Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble, Listening with a wild delight To the chimes that, through the night Bang their changes from the Belfry Of that quaint old Flemish city.
THE BELFRY OF BRUGES
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood, And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray, Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.
At my feet the city slumbered.From its chimneys, here and there, Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.
Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;All the Foresters of Flanders,--mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer, Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.
I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of GoldLombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen, And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.
I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold, Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;Saw the light at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west, Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.
And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand, "I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!"Then the sound of drums aroused me.The awakened city's roar Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware, Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.
A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE
This is the place.Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy Past The forms that once have been.
The Past and Present here unite Beneath Time's flowing tide, Like footprints hidden by a brook, But seen on either side.
Here runs the highway to the town;
There the green lane descends, Through which I walked to church with thee, O gentlest of my friends!
The shadow of the linden-trees Lay moving on the grass;Between them and the moving boughs, A shadow, thou didst pass.
Thy dress was like the lilies, And thy heart as pure as they:
One of God's holy messengers Did walk with me that day.
I saw the branches of the trees Bend down thy touch to meet, The clover-blossoms in the grass Rise up to kiss thy feet,"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, Of earth and folly born!"Solemnly sang the village choir On that sweet Sabbath morn.
Through the closed blinds the golden sun Poured in a dusty beam, Like the celestial ladder seen By Jacob in his dream.
And ever and anon, the wind, Sweet-scented with the hay, Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves That on the window lay.
Long was the good man's sermon, Yet it seemed not so to me;For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, And still I thought of thee.
Long was the prayer he uttered, Yet it seemed not so to me;For in my heart I prayed with him, And still I thought of thee.
But now, alas! the place seems changed;
Thou art no longer here:
Part of the sunshine of the scene With thee did disappear.
Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, Like pine-trees dark and high, Subdue the light of noon, and breathe A low and ceaseless sigh;This memory brightens o'er the past, As when the sun, concealed Behind some cloud that near us hangs Shines on a distant field.
THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD
This is the Arsenal.From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle with their awful symphoniesI hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, The cries of agony, the endless groan, Which, through the ages that have gone before us, In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song, And loud, amid the universal clamor, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;The tumult of each sacked and burning village;The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, The diapason of the cannonade.
Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies?