The Abbey House and the Nave of Glastonbury Abbey from a print about 1860.
I purchased this postcard from St. Johns Church Glastonbury after attending a service there in 1998. It was during my second visit to Glastonbury. A lot has changed in that time but not my love for that area of England. Coincidentally, we happened to be there during the summer solstice and so were able to experience the festivities of what is probably one of Glastonbury’s most noted events of the year (The Glastonbury Festival actually takes place is Pilton).
I’ve spent the past week researching a couple of novels that I am working on, one of which mostly takes place in, you guessed it, Glastonbury. This one is comprised of five parts, beginning in 61 AD and ending in the present–so– lots of research to do!
Meanwhile this poem by Elizabethan poet, Michael Drayton (1563-1631), which he penned about Glastonbury:
O three times famous isle, where is that place that might
Be with thyself compared for glory and delight,
Whilst Glastonbury stood? exalted to that pride,
Whose monastery seemed all other to deride:
O, who thy ruin sees, whom wonder doth not fill
With their great fathers’ pomp, devotion, and their skill?
Thou more than mortal power (this judgment rightly weighed),
Then present to assist, at that foundation laid;
On whom for this sad waste should justice lay the crime?
Is there a power in fate, or doth it yield to time?
Or was there error such, that thou couldst not protect
Those buildings which thy hand did with their zeal erect?
To whom didst thou commit that monument to keep,
That suffered with the dead their memory to sleep,
When not great Arthur’s tomb nor holy Joseph’s grave
From sacrilege had power their sacred bones to save?
He who that God in man to his sepulchre brought,
Or he which for the faith twelve famous battles fought.
What! did so many kings do honour to that place,
For avarice at last so vilely to deface?
For reverence to that seat which had ascribed been,
Trees yet in winter bloom, and bear their summer’s green.
Michael Drayton
