Old poems describing gothic church architecture, stained windows, and gardens?

I discovered this series of poems published in 1839, inspired by the architecture of English cathedrals and processions. I do not understand all of the theological references and symbolism, but I find the subject matter of some of the passages interesting and beautiful:

https://archive.org/details/cathedralorcatho00williala

Some examples of the passages describing Prayer and Cloisters:

'Hidden, exhaustless treasury, heaven-taught melodies,
Armoury of unseen aids, watchword and spell--'

'A path of peace amid the tangled grove,
A moon-lit way of sweet security--'

I understand this is quite an unusual query, but can anyone recommend old poets (say anywhere between 1750 - 1950) who mainly focused on gothic architecture, churches, stained windows, and church gardens as a source of inspiration?

Thanks for any help you can offer. ^^

I don’t know about “mainly focussed”, but obvious places to go from Isaac Williams might be the main Oxford Movement figures John Keble and John Henry Newman. Ruskin was the classic writer on gothic architecture, of course, and the one who inspired a lot of people of his time to fetishise the gothic, but he was predominantly a prose writer.

It would probably be hard to find a British poet who hasn’t written a poem about an old church at some point: there are some very famous examples like Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and Philip Larkin’s “Church Going”, or even Gray’s “Elegy, written in a country churchyard”. But it’s hard to think of someone who focussed on churches to the exclusion of other things.

John Betjeman was a big promoter of Victorian architecture, but I can’t think of a specific poem. R S Thomas (at the end of your period) was a parson and churches often come into his work, e.g. “The empty church”.

BTW: It’s a bit pointless to double-post here and in Book Talk, everyone who sees this will see the other one as well, and you’ll get messy replies split over the two.

Touchstone for the book described in >1 VoicelessTorment: The cathedral, or, The Catholic and Apostolic church in England by Isaac Williams.

>2 thorold:

Thanks kindly for your informative answer and advice. *Air hugs.* Sorry, I'm still learning about the workings of the website; I'll avoid double-posting in the future.

I feared that only members associated with specific groups would be notified of new topics, and I wanted to spread a 'wider net', as it were.

Do I only exclude Book Talk, or does that also count for any groups?

>5 VoicelessTorment: On the whole, the best strategy is to post in only one place at once.

Start where you think you’re most likely to get good advice — which is obviously guessing until you have more experience. As someone mentioned in your other thread, the Recommendations group is the place meant for general “what should I read?”.

If you later decide that you’ve posted in the wrong place and start a new thread elsewhere, say so in the original thread.

>6 thorold: Okay, I will follow your advice. In the future, I shall avoid double-posting unless necessary or sufficient time has passed. I will probably post the same question once more in the Recommendations group later and make it known by editing this thread.

By the way, your answer to my thread question was very helpful - I have heard of the Oxford Movement before, but I never really looked into it.

I doubt I will find much better than the writers you suggested concerning this subject, and I intend to look into their works more carefully, but do you know of any other churchly figures (predominantly British) who wrote theological or monastic verse/poetry in general? Not just concerning architecture, I mean.

Thanks for your help. *Air hugs.*

>8 VoicelessTorment: There are certainly lots — Victorians in particular were constantly tossing theological questions around in verse. You could try Gerard Manley Hopkins to start with, a Jesuit who did clever things with rhythm.

Have a look at this handy summary page on Victorian Web: https://victorianweb.org/religion/poetryov.html

>9 thorold: Thank you for sharing that. ^^ *Air hugs.*