Cambridge (England) -- Description and travel; University of Cambridge
Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the architect who planned--
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed Scholars only--this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more;
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering--and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
When the sunlight falls athwart the great windows the tracery and the
moulded stonework on either side are painted with "the soft
chequerings" of rainbow hues, and the magnificent glass shows at its
best all its marvellously fine detail, as well as the beauty of its
colour. The whole range of twenty-six windows having been executed
under two contracts, dated 1516 and 1526, there was opportunity for
carrying out a great subject scheme, and thus it was found possible to
illustrate practically the whole Gospel story, culminating in the
Crucifixion in the east window, and continuing into apostolic times
until the death of the Virgin Mary. At the west end is the one modern
window. It represents the Last Judgement. It is safe to say that of
their period this glorious set of windows has no real rival, and it is
hardly possible to do them any justice if the visitor has become a
little jaded with sight-seeing. In one of the windows there is a
splendidly drawn three-masted ship of the period (Henry VIII.'s
reign), high in the bow and stern, with her long-boat in the water
amidships, and every detail of the rigging so clearly shown that the
artist must have drawn it from a vessel in the Low Countries or some
English port. It is one of the best representations of a ship of the
period extant. This is merely an indication of the vivid
archaeological interest of the glass, apart from its beauty in the
wonderful setting of fan vaulting and tall, gracefully moulded shafts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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