The Monk: Chapters 5–6

The night was dark; The wind blew cold;
Anacreon, grown morose and old,
Sat by his fire, and fed the chearful flame

Or bid provoking dreams flit round her bed;
On Damon’s amorous breast repose;
Wanton—on Chloe’s lip of rose,
Or make her blushing cheek a pillow for thy head.

Nor think grown wise and old
This hoary head again thy yoke shall bear

Do You to Me these words address?
To Me, who do not love you less,
Though You my friendship scorn, and pleasures past revile!

A feather now of golden hue
He smiling from his pinion drew

Attracted by the harmonious sound,
Sylvans and Fauns the Cot surround,
And curious crowd the Minstrel to behold:
The Wood-nymphs haste the spell to prove

Cupid, to nothing constant long,
Perched on the Harp attends the song,
Or stifles with a kiss the dulcet notes

He finds himself assailed by partial and ill-humoured Criticism: One Man finds fault with the plan, Another with the style, a Third with the precept, which it strives to inculcate; and they who cannot succeed in finding fault with the Book, employ themselves in stigmatizing its Author.

However, if you cannot help being occasionally seized with a poetical paroxysm, take at least the precaution of communicating your verses to none but those whose partiality for you secures their approbation.

For instance, you make a terrible confusion of metaphors; You are too apt to make the strength of your lines consist more in the words than sense; Some of the verses only seem introduced in order to rhyme with others; and most of the best ideas are borrowed from other Poets, though possibly you are unconscious of the theft yourself.

Without imparting her design to anyone, She took an opportunity of dispatching the following note to Lorenzo.

Vexed and disappointed Leonella rose from her seat, and retired in dudgeon to her own apartment.

Consider me equally as your Friend and Parent, and apprehend no reproof from me.

Antonia kissed her hand, and promised implicit obedience.

Accustomed to wealth and ease, ill could my Husband support the transition to distress and indigence.

A mournful presage tells my heart, that never
Gonzalvo’s steps again shall press thy shore.

Ah! Happy Swain! He waits the accustomed hour,
When twilight-gloom obscures the closing sky;
Then gladly seeks his loved paternal bower

No more mine ear shall list the well-known ditty
Sung by some Mountain-Girl, who tends her Goats,
Some Village-Swain imploring amorous pity,
Or Shepherd chaunting wild his rustic notes

Far from these joys, with sighs which Memory traces,
To sultry skies, and distant climes I go.

Where Indian Suns engender new diseases,
Where snakes and tigers breed, I bend my way

To brave the feverish thirst no art appeases,
The yellow plague, and madding blaze of day

She leaves no means untried to persuade young Women of rank to become Members of her Community: She is implacable when once incensed, and has too much intrepidity to shrink at taking the most rigorous measures for punishing the Offender.

My measures are broken through: This order commands me to deliver up to you the Sister Agnes without delay; I am therefore obliged to inform you without circumlocution, that on Friday last, She expired.

He looked forward with horror; His heart was despondent, and became the abode of satiety and disgust.

No longer repressed by the sense of shame, He gave a loose to his intemperate appetites.

He shuddered at reflecting that a trifling indiscretion on his part, or on Matilda’s, would overturn that fabric of reputation which it had cost him thirty years to erect, and render him the abhorrence of that People of whom He was then the Idol.

He trusted easily to be forgiven so slight and natural a deviation from his vows: But He forgot that having pronounced those vows, Incontinence, in Laymen the most venial of errors, became in his person the most heinous of crimes.

She opened the wicket and sought for the door leading to the subterraneous Vaults, where reposed the mouldering Bodies of the Votaries of St. Clare.

Agnes has many Friends in the Convent, and in particular the Mother St. Ursula will espouse her cause most warmly.

She seems sensible of her fault; The excess of her grief proves her penitence, and I am convinced that her tears flow more from contrition than fear of punishment.

“I design,” said He, “to request an audience of the Domina tomorrow, and use every means of obtaining a mitigation of her sentence.”

The noble frankness of his temper was exchanged for servile humility; and in order to break his natural spirit, the Monks terrified his young mind by placing before him all the horrors with which Superstition could furnish them: They painted to him the torments of the Damned in colours the most dark, terrible, and fantastic, and threatened him at the slightest fault with eternal perdition.

All impediments yielded before the force of his temperament, warm, sanguine, and voluptuous in the excess.

He acceded to the request. The Petitioner returned him thanks with every mark of gratitude, and then continued.

Her fears had conquered even her natural loquacity, and while in his presence She uttered not a single syllable.

He bad her reflect on the infinite mercy of her Judge, despoiled Death of his darts and terrors, and taught her to view without shrinking the abyss of eternity, on whose brink She then stood.

She replied with diffidence, but without restraint: She feared not to relate to him all her little sorrows, all her little fears and anxieties; and She thanked him for his goodness with all the genuine warmth which favours kindle in a young and innocent heart.

“Upon my word, Antonia, you argue very closely! Your conclusions are infallible! I did not suspect you of being so able a Logician.”

Now all is hushed; The solemn chime
No longer swells the nightly gale:
Thy awful presence, Hour sublime,
With spotless heart once more I hail.

’Tis now the moment still and dread,
When Sorcerers use their baleful power;
When Graves give up their buried dead
To profit by the sanctioned hour