At Tintern Abbey I set my bait
To fish in the River Wye,
I’d only been an hour, I swear
When the girl came floating by,
Her dress spread out, a fine brocade
And some lace about her hair,
I almost drowned when I reeled her in
And fell in the river there.

I pulled her up on the river bank
And she lay, and softly sighed,
I felt a strange relief, and thanked
The Lord, I thought she’d died.
But her eyelids gave a flutter then
And she looked at me apace,
‘Would you be one of the Abbot’s men?
There’s no mark upon your face.’

‘I only came to fish,’ I said,
‘And I like what I have caught.’
The look she gave me made me blush
For it set my jest at naught.
‘The Abbot Gilbert lies within
By his candle, book and prayer,
The pestilence has found his sin
For he knows, he’s dying there.’

I thought her speech was quaint and old
Like an echo, lost in time,
I thought, ‘I’ve never seen one so fair,
If only she was mine!’
But she sat, and moved away from me
And she said, ‘You mustn’t touch,
For death has stained this fine country,
It may have you in its clutch.’

‘But I only came to fish,’ I said,
And, ‘there’s nothing wrong with me;
Yet you float down the River Wye
And will end up in the sea.’
‘I chose the cleansing waters so
To avoid the pestilence,
The dead lie in the fields about
And it spares no eminence.’

‘My husband, Guy Fitzherbert bleeds
In the Abbey’s ante-room,
His pilgrimage denied his needs
And the Lord will take him soon.’
I stared at Tintern Abbey’s shell
Standing gaunt against the sky,
‘You must be catching a fever,
We must go and get you dry.’

‘I needs must be on my way again,
Good sir, I wish you well,
But leave this place if you’d rather live
Than enter the gates of Hell.’
My mind caught at some thing she said
And a thought, then so sublime,
I asked the girl, ‘What year is this…?’
‘Thirteen forty-nine!’

David Lewis Paget