The Tomb of Lady Fenwick
(1998) 9:00
(Wind Band pc22,Eb 3 bc./2atb sax/4,4,3,euph,tb/timp+4/ SATB choir)
Commissioned by the Old Saybrook High School Band, John LaDone, Music Director, and the Old Saybrook High School Chorus, Susan Clarke, Music Director
Level: High School
Lady Fenwick, as she was known, was the daughter of Sir Edward Apsley, and the heir of her brother, who was the last of the Apsleys of Apsley. Her first husband was Sir John Boteler, commonly called Lord Boteler, and from him she took her title, which she kept to the time of her death. She sailed from London in May of 1639, in company with Mr. Fenwick, whom she had lately married. They arrived in July and the delight of the captain at the appearance of the harbor gave the names of Fair Haven and New Haven to the towns on the shore. Lady Fenwick lived in Saybrook for nine years, during which time three children were born. In 1648, Fenwick was reelected first magistrate of Connecticut (he was already a Colonel in the English army of the north). He was appointed, but did not act as a judge in the trial of Charles I; was a lawyer of Gray's Inn; sat in Parliament; was Governor of Tynemouth; and died on March 15, 1657. Lady Fenwick was not the first white woman who died in Connecticut, but the first woman to whom a tombstone was erected in this state. Lady Fenwick's remains were reinterred in a place of memorial on November 23, 1870. The new burial site is marked by a monument which was commissioned in memory of Lady Fenwick by Benjamin Batten, the son-in-law of Mr. Fenwick's sister, in 1679. At the re-interment service in 1870, Rev. Mr. Hart of Trinity College read a poem by Miss Frances M. Caulkins, written twelve years before. The poem is titled, The Tomb of Lady Fenwick, and consists of 15 stanzas of four lines each. From this poem, the composer has selected and set the following seven stanzas:
On Saybrook's wave washed height,
The English lady sleeps:
Lonely the tomb, but an angel of light
The door to the sepulchre keeps.
No roof, no leafy shade,
The vaulted glory mars
She sleeps in peace, with the light on her bed
Of a thousand kindly stars.
She sleeps where oft she stood,
Far from her native shore,
Wistfully watching the bark as it rode
To the home she should see no more.
A pilgrim band we came,
Self-exiled o'er the sea
Sowing the seed of God's great name,
Wherever a foot-track might be.
And I loved the woodland waste
The free, pure worship of God;
And the cots of the exiles that brightened and graced
Wilds where the savage had trod.
By grateful love enshrined,
In memory's book heart bound,
She sank to rest with the cool sea wind
And the river murmuring round.
And ever this wave-washed shore
Shall be linked with her tomb and fame,
And blend with the wind and the billowy roar,
The music of her name.
