Classic Poem

INTRODUCTION.

A guest was I at Berkley Hall, —
And more behooves not guest to say:
The very pictures on the wall
With kindness seemed to whisper, " Stay! " —
Old portraits of a dwindled line,
From Lely's ruff and doublet down
To Copley's matchless coat and gown.
Or Stuart's later touch divine.
Still from their frames of gold or oak,
A knight or lady shepherdess,
In valor or in loveliness,
Leaned through the twilight air and spoke:
They whispered that the road was dark,
And lone the highway by the river,
That past recall the latest bark
Had swept the landing of the park, —
There on the stream I still might mark
Its fading path of ripples quiver,
And hear the shore-wave running after,
Like childhood with a voice of laughter.

'Twas evening, and the autumn fire
Was feasting at the well-built pyre,
Where every log, with glowing mirth,
Poured from its breast of ample girth
Some memory of April birth,
To cheer the hearthstone of October.
There, conscious of his place and worth,
One lordly hound, with visage sober,
Sheathed his large eyes in sleep's eclipse,
While visions of the woodland chase
Disturbed the slumber on his face
With twinklings at his ears and lips.

That honored hearth was like a gate
Wide with the welcome of old days;
No sulphur-fuming, modern grate,
Which black bitumen daily crams,
But waved between its ample jambs
Its flag of hospitable blaze.
A century gone 'twas lined with tiles,
Like those the hearths of Holland show;
And still each Scripture picture smiles
And brightens in the hickory glow.

Oft from those painted sermons rude,
In musing hours of solitude,
A voiceless thought hath searched the heart
Beyond the theologian's art.
A moral winged with verse may reach
A soul no weightier words will teach,
As arrow from the archer's bow
Has cleaved where falchion failed to go;
And truths from out a picture oft,
In colors as the iris soft,
May shed an influence to remain
Where argument would strive in vain.

The chairs were quaint, antique, and tall,
As in some old baronial hall;
And in an alcove dusk and dim,
Like Denmark's mailed and phantom king,
A suit of armor tall and grim
With upraised glaive seemed beckoning.
And had it walked, the gazer, drawn,
Must needs have followed on and on!
The perforated steel confessed
What death had pierced the wearer's breast.
Near by, upon a throne upreared,
A harp of bygone times appeared:
The graceful form was deftly made,
With pearl and precious woods inlaid;
And in the firelight, as of old,
It flushed the shadowy niche with gold.

In all the orchestras which lift
The soul with rapture caught from far.
As in a bright triumphal car
Round which celestial splendors shift,
No instrument of earth affords
An influence so divine and deep,
As when the flying fingers sweep
The harp, with all its wondrous chords.
Around its honored form there lives
Romance mysterious, vague, and old:
I see the shapes which history gives
The bards in dim traditions told, —
With visions of great kingly halls,
Where red, barbaric splendor falls;
But chiefly I behold and hear —
While bends a troop of seraphs near —
The angels, with their locks of gold.
Such shadowy halls of deep repose
A New-World homestead seldom shows;
But such the traveller frequent sees,
Embowered within ancestral trees,
In that maternal isle whose breast
First warmed our eagle into life,
And then, with rude, unnatural strife,
Pushed the brave offspring from her nest, —
Which, launched upon its sunward track,
No voice on earth could summon back.

Here, while I slowly paced the room,
Strange visions filled the fitful gloom.
On soft, invisible feet they came;
I heard them speak, — or was't the flame
That muttered in the chimney wide?
Faint shadows wavered at my side,
My spirit heard a spirit sigh,
While gauzy garments rustled by!
A pallid phantom of the fire
Leapt o'er the high flame wildly higher, —
A blaze that vanished with a bound!
A whine escaped the sleeping hound, —
A sudden wind swept up the lane,
And drove the leaves like frighted herds.
Some, like the ghosts of summer-birds,
Fluttered against the window-pane.

Hawthorne, my friend, had I your wand,
How, at the waving of my hand,
The place, and all its grandeur gone,
Should on the marvelling vision dawn!
Each shepherdess, or warrior bold,
Each knight and dame, in ruff and frill,
Obedient to the wizard will,
Should step from antique oak or gold;
Bright eyes should glance, sweet voices sing,
And light feet trip the waxen floor;
And round the festive board should ring
The friendly goblets, as of yore;
And Love's sweet grief be newly told
Under the elm-trees, as of old.
But, ah! the hazel wand you wield
Was grown by that enchanted stream
Which sometimes flashes through my dream,
But flows not through my barren field!

The host came in: he took my hand:
He saw the wonder on my face,
And said, " Ah, yes: I understand:
You marvei at this curious place,
Which starts your fancy into play.
My locks, you see, are somewhat gray:
What touches you on me is lost.
This white hair drives romance away,
As flowers are driven by the frost.
But if a tale would please your ear,
There's one which you are free to hear.

Within a little, secret drawer
Of this black, antique escritoir,
I found a simple golden case,
Which held the semblance of a face
So wondrous in its wild attire
Of floating robe and flying hair,
And eyes that thrilled the very air
To pleasure with their starry fire,
That instantly the long-passed name
Blazed on my memory like a flame;
And old traditions, dimmed by years,
Breathed from invisible lips there came,
And lingered in my credulous ears,
And night and day disturbed my soul,
Until, perforce, I wrote the whole:
That is the picture, — this the scroll.
Draw near; and let wild Autumn blow:
He does but fan the lighted pyre:
Between the warmth of wine and fire
Perchance the verse may thaw and flow
From off the visionary lyre
As in the days of long ago.