St. Alban's Abbey, A Metrical Tale

St. Alban's Abbey, A Metrical Tale is a poem by Ann Radcliffe, likely composed between 1808 and 1809, and first published posthumously in 1826. It is Radcliffe's longest poem, and is followed by extensive antiquarian footnotes, which link the poem's events and scenes to artifacts Radcliffe saw on historical sightseeing trips to St Albans Abbey.

In the frame story, the poem's narrator gazes on the ruins of the abbey and imagines how the building's occupants experienced the First Battle of St. Alban's in 1455. One of the poem's ten cantos describes the battle itself, while the others describe the anxious preparations at the abbey and the sad aftermath. The hero of the poem, a fictional Lancastrian named Baron Fitz-Harding, hides from Richard of York in the abbey and thus cannot be found by his wife or father, both of whom fear he has been killed; he also fears that his father has been killed, and they all search for each other among the wounded and dead. The poem ends with their bittersweet reunion and the capture of Henry VI.

Reviews of Radcliffe's posthumous works had limited praise for the poem. A few particularly emotional scenes attracted positive comment, but several reviewers considered the overall poem too long and poorly crafted. More modern analysis of Radcliffe's works tends to overlook the poem entirely, and modern biographers of Radcliffe have dismissed it as an over-long and poorly-crafted work which is not representative of Radcliffe's literary skills.