York Guides

YORK

Grey city set to crown thy spreading plain,
Where languid Ouse with turbid current slides,
I sing thy mighty Spirit that doth reign
Triumphant over Time and yet abides
An ever vivifying power and guides
Our hearts to live aright, to strive with grace
And mate with Beauty Use, and meet the tides
Of surging life as fits an ancient race
Nor barnacled with glories past forego the chase.

Here first the impetuous Cerealis came,
Whom Fortune courted since he would not court,
And in a favour'd spot he built to tame
The dour Brigantian race an earthen fort
Beside the ford where Foss flows in athwart
To father Ouse, and marsh and woods conspired
To make in that wild land a safe resort
Till subjects soon to emulation fired
Should raise to deathless fame a Western Rome admired.

For law and all refining arts of peace
Came in the train of that great captain bold,
Who sought from toil-won conquest but increase
Of glory for his country, wont to hold
That Empire is not rightly built with gold
Of tributary slaves, but love attain'd
By constant benefits, that grows not cold,
As homage paid to rule by force maintain'd,
But knits the weak and strong in harmony unfeign'd.

Yet men tenacious of their freedom dwell
In Yorkshire hills and plains, who bow them not
To Fortune's fluctuating gales ; so fell
The gallant Ninth in silence and forgot
Amid the thunder of an Empire's fall,
When, deeming Victory his familiar,
Trajan exulted in the Parthian's hall
And waxing overbold pursued afar
The fraudful fire of Alexander's happier star.

Then came to this lone outpost of the light
Wise Hadrian, chief inspirer of the creed
Of one great commonwealth of nations dight
With splendour of high aims by all agreed,
Shelter'd beneath imperial wings, whose rede
Is ever to protect the healing flow'r
Of Liberty, our spirit's rightful meed ;
As he best learnt who left mankind his dow'r
Of golden thoughts to hearten in the doubting hour.

So Eburacum grew and spread across
The bridged Ouse, and learnt to taste delight
Secure, though rumour of a trifling loss
Oft hasten'd from the northern walls to blight
The festive throng, and wrapt in sudden night
A widow and her orphans crept away
Homewards, to pass the threshold in affright;
For though afar he perish'd in the fray
A chilling silence seems to welcome their dismay.

But not unpunish'd from their shaggy hills
Descend the Pictish wolves to ravin wide ;
For swift and grim the Libyan Lion stills
Their rage ; who scorning fear and ruth defied
Both foreign foe and bold usurpers' pride ;
But here at last forspent with toil
Severus thrown by death was pyred beside
The western road 'neath Acomb's mounded soil,
That keeps his name whom men revered in after broil.

The sun of Rome's imperial day gan turn
Indignant to its setting in the west,
But made with evening radiance brighter burn
Our city, where his legions laid to rest
Constantius and in fateful zeal addrest
With homage uncompell'd his greater son,
Who, warn'd of Heav'n by signs, confest
Our blessed Faith and ageless honour won
Raising a younger Rome to save his race fordone.

But Saxon pirate roam'd the alien sea,
And Pictish robber swarm'd across the Wall;
In vain the branches flourish when the tree
Deep rotted at the core is doom'd to fall.
Languid and faint came Britain's hopeless call
To dull Honorius where he dream'd amid
Ravenna's stagnant pools ; and like the pall
Of long, bleak nights when every star is hid
The voiceless gloom of iron times our isle bestrid.

None knoweth now where Cerealis sleeps,
And desecrate the tomb of Constantine,
Yet still secure York's mounded girdle keeps
A fragment of the first-form'd earthen line
And still the firm-compacted stones define
The varied phases of our city's star
In after-times of glory and decline,
Hard by the frowning visage of Monk Bar,
And still surveys slow Ouse the Tower Multangular.

Ah ! Not unworthy of their fathers' fame
The blended stock of Rome and Britain met
The sullen doom of Eburacum's flame ;
For Roman valour, though Rome's sun was set,
The Sixth, Victorious Legion nourish'd yet,
Whose powder'd bones perchance we trample now,
Careless of our imperishable debt,
In whom their blood doth still conspicuous flow,
True heirs who their imperial heritage still show.

For if indeed in those dark years of stress
The Roman spirit vanish'd with the tongue -
A thin veneer or perishable dress.
With heedless ease put on and off - whence sprung
The art to rule an Empire so far-flung,
The love of discipline and stablish'd law,
The wisdom apt to act in old and young,
To hold time-honour'd customs e'er in awe,
Nor wildly innovate where one may mend the flaw ?

Yet ever is Rome's glory wound by threads
Of gold with man's high heritage ; her gifts
May change, but all-transmuting Time but sheds
A purer lustre, as the vapour lifts
That rises from the mire of Doubt and drifts
Between mankind and God's high throne of Grace.
Thence spread the Light that through the opening rifts
Burst to each startled corner of dim space
And sent Augustine to reclaim our savage race.

To York Paulinus came, his tall frame bent
And gaunt from that deep fire that drove him on
And blazed reflected from his eyes intent,
That made King Edwin and his people don
Christ's breastplate, and in sweet communion
Of faith their city evermore proclaim
As dedicate by God's high benison ;
Wherefore they rais'd in Holy Peter's name
Our massy spacious Minster's first rude wooden frame.

And there he left a Song-school, that their sons
With pure sweet voice might hymn God's majesty,
Nor less that School of wider range that shuns
Not worldly knowledge that God's glory be
In church and state upheld by men set free
From lawless Ignorance's tyrannous dull sway,
A ship of Light that sails Life's turbid sea
Toward the Dawn along the ancient Way
Freighted with man's great hopes exempt from Time's decay.

Methinks not yet the echoes sink to rest
Of him who thunder'd eloquent of yore,
The levin-bolt of God, Wilfrid the Blest,
Who once on Friesland's grim, unfriendly shore,
That then a savage brood of pirates bore,
Shipwreck'd made salvage of the souls of men,
E'en as the sun, beset by clouds before,
After the storm with sudden beam lights glen
And mountain-peak and turns to gold the misty fen.

See too the motley throng on Ouse-bridge crowd,
Like to the serried maze of flowers gay
In cottage-plots, and shout with welcome loud
As lov'd St. William comes in bright array ;
The high bridge cracks and Ouse receives his prey,
When lo ! the Saint dismounts and raising high
His staff he bids the recreant waters stay ;
Ouse parts his stream, the trembling people fly
O'ershadow'd by the watery wall on pathway dry.

Such loving hands and thankful spirits raise
Our great grey Minster to keep kindly ward
Above the cluster'd tiles and winding ways.
Thy many features lost in one accord,
Calm majesty of stone, best proof afford
How soaring Faith may win solidity,
How Strength aspire, the Mother-church ador'd,
Chief symbol of great Yorkshire's unity,
Through folded hills and broad-flung plains' fertility.

Through ancient glass of rare device the light
Pours in warm-tinted with mysterious gleams,
As Nature's many-colour'd raiment bright
Half veils the undivided life that teems
Behind, half adds reality to dreams.
Yet once, O God, when purblind men decried
That Thou art Beauty, form'd they impious schemes
Thy Minster to deflower of this its pride,
Had not lov'd Fairfax dull fanatic zeal defied.

For oft the grey hand of destruction made
Thy streets a desolation and a grave ;
Thy voice hath been a ghostly dirge that stray'd
Regretful o'er the splendid mirage brave
Of fleeting greatness ; Ouse hath seen his wave,
Dyed with his children's blood, the sunset glows
Reflected of his city's glories lave ;
But still, the bride of Time, York rearose ;
Her mighty heart firm-set outbeateth mortal blows.

The Saxon felt the spell, and built anew
The ruins he had triumph'd in - too late ;
To spoil and vengeance pagan Mercia flew,
With short-liv'd challenge to our happier fate -
Delusive splendour ! thou but form'd'st the bait
That drew the pirate Dane to dull thy pride -
Thy patriot spirit rose again - and straight
The bloodstain'd Bastard made thy countryside
A smoking charnel of thy children crucified.

Yet never hast thou barter'd faith away
To win inglorious repose ; as proves
The White Rose of thy loyalty that lay-
Mown down and wither'd 'neath Lancastrian hooves ;
The wolfish queen thy leader's head removes
" That York may overlook the town of York ";
Unhappy race, not long in peaceful grooves
Thy royal honours run ; see Vengeance stalk
Through Wakefield, Towton, Bosworth to thy final balk.

The last red deluge of the storm of war
Befell when here the Royal Martyr kept
His court, where loyal hearts oft tried before
Long warded off the traitorous south but wept
For grace and chivalry that fail'd and slept
The last still sleep on Marston's quiet plain.
Thence oft, men say, the phantom horse hath stept
Whose headless rider frights the rustic swain
At midnight on that eve slow pacing down the lane.

Then perish'd many a gem of antique skill
In painted glass and carven statue fair ;
With frantic Zeal conjoin'd Greed work'd its will;
These had the gleanings for their stolen share
It pleas'd the Tudor tyrant's lust to spare,
Who forced the cloister'd sons of prayer to flee
The spired abbey ; reft of tender care
That mighty fabric moulder'd silently,
Whose massy fragments mock our feebler masonry.

Then in one common doom was quench'd the feud
'Twixt Mary's Abbey and that Hospital
To Leonard consecrate, where monks endued
With healing skill once nurs'd the outcast thrall
Of helpless age and sickness' plaintive call.
Much good they wrought, though power might be
Abused, each side the intervening wall;
But long ago, 'tis said, dumb enmity
Forbade these monks to mutual intercourse agree.

Saint Leonard's cellarer once who lov'd too well
His wares, oft chid in vain, was deem'd at last
Beyond all cure and so the sentence fell
That he within the entombing wall be cast
Alive with face averse ; next morn aghast
Saint Mary's monks heard tapping on the wall
And oped, and swore him friendship fast
For hate they bore the neighbouring hospital,
And promis'd whatso'er he ask'd to grant withal.

The post of cellarer he chose, but still
Found wanting in his trust and oft chastised
Was thrust again into his prison chill
With stance revers'd ; a tapping sound surprized
At dawn Saint Leonard's monks who realized
The year before they wall'd him in that place ;
With trembling haste the firm-set stones they prised ; -
A miracle ! unchanged in girth and face
He stepp'd, forthwith the Prior's vacant chair to grace.

Yet not unfriended sank the old Belief,
When Aske led pious hearts of all degrees,
Stronger in faith than arms, upon the reef
Of tyranny to break and drown in seas
Of blood their steadfast martyr'd loyalties.
So blessed Margaret Clitherow, who dared
To shield the fugitive proscribed, they seize
And press to death, whose hand alone is spared
To bleed undying token of the Living Word.

Ah ! Tyburn, thou hast many voices strange
That blend amid the clamour of the storm ;
The martyr's triumph-songs, in sweet exchange
For frenzied cries of malice that deform
The felon's final hour, here seem to swarm
With agony of repentant spirits wild ;
The torrent blood outpour'd that erst was warm
And oft, too oft, thy fatal moor defiled
Still pleads scarce recognized for reign of concord mild.

Without the walls there stood an inn, the last
Upon the road - the Sun its name - where used
To halt the victim who to Tyburn past
With seat revers'd, and his last hour amused
With one free drink; so halted one accused
Of crimes he never wrought, who too much griev'd
Bade speed his end, the proffer'd draught refused;
But as his limbs in death's last twitching heav'd
Too late the foam-fleck'd courier's cry draws near -" Repriev'd "!

Strange cavalcades have pass'd along that famed
Old highway since first rose on either side
The tombs of Roman lords, the great road named
Of Tadcaster ; yet strangest still the ride
A solitary horseman made, whose pride
Brook'd not school-flogging for a trivial deed ;
He stole the master's horse, and law defied ;
The sun that rose at London on his greed
Shone ere he set at York on Nevinson and steed.

He was a scholar of Saint Peter's school,
So legend runs, Paulinus' hearth of true
Bright learning, famed 'neath Egbert's vigorous rule,
Where kindly Albert taught, whence Alcuin drew
The seeds of fire he scatter'd far thorough
His widespread realms at Charlemagne's behest.
Great names upon thine ancient roll we view,
Kind guardian of my youth most lov'd and best,
Yet by thy nameless heroes too our land is blest.

There Fawkes was nurtured, he who sought to heal
Oppression's wounds by bold avenging stroke,
To slay the assembled guardians of the commonweal;
But on the very eve suspicion woke ;
Viewing the fatal charge amid the smoke
Of torches in the gloomy vaults he stood
And unrepentant bow'd to Fate's revoke ;
But in his doom involv'd great men and good
And perfect Oldcorne with his saintly hardihood.

There Morton learnt to love mankind, the white
Flame of whose piety was never stain'd
By rancorous pride : when pestilential blight
Fell on our folk and every priest disdain'd
To approach the tents where plague-struck outcasts
Alone he came to soothe their piteous end, [plain'd,
From Marston Moor with ass that laden strain'd ;
Who yet condemn'd in want his age to spend
Despised men's votes, died Durham's Bishop still and friend.

Nor less were statesmen there imbued with arts
Of ruling and high service, as the knight
Who, join'd at first with Cromwell's iron hearts,
Was set to guard the captive monarch's plight
And learnt to love and honour one who 'spite
An erring judgement and dark obstinate will
Lov'd God the most and then his people's right;
He died most kingly ; and Herbert felt the chill
Who heard his gracious last farewell in memory still.

His carven house in Pavement standeth yet,
Beneath the shadow of All Hallow's tower,
Where erst the far-seen lamp was nightly set
To guide the traveller stray'd with saving power
Through Galtres forest in the darksome hour :
Hard by the street where once a dog, men state,
On Corpus Christi day dared to devour
The Sacred Host, whence men used on that date
To flog at will his kind from Whipmawhopmagate.

Here rose until this sacrilegious age
The graceful tower of noble Holy Cross ;
With what bleak longing, with what pious rage
We miss thy mellow brickwork, bitterest loss !
Distinctive 'mid the throng 'twixt Ouse and Foss
Of grey stone towers and spires that still o'erlook
The red roofs nestling close ; Greed ne'er engross
Our barren souls so much that we should brook
Again the ruin that one storied stone o'ertook !

But one among those peaceful, hallow'd towers
Hath other songs of gloomier renown ;
Above the frowning Castle wall still glowers
The ruin'd keep of Clifford, built to crown
The Norman's rule and overawe the town.
Dread deeds of blood and death full oft it knew,
Of siege and slaughter'd innocence mown down
By man's inhuman hate, where once the Jew
Was mindful of the bold, free breath his fathers drew.

When Richard drain'd his people's wealth to free
The Holy Tomb, the debtor groan'd in vain
Against the ruthless Hebrews' usury ;
Rage lays, religious passion fires the train,
In fear the Jews the Castle's shelter gain,
Bar out the governor, till with one acclaim
For vengeance rulers, rabble, soldiers strain ;
The doom'd defenders slaughter child and dame,
Pile on their wealth and perish in triumphant flame.

Not in the city's bounds alone in those
Dark days of bloodstain'd turbulence our folk
Found after toil on foughten field repose.
When France succumb'd to warlike Edward's stroke,
The vengeful Scot into our country broke ;
A queen undaunted and a prelate bold
In haste our northern chivalry convoke ;
At Nevill's Cross proud Scotland's knell is knoll'd
And soon a captive King our lustrous walls enfold.

But yet 'twas when that Edward's feebler sire
Was marching to avenge black Bannockburn
And Scotland's general, slipping past, with fire
And sword made spreading havoc in return,
Insulting to thy gates, O York, thy stern
Unconquerable spirit sank not down ;
O'er victory's glamour vain thou could'st discern
That greater grandeur it can never drown,
And gain'd'st for ever thy imperishable crown.

A Mayor who gain'd by death his deathless fame,
Less skilful prelate, not of fainter heart,
Brook not inertly to avow the shame ;
With motley army ill-array'd they start
In hot pursuit lest scatheless all depart
The alien spoilers ; swift they overtake
The foe at nightfall where the streams dispart
Of Ure and Swale and Myton meadows slake ;
There then the hosts lie still till dawn's first lights awake.

Though over Swale the north-wind blows the smoke
Of Scottish camp-fires, Melton undismay'd
Leads o'er to doom ; the acrid vapours choke,
But nothing those devoted hearts had stay'd ;
In arms unapt they fight with rusty blade
Till sundown comes and spent the Scotsmen creep
To slumber 'mid the mounded slaughter laid ;
In sweeter calm York's faithful heroes keep
For aye on Myton field their unforgotten sleep.

At dawn the victors rise to spoil the slain,
And lift their visors, fain to see what foes
These be who battle till scarce one remain :-
Here shines the silvern beard of age, there glows
Youth's smooth bright flesh in premature repose,
Those shaven crowns, these fringes closely shorn
The hallow'd forms of monk and priest disclose ;
The victor trembles lest God's wrath be born
And sparing all flees homeward on that glorious morn.

On Myton field, my city, liveth yet
A holy presence, powerful to stir
Thy sons to rise above a vain regret
And live more worthy of the name they bear.
Thy place for all time thou acquired'st there
Amid the storied cities of the earth ;
Nor time nor multitude nor size confer
That ageless majesty of sweetest worth
To which the travail of the soul alone gives birth.

There gleams unfading on thy lofty brow
The halo of that splendid sacrifice ;
With thankful heart thy children still avow
The heritage once bought at so great price ;
For them no halting epitaphs suffice,
But in our hearts is their memorial
Kept sweet for aye ; then never may our vice
Make us forgetful of our city's call,
Nor see unmoved their graceful works indignant fall.

Can we descend to petty party strife
Or trample on a heritage so great,
Whose sires gave up the sweetest breath of life
And set their honour at a higher rate ?
Above the icy storms of transient hate
Upon thy walls the soul's keen eye descries
Their shining shadows like a blessing wait,
As on the spire the glad, warm kiss first lies
Ere sunrise wakes the silence to sweet melodies.
1929.