The World of Romance<br />being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 by William Morris (cheapest way to read ebooks txt) 📗

the long fight, that they might be with the happy dead: there is a wonder on their faces too, when they see what the mighty power of Death is.  The foremost is bending down, with his left hand laid upon her breast, and he is gazing there so long, so very long; one looking there too, over his shoulder, rests his hand on him; there is one at the head, one at the foot of the bed; and he at the head is turning round his head, that he may see her face, while he holds in his hands the long vestment on which her head rests.

In my photograph the shadow is so thick that I cannot see much of the burial of the Virgin, can see scarce anything of the faces, only just the forms, of the Virgin lying quiet and still there, of the bending angels, and their great wings that shadow everything there.

So also of the third and last division filling the top of the arch.  I only know that it represents the Virgin sitting glorified with Christ, crowned by angels, and with angels all about her.

p. 160The first row in the vaulting of the porch I has angels in it, holding censers and candlesticks; the next has in it the kings who sprung from Jesse, with a flowing bough twisted all among them; the third and last is hidden by a projecting moulding.

All the three porches of the west front have a fringe of cusps ending in flowers, hanging to their outermost arch, and above this a band of flower-work, consisting of a rose and three rose-leaves alternating with each other.

Concerning the central porch of the west front.—The pillar which divides the valves of the central porch carries a statue of Our Lord; his right hand raised to bless, his left hand holding the Book; along the jambs of the porch are the Apostles, but not the Apostles alone, I should think; those that are in the side that I can see have their distinctive emblems with them, some of them at least.  Their faces vary very much here, as also their figures and dress; the one I like best among them is one who I think is meant for St. James the Less, with a long club in his hands; but they are all grand faces, stern and indignant, for they have come to judgment.

For there above in the tympanum, in the midst over the head of Christ, stand three angels, p. 161and the midmost of them bears scales in his hands, wherein are the souls being weighed against the accusations of the Accuser, and on either side of him stands another angel, blowing a long trumpet, held downwards, and their long, long raiment, tight across the breast, falls down over their feet, heavy, vast, ungirt; and at the corners of this same division stand two other angels, and they also are blowing long trumpets held downwards, so that their blast goes round the world and through it; and the dead are rising between the robes of the angels with their hands many of them lifted to heaven; and above them and below them are deep bands of wrought flowers; and in the vaulting of the porch are eight bands of niches with many, many figures carved therein; and in the first row in the lowest niche Abraham stands with the saved souls in the folds of his raiment.  In the next row and in the rest of the niches are angels with their hands folded in prayer; and in the next row angels again, bearing the souls over, of which they had charge in life; and this is, I think, the most gloriously carved of all those in the vaulting.  Then martyrs come bearing their palm-boughs; then priests with the chalice, each of them; and others there are which I know not of.  But above the resurrection from the dead, p. 162in the tympanum, is the reward of the good, and the punishment of the bad.  Peter standing there at the gate, and the long line of the blessed entering one by one; each one crowned as he enters by an angel waiting there; and above their heads a cornice takes the shape of many angels stooping down to them to crown them.  But on the inferno side the devil drives before him the wicked, all naked, presses them on toward hell-mouth, that gapes for them, and above their heads the devil-cornice hangs and weighs on them.  And above these the Judge showing the wounds that were made for the salvation of the world; and St. Mary and St. John kneeling on either side of Him, they who stood so once at the Crucifixion; two angels carrying cross and spear and nails; two others kneeling, and, above, other angels, with their wings spread, and singing.  Something like this is carved in the central porch at Amiens.

Once more forgive me, I pray, for the poor way in which I have done even that which I have attempted to do; and forgive me also for that which I have left undone.

And now, farewell to the church that I love, to the carved temple-mountain that rises so high above the water-meadows of the Somme, above the grey roofs of the good town.  Farewell p. 163to the sweep of the arches, up from the bronze bishops lying at the west end, up to the belt of solemn windows, where, through the painted glass, the light comes solemnly.  Farewell to the cavernous porches of the west front, so grey under the fading August sun, grey with the wind-storms, grey with the rain-storms, grey with the beat of many days’ sun, from sunrise to sunset; showing white sometimes, too, when the sun strikes it strongly; snowy-white, sometimes, when the moon is on it, and the shadows growing blacker; but grey now, fretted into black by the mitres of the bishops, by the solemn covered heads of the prophets, by the company of the risen, and the long robes of the judgment-angels, by hell-mouth and its flames gaping there, and the devils that feed it; by the saved souls and the crowning angels; by the presence of the Judge, and by the roses growing above them all for ever.

Farewell to the spire, gilt all over with gold once, and shining out there, very gloriously; dull and grey now, alas; but still it catches, through its interlacement of arches, the intensest blue of the blue summer sky; and, sometimes at night you may see the stars shining through it.

It is fair still, though the gold is gone, p. 164 the spire that seems to rock, when across it, in the wild February nights, the clouds go westward.

Footnotes:

{21}  See Thorpe’s Northern Mythology, vol. ii, p. 214.

{156}  In the explanatory remarks accompanying the engravings from Giotto’s frescoes in the Arena Chapel, published by the Arundel Society.  I regret not being able to give the reference to the passage, not having the work by me.

Printed at The Avon Press, London