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; 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.

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