The Abbey Mason

The new-vamped Abbey shaped apaceIn the fourteenth century of grace;

(The church which, at an after date,Acquired cathedral rank and state.)

Panel and circumscribing wall5Of latest feature, trim and tall,

Rose roundabout the Norman coreIn prouder pose than theretofore,

Encasing magically the oldWith parpend ashlars manifold.10

The trowels rang out, and traceryAppeared where blanks had used to be.

Men toiled for pleasure more than pay,And all went smoothly day by day,

Till, in due course, the transept part15Engrossed the master-mason’s art.

—Home-coming thence he tossed and turnedThroughout the night till the new sun burned.

“What fearful visions have inspiredThese gaingivings?” his wife inquired;20

“As if your tools were in your handYou have hammered, fitted, muttered, planned;

“You have thumped as you were working hard:I might have found me bruised and scarred.

“What then’s amiss. What eating care25Looms nigh, whereof I am unaware?”

He answered not, but churchward went,Viewing his draughts with discontent;

And fumbled there the livelong dayTill, hollow-eyed, he came away.30

—’Twas said, “The master-mason’s ill!”And all the abbey works stood still.

Quoth Abbot Wygmore: “Why, O whyDistress yourself? You’ll surely die!”

The mason answered, trouble-torn,35“This long-vogued style is quite outworn!

“The upper archmould nohow servesTo meet the lower tracery curves:

“The ogees bend too far awayTo give the flexures interplay.40

“This it is causes my distress . . .So it will ever be unless

“New forms be found to supersedeThe circle when occasions need.

“To carry it out I have tried and toiled,45And now perforce must own me foiled!

“Jeerers will say: ‘Here was a manWho could not end what he began!’”

—So passed that day, the next, the next;The abbot scanned the task, perplexed;50

The townsmen mustered all their witTo fathom how to compass it,

But no raw artistries availedWhere practice in the craft had failed . . .

—One night he tossed, all open-eyed,55And early left his helpmeet’s side.

Scattering the rushes of the floorHe wandered from the chamber door

And sought the sizing pile, whereonStruck dimly a cadaverous dawn60

Through freezing rain, that drenched the boardOf diagram-lines he last had scored⁠—

Chalked phantasies in vain begotTo knife the architectural knot⁠—

In front of which he dully stood,65Regarding them in hopeless mood.

He closelier looked; then looked again:The chalk-scratched draught-board faced the rain,

Whose icicled drops deformed the linesInnumerous of his lame designs,70

So that they streamed in small white threadsFrom the upper segments to the heads

Of arcs below, uniting themEach by a stalactitic stem.

—At once, with eyes that struck out sparks,75He adds accessory cusping-marks,

Then laughs aloud. The thing was doneSo long assayed from sun to sun . . .

—Now in his joy he grew awareOf one behind him standing there,80

And, turning, saw the abbot, whoThe weather’s whim was watching too.

Onward to Prime the abbot went,Tacit upon the incident.

—Men now discerned as days revolved85The ogive riddle had been solved;

Templates were cut, fresh lines were chalkedWhere lines had been defaced and balked,

And the work swelled and mounted higher,Achievement distancing desire;90

Here jambs with transoms fixed between,Where never the like before had been⁠—

There little mullions thinly sawnWhere meeting circles once were drawn.

“We knew,” men said, “the thing would go95After his craft-wit got aglow,

“And, once fulfilled what he has designed,We’ll honour him and his great mind!”

When matters stood thus poised awhile,And all surroundings shed a smile,100

The master-mason on an eveHomed to his wife and seemed to grieve . . .

—“The abbot spoke to me to-day:He hangs about the works alway.

“He knows the source as well as I105Of the new style men magnify.

“He said: ‘You pride yourself too muchOn your creation. Is it such?

“‘Surely the hand of God it isThat conjured so, and only His!⁠—110

“‘Disclosing by the frost and rainForms your invention chased in vain;

“‘Hence the devices deemed so greatYou copied, and did not create.’

“I feel the abbot’s words are just,115And that all thanks renounce I must.

“Can a man welcome praise and pelfFor hatching art that hatched itself? . . .

“So, I shall own the deft designIs Heaven’s outshaping, and not mine.”120

“What!” said she. “Praise your works ensureTo throw away, and quite obscure

“Your beaming and beneficent star?Better you leave things as they are!

“Why, think awhile. Had not your zest125In your loved craft curtailed your rest⁠—

“Had you not gone there ere the dayThe sun had melted all away!”

—But, though his good wife argued so,The mason let the people know130

That not unaided sprang the thoughtWhereby the glorious fane was wrought,

But that by frost when dawn was dimThe method was disclosed to him.

“Yet,” said the townspeople thereat,135“’Tis your own doing, even with that!”

But he⁠—chafed, childlike, in extremes⁠—The temperament of men of dreams⁠—

Aloofly scrupled to admitThat he did aught but borrow it,140

And diffidently made requestThat with the abbot all should rest.

—As none could doubt the abbot’s word,Or question what the church averred,

The mason was at length believed145Of no more count than he conceived,

And soon began to lose the fameThat late had gathered round his name . . .

—Time passed, and like a living thingThe pile went on embodying,150

And workmen died, and young ones grew,And the old mason sank from view

And Abbots Wygmore and Staunton wentAnd Horton sped the embellishment.

But not till years had far progressed155Chanced it that, one day, much impressed,

Standing within the well-graced aisle,He asked who first conceived the style;

And some decrepit sage detailedHow, when invention nought availed,160

The cloud-cast waters in their whimCame down, and gave the hint to him

Who struck each arc, and made each mould;And how the abbot would not hold

As sole begetter him who applied165Forms the Almighty sent as guide;

And how the master lost renown,And wore in death no artist’s crown.

—Then Horton, who in inner thoughtHad more perceptions than he taught,170

Replied: “Nay; art can but transmute;Invention is not absolute;

“Things fail to spring from nought at call,And art-beginnings most of all.

“He did but what all artists do,175Wait upon Nature for his cue.”

—“Had you been here to tell them soLord Abbot, sixty years ago,

“The mason, now long underground,Doubtless a different fate had found.180

“He passed into oblivion dim,And none knew what became of him!

“His name? ’Twas of some common kindAnd now has faded out of mind.”

The Abbot: “It shall not be hid!185I’ll trace it.” . . . But he never did.

—When longer yet dank death had wormedThe brain wherein the style had germed

From Gloucester church it flew afar⁠—The style called Perpendicular.⁠—190

To Winton and to WestminsterIt ranged, and grew still beautifuller:

From Solway Frith to Dover StrandIts fascinations starred the land,

Not only on cathedral walls195But upon courts and castle halls,

Till every edifice in the isleWas patterned to no other style,

And till, long having played its part,The curtain fell on Gothic art.200

—Well: when in Wessex on your rounds,Take a brief step beyond its bounds,

And enter Gloucester: seek the quoinWhere choir and transept interjoin,

And, gazing at the forms there flung205Against the sky by one unsung⁠—

The ogee arches transom-topped,The tracery-stalks by spandrels stopped,

Petrified lacework⁠—lightly linedOn ancient massiveness behind⁠—210

Muse that some minds so modest beAs to renounce fame’s fairest fee,

(Like him who crystallized on this spotHis visionings, but lies forgot,

And many a mediaeval one215Whose symmetries salute the sun)

While others boom a baseless claim,And upon nothing rear a name.