Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased
to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed
the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into
life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses,
with their fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting
gallop, were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet
sounded; the seals were taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of
life, tore into their channels again; again the choir burst forth in
sunny grandeur, as from the muffling of storms and darkness; again the
thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry
burst from our lips as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed
it empty before us--"Whither has the infant fled?--is the young child
caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty
windows to the clouds; and on a level with their summits, at height
insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. On its eastern
face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence came _that_? Was it from the
reddening dawn that now streamed _through_ the windows? Was it from the
crimson robes of the martyrs that were painted _on_ the windows? Was
it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoever it were--there,
within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female head, and then
a female figure. It was the child--now grown up to woman's height.
Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood--sinking, rising,
trembling, fainting--raving, despairing; and behind the volume of
incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen
the fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful
being that should baptise her with the baptism of death. But by her
side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that
wept and pleaded for _her_; that prayed when _she_ could _not_; that
fought with heaven by tears for _her_ deliverance; which also, as he
raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in
his eye, that he had won at last.
[18] _Campo Santo._--It is probable that most of my readers will be
acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa--composed of
earth brought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanctity, as the highest
prize which the noble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. There
is another Campo Santo at Naples, formed, however, (I presume,) on the
example given by Pisa. Possibly the idea may have been more extensively
copied. To readers who are unacquainted with England, or who (being
English) are yet unacquainted with the cathedral cities of England,
it may be right to mention that the graves within-side the cathedrals
often form a flat pavement over which carriages and horses might roll;
and perhaps a boyish remembrance of one particular cathedral, across
which I had seen passengers walk and burdens carried, may have assisted
my dream.
5.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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