THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

ST. CATHERINE OF LEDBURY

Composed 1835.--Published 1835

[Written on a journey from Brinsop Court, Herefordshire.--I.F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

When human touch (as monkish books attest)

Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells

Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells,

And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest;[52]

Sweet tones, and caught by a noble Lady blest

To rapture! Mabel listened at the side

Of her loved mistress: soon the music died,

And Catherine said, Here I set up my rest.

Warned in a dream, the Wanderer long had sought

A home that by such miracle of sound

Must be revealed:--she heard it now, or felt

The deep, deep joy of a confiding thought;

And there, a saintly Anchoress, she dwelt

Till she exchanged for heaven that happy ground.

[52] The Ledbury bells are easily audible on the Malvern hills.--ED.