloured by the common air ;
Its atmosphere with death is rife,
A moral pestilence is there.
Fevered—exacting—false and vain,
Like a disease, it lingers on,
Though all that blest its first sweet reign,
Its morning dew and light, are gone.
Such is the actual life of love,
Such is the love that I have known ;
Unworthy of the heaven above—
Dust, like the earth where it has grown.
Ah ! better far alone to dwell,
Dreaming above the dearest past,
And keeping in the silent cell,
Life’s best illusions to the last
Scheme | A BCBCDEDE FAFAGHGH IJIJKLKL MXMXGNGN OEOEAPAP QRQRSTST UPUPVXVX NWNWXYXY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 011011011011111110011011111010101011011111011001001001010101001101010101001000101011101100 110101001 01110111 10110101 110111 0110101 11010101 0101011 11111001 01111101 11010111 1111011 110100111 11111101 0111101 1111101 11010011 11010111 11110111 11010101 0101001 11110101 11111101 110111011 01010111 11010101 11011101 1101101 11010101 10010111 11111101 11010011 01001101 110010111 11011101 11010101 01010101 11001111 0111001 11011100 11111101 10111111 11000101 01111111 11011111 111111 010100101 0111111 01110101 11011101 11010101 1101111 01010011 10010101 10011101 11111111 11010111 110100111 11011111 010101001 11011111 11010111 10010101 01000101 11010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,743 |
Words | 468 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 65 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 226 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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"St. Mawgan Church and Lanhern Nunnery, Cornwall" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/45279/st.-mawgan-church-and-lanhern-nunnery%2C-cornwall>.
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