Rowena & Harold A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst — Inside the Classic

A Romance in Rhyme, Not a Lyric

The subtitle promises 'A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time,' and the index confirms a plot-driven sequence: Rowena pleads with her father Sir Guy de Warre, who wants her to wed Sir Ralph of Normanhurst; Sir Harold Wynn sails to Acre; a Saracen maid nurses him; a beacon lamp is used for wrecking. The verse form is regular rhyming stanzas, often with a final longer line, as in 'What! Not enough of life ye must e'en have the dead?' This is not a collection of lyrics but a continuous story with cliffhangers, such as the lost missive that would reveal a hiding place. The catalog's single subject 'Poetry' thus understates the work's narrative ambition.

Gothic Machinery and Coastal Setting

The excerpts repeatedly emphasize a treacherous coast: 'Old Ragnor's strand,' 'the beacon lamp,' 'the wreck of the Holy Cross.' The villain Sir Guy de Warre is compared to 'Ragnor's rocks' and swears Rowena would die rather than defy him. A 'demon wrecker' and 'smuggler's den' appear, along with 'Ragnor's dungeons grim' and a crypt. The setting is not merely decorative but drives the plot: the lamp of love is changed for one of hate, causing a shipwreck. The poem's language is often hyperbolic—'No Nero's lyre across his work of death such yells of triumph flung'—and relies on Gothic tropes of imprisonment, mistaken identity, and last-minute rescue.

Religious and Royal Framing

The dedication thanks Queen Victoria for her 'unprecedentedly long, illustrious, and beneficent reign' and fifty years of service to National Education. This patriotic and religious framing continues in the poem: Rowena pleads that 'the heart belongs to God,' a holy friar offers consolation, and a character is 'crucified' (though not literally). The index includes 'Rowena's Te Deum' and 'The Royal Pardon,' suggesting a resolution involving monarchical mercy. The author's own note that he wrote in 'grateful remembrance' of the Queen places the work in a late-Victorian context of imperial and Christian piety, which the catalog subject does not capture.

Readers should approach this poem as a Victorian verse novel, not a lyric collection. The excerpts show a fast-paced plot with stock characters—the stern father, the faithful servant Eric, the Saracen helper—and a moral universe where divine and royal pardon converge. The catalog subject 'Poetry' is accurate but insufficient; the work is better understood as a melodramatic romance in rhyme, best enjoyed for its narrative energy and period flavor.

Some evenings, rereading Pryer’s verse, I’m struck by how its salt-worn cliffs hold the same quiet ache as Whittier’s New England shore—both poets knowing loss travels best in rhyme. That old, patient cadence stays with me. I found myself reaching for The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete — A Closer Reading, and the tide felt familiar.