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| IN the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; | |
| Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town. | |
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| As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood, | |
| And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood. | |
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| Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray, | 5 |
| Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay. | |
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| At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there, | |
| Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air. | |
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| Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, | |
| But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower. | 10 |
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| From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high; | |
| And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky. | |
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| Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, | |
| With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes, | |
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| Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir; | 15 |
| And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar. | |
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| Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain; | |
| They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again; | |
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| All the Foresters of Flanders,—mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer, | |
| Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre. | 20 |
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| I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old; | |
| Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold. | |
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| Lombard and Venetian merchants, with deep-laden argosies; | |
| Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease. | |
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| I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground; | 25 |
| I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound; | |
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| And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen, | |
| And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between. | |
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| I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold, | |
| Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold; | 30 |
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| Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west, | |
| Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon’s nest. | |
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| And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote; | |
| And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin’s throat; | |
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| Till the bell of Ghent responded o’er lagoon and dike of sand, | 35 |
| “I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!” | |
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| Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city’s roar | |
| Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more. | |
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| Hours had passed away, like minutes; and, before I was aware, | |
| Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square. | 40 |
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