visit her neighbours, and whilst so
doing she fell in love with Sir William Fairfax, or he fell in love with
her or with her estates. Thereupon, so the story proceeds, the abbess
kept her ward a close prisoner within the nunnery walls. Legal
proceedings were taken, but in the end the privacy of the nunnery was
invaded, and Miss Thwaites was abducted and married to Sir William
Fairfax at the church of Bolton Percy. The lady abbess had to submit to
_vis major_, but worse days were in front of her, for she lived on to
see the nunnery itself despoiled, and the fair domains she had during a
long life preserved and maintained for religious uses handed over to the
son of her former ward, Isabella Thwaites.

Our poet begins by referring to the modest dimensions of the house, and
the natural charms of its surroundings:--

"The house was built upon the place,
Only as for a mark of grace,
And for an inn to entertain
Its Lord awhile, but not remain.
Him Bishop's-hill or Denton may,
Or Billborow, better hold than they:
But Nature here hath been so free,
As if she said, 'Leave this to me.'
Art would more neatly have defac'd
What she had laid so sweetly waste
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods."

And then starts the story:--

"While, with slow eyes, we these survey,
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunely may relate
The progress of this house's fate.
A nunnery first gave it birth,
(For virgin buildings oft brought forth)
And all that neighbour-ruin shows
The quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy cloister's gates,
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwaites,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir,
Which might deformity make fair;
And oft she spent the summer's suns
Discoursing with the subtle Nuns,
Whence, in these words, one to her weav'd,
As 'twere by chance, thoughts long conceiv'd:
'Within this holy leisure, we
Live innocently, as you see.
These walls restrain the world without,
But hedge our liberty about;
These bars inclose that wilder den
Of those wild creatures, called men,
The cloister outward shuts its gates,
And, from us, locks on them the grates.
Here we, in shining armour white,
Like virgin amazons do fight,
And our chaste lamps we hourly trim,
Lest the great Bridegroom find them dim.
O