William Wordsworth

St. Catherine of Ledbury

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.