| |
| A COLD, uninterrupted rain, | |
| That washed each southern window-pane, | |
| And made a river of the road; | |
| A sea of mist that overflowed | |
| The house, the barns, the gilded vane, | 5 |
| And drowned the upland and the plain, | |
| Through which the oak-trees, broad and high, | |
| Like phantom ships went drifting by; | |
| And, hidden behind a watery screen, | |
| The sun unseen, or only seen | 10 |
| As a faint pallor in the sky;— | |
| Thus cold and colorless and gray, | |
| The morn of that autumnal day, | |
| As if reluctant to begin, | |
| Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn, | 15 |
| And all the guests that in it lay. | |
| |
| Full late they slept. They did not hear | |
| The challenge of Sir Chanticleer, | |
| Who on the empty threshing-floor, | |
| Disdainful of the rain outside, | 20 |
| Was strutting with a martial stride, | |
| As if upon his thigh he wore | |
| The famous broadsword of the Squire, | |
| And said, “Behold me, and admire!” | |
| |
| Only the Poet seemed to hear, | 25 |
| In drowse or dream, more near and near | |
| Across the border-land of sleep, | |
| The blowing of a blithesome horn, | |
| That laughed the dismal day to scorn; | |
| A splash of hoofs and rush of wheels | 30 |
| Through sand and mire like stranding keels, | |
| As from the road with sudden sweep | |
| The Mail drove up the little steep, | |
| And stopped beside the tavern door; | |
| A moment stopped, and then again | 35 |
| With crack of whip and bark of dog | |
| Plunged forward through the sea of fog, | |
| And all was silent as before,— | |
| All silent save the dripping rain. | |
| |
| Then one by one the guests came down, | 40 |
| And greeted with a smile the Squire, | |
| Who sat before the parlor fire, | |
| Reading the paper fresh from town. | |
| First the Sicilian, like a bird, | |
| Before his form appeared, was heard | 45 |
| Whistling and singing down the stair; | |
| Then came the Student with a look | |
| As placid as a meadow-brook; | |
| The Theologian, still perplexed | |
| With thoughts of this world and the next: | 50 |
| The Poet then, as one who seems | |
| Walking in visions and in dreams; | |
| Then the Musician, like a fair | |
| Hyperion from whose golden hair | |
| The radiance of the morning streams; | 55 |
| And last the aromatic Jew | |
| Of Alicant, who, as he threw | |
| The door wide open, on the air | |
| Breathed round about him a perfume | |
| Of damask roses in full bloom, | 60 |
| Making a garden of the room. | |
| |
| The breakfast ended, each pursued | |
| The promptings of his various mood; | |
| Beside the fire in silence smoked | |
| The taciturn, impassive Jew, | 65 |
| Lost in a pleasant revery; | |
| While, by his gravity provoked, | |
| His portrait the Sicilian drew, | |
| And wrote beneath it “Edrehi, | |
| At the Red Horse in Sudbury.” | 70 |
| |
| By far the busiest of them all, | |
| The Theologian in the hall | |
| Was feeding robins in a cage,— | |
| Two corpulent and lazy birds, | |
| Vagrants and pilferers at best, | 75 |
| If one might trust the hostler’s words, | |
| Chief instrument of their arrest; | |
| Two poets of the Golden Age, | |
| Heirs of a boundless heritage | |
| Of fields and orchards, east and west, | 80 |
| And sunshine of long summer days, | |
| Though outlawed now and dispossessed!— | |
| Such was the Theologian’s phrase. | |
| |
| Meanwhile the Student held discourse | |
| With the Musician, on the source | 85 |
| Of all the legendary lore | |
| Among the nations, scattered wide | |
| Like silt and seaweed by the force | |
| And fluctuation of the tide; | |
| The tale repeated o’er and o’er, | 90 |
| With change of place and change of name, | |
| Disguised, transformed, and yet the same | |
| We’ve heard a hundred times before. | |
| |
| The Poet at the window mused, | |
| And saw, as in a dream confused, | 95 |
| The countenance of the Sun, discrowned, | |
| And haggard with a pale despair, | |
| And saw the cloud-rack trail and drift | |
| Before it, and the trees uplift | |
| Their leafless branches, and the air | 100 |
| Filled with the arrows of the rain, | |
| And heard amid the mist below, | |
| Like voices of distress and pain, | |
| That haunt the thoughts of men insane, | |
| The fateful cawings of the crow. | 105 |
| |
| Then down the road, with mud besprent, | |
| And drenched with rain from head to hoof, | |
| The rain-drops dripping from his mane | |
| And tail as from a pent-house roof, | |
| A jaded horse, his head down bent, | 110 |
| Passed slowly, limping as he went. | |
| |
| The young Sicilian—who had grown | |
| Impatient longer to abide | |
| A prisoner, greatly mortified | |
| To see completely overthrown | 115 |
| His plans for angling in the brook, | |
| And, leaning o’er the bridge of stone, | |
| To watch the speckled trout glide by, | |
| And float through the inverted sky, | |
| Still round and round the baited hook— | 120 |
| Now paced the room with rapid stride, | |
| And, pausing at the Poet’s side, | |
| Looked forth, and saw the wretched steed, | |
| And said: “Alas for human greed, | |
| That with cold hand and stony eye | 125 |
| Thus turns an old friend out to die, | |
| Or beg his food from gate to gate! | |
| This brings a tale into my mind, | |
| Which, if you are not disinclined | |
| To listen, I will now relate.” | 130 |
| |
| All gave assent; all wished to hear, | |
| Not without many a jest and jeer, | |
| The story of a spavined steed; | |
| And even the Student with the rest | |
| Put in his pleasant little jest | 135 |
| Out of Malherbe, that Pegasus | |
| Is but a horse that with all speed | |
| Bears poets to the hospital; | |
| While the Sicilian, self-possessed, | |
| After a moment’s interval | 140 |
| Began his simple story thus. | |
| |
