The following rather epic poem is entitled “Newnham Regis”, although it seems to have been part of a longer work called Horae Podagrinae, by Allesley Ward-Boughton-Leigh. The work reflects on the activities in the 1850s that uncovered various graves belonging to St Laurence’s Church which were of various members of the Leigh Family – discussed here. The poet is clearly not enamoured that the graves were disturbed.
A ROOFLESS lonely tower still marks the spot
Where once the Church of Newnham Regis stood :
The ivy, now her sole remaining friend,
With tenderness her aged arms around
That weather-beaten ruin fondly wreathes.
Still closely clings, when coldest beats the storm.
And to her crumbling masonry affords
A rude support — denied at least by one,
The faithless guardian of her prostrate shrines.
Whom it had well behov’d to shield from shame
The sacred relics of his kindred dust.
The owl, sole tenant of those tott’ring walls,
Sails through the dusky air with lab’ring wing,
And as some wayward wand’ring spirit scares
Belated trav’lers with ill-omen’d screech.
It was not always thus. In days of yore
That shapeless ruin was the house of God,
A goodly pile —
Whose echoing peal of far-resounding bells
Floating along fair Arden’s flow’ry stream
Summon’d with merry notes each Sabbath day
Peasant and peer to mingle in her aisles.
Those clanging chimes no longer fill the air
With melody of music, soft and clear :
No sons of toil with hastening footsteps tread
The grass-grown paths which to those altars led :
But now forlorn that lordly edifice,
Bow’d in the dust, unhonour’d lowly lies.
The owl and bat their mournful vigils keep
O’er ‘God’s own acre,’ where those peasants sleep.
When ye behold her glories thus laid low.
Will not your brows incontinently glow,
Ye men of Newnham ! with a blush of shame ?
Will ye inherit but a father’s name ?
Those sires have bled that you their sons might be
Heirs to a deathless faith and liberty.
Degenerate sons ! have ye no pride to share
Their last long rest with your forefathers there,
When night at length succeeds this smiling day
And earth once more demands your kindred clay ?
But I forbear — whilst Fancy fondly strays
Back o’er the past to those time-honour’d days.
Which first beheld fair Newnham’s temple rise
Fresh from the workman’s hand to greet the skies,
As some fond bride steps forth in chaste array
To greet her lov’d one on his marriage day.
Imagination once again recalls
The picturesque adornment of those walls,
And with a poet’s fancy fain would trace
The sweet memorials of that pleasant place ;
The slanting sunbeam that illum’d awhile
The vaulted roof of that long lofty aisle,
And on her decorated windows paint
The brave Evangelist and martyr’d Saint,
With hands upraised in reverential air.
In various attitudes of praise and prayer,
Whose worn wan cheeks, and calm but steadfast eye,
Taught how they liv’d and how they dar’d to die.
Still Fancy clothes thy desecrated shrines
With graceful sculpture and the rich designs
Of Gothic art, creations of a time
When all her aspirations were sublime ;
Then from the artist’s chisel, chaste and warm.
The rugged stone assumed a living form ;
Well vers’d that cunning chisel to impart
The glowing touches of a deathless art
There in the vault of that once hallow’d spot.
Where anciently fair Newnham’s chancel stood,
Repos’d the ashes of a noble race.
The good Earle Chichester, brave Francis Leigh,
His ever-loving wife and gentle child
Embalm’d with pious care, encas’d in lead.
Whose ponderous strength so faithfully had stayed
Two hundred years the ravages of time,
That when by ruthless hands the sacred chest
Was rent asunder, and the grave gave up
Its precious charge of desecrated dust,
The very spoilers stood entranc’d and gaz’d
In solemn silence, thus to see the dead
After the weary lapse of centuries,
So calm, so peaceful, so serene, unchanged.
As though the hand of Death but yesterday
Had passed upon their brows.
There lay the goodly Earl in sweet repose,
The smile of hope still lingering o’er his lips,
His auburn hair just ting’d with silv’ry grey.
His pointed beard arrang’d by gentle hands.
And watered too perchance by those soft eyes,
His fond fair daughter’s sleeping by his side,
Which would have flashed with indignation wild
Could they have look’d into futurity
And seen this rude unsympathising throng.
The heartless actors in this last sad scene.
A solemn sanctity surrounds the tomb
Of those whose names and memories are lost
In the long lapse of far-receding years.
Yet could not youth and beauty, and a name
Illustrious in the annals of the past,
Could not the ties of blood, ancestral pride,
Restrain the ruthless hand of Scotia’s son ?
Reluctantly at least
The violated coffin rendered back
The loveliest form e’er cast in Nature’s mould,
A beauteous relic of a bygone age.
Well may ye start, ye sacrilegious band !
The Lady Audrey sleeps the sleep of death
Her life-like countenance would still belie :
Closed is that eye whose deep cerulean blue
Italian skies alone could emulate !
Hush’d is that gentle voice which once had touch’d
The tend’rest chords of love within the breast !
An eloquent expression lightly plays
Around those lips long silenc’d in the tomb.
Ah ! could she sue, as once she could have sued,
A thousand sons of England’s chivalry
Had rush’d to shed their life’s blood in her cause !
Shades of the Leighs ! of those brave knights of old
Who won their golden spurs on Crecy’s plain,
Or for the true Cross died in Holy Land,
Rise, one and all, avenge your injur’d shrines !
Death was not altogether pitiless.
But respited her victim as in shame
To mar this peerless work of Nature’s hand.
There, there she lies in virgin purity,
Serenely sleeping, — mantled in the pall,
Fairer than morning, or the summer’s rose
Bowed by the dews beneath her fresh green leaves.
Mark the angelic smile, the last of life,
On those mute lips so tenderly express’d,
As though she dream’d of some lost loved one
Sweetly returning his fond last farewell,
The delicate warm tints of earliest youth
Bloom on her cheek, as seemingly in doubt
The breath of life had yet for ever fled.
Paint, quickly paint, for now remorseless Death
Triumphantly reclaims his lingering prey,
And all is dust.