SIR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people; thither flock'd at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighboring borough with their Institute,
Of which he was the patron.
I was there
From college, visiting the son, the son
A Walter too, - with others of our set,
Five others; we were seven at Vivian-place.
And me that morning Walter show'd the house,
Greek, set with busts. From vases in the hall
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,
Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;
And on the tables every clime and age
Jumbled together; celts and calumets,
Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs
From the isles of palm; and higher on the walls,
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,
His own forefathers' arms and armor hung.
And This,' he said, ' was Hugh's at Agincourt; And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon.
A good knight he! we keep a chronicle
With all about him,'- which he brought, and I
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings
Who laid about them at their wills and died;
And mixt with these a lady, one that arm'd
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.
'O miracle of women,' said the book, "O noble heart who, being strait-besieged By this wild king to force her to his wish,
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost —
Her stature more than mortal in the burst
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire—
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate,
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt,
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels,
And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall,
And some were push'd with lances from the rock,
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook;
O miracle of noble womanhood!'
So sang the gallant glorious chronicle; And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he said, ( To the Abbey; there is Aunt Elizabeth
|