| |
| THE EVENING came; the golden vane | |
| A moment in the sunset glanced, | |
| Then darkened, and then gleamed again, | |
| As from the east the moon advanced | |
| And touched it with a softer light; | 5 |
| While underneath, with flowing mane, | |
| Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced, | |
| And galloped forth into the night. | |
| |
| But brighter than the afternoon | |
| That followed the dark day of rain, | 10 |
| And brighter than the golden vane | |
| That glistened in the rising moon, | |
| Within, the ruddy fire-light gleamed; | |
| And every separate window-pane, | |
| Backed by the outer darkness, showed | 15 |
| A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed | |
| And flickered to and fro, and seemed | |
| A bonfire lighted in the road. | |
| |
| Amid the hospitable glow, | |
| Like an old actor on the stage, | 20 |
| With the uncertain voice of age, | |
| The singing chimney chanted low | |
| The homely songs of long ago. | |
| |
| The voice that Ossian heard of yore, | |
| When midnight winds were in his hall; | 25 |
| A ghostly and appealing call, | |
| A sound of days that are no more! | |
| And dark as Ossian sat the Jew, | |
| And listened to the sound, and knew | |
| The passing of the airy hosts, | 30 |
| The gray and misty cloud of ghosts | |
| In their interminable flight; | |
| And listening muttered in his beard, | |
| With accent indistinct and weird, | |
| “Who are ye, children of the Night?” | 35 |
| |
| Beholding his mysterious face, | |
| “Tell me,” the gay Sicilian said, | |
| “Why was it that in breaking bread | |
| At supper, you bent down your head | |
| And, musing, paused a little space, | 40 |
| As one who says a silent grace?” | |
| |
| The Jew replied, with solemn air, | |
| “I said the Manichæan’s prayer. | |
| It was his faith,—perhaps is mine,— | |
| That life in all its forms is one, | 45 |
| And that its secret conduits run | |
| Unseen, but in unbroken line, | |
| From the great fountain-head divine | |
| Through man and beast, through grain and grass. | |
| Howe’er we struggle, strive, and cry, | 50 |
| From death there can be no escape, | |
| And no escape from life, alas! | |
| Because we cannot die, but pass | |
| From one into another shape: | |
| It is but into life we die. | 55 |
| |
| “Therefore the Manichæan said | |
| This simple prayer on breaking bread, | |
| Lest he with hasty hand or knife | |
| Might wound the incarcerated life, | |
| The soul in things that we call dead: | 60 |
| ‘I did not reap thee, did not bind thee, | |
| I did not thrash thee, did not grind thee, | |
| Nor did I in the oven bake thee! | |
| It was not I, it was another | |
| Did these things unto thee, O brother; | 65 |
| I only have thee, hold thee, break thee!’” | |
| |
| “That birds have souls I can concede,” | |
| The Poet cried, with glowing cheeks; | |
| “The flocks that from their beds of reed | |
| Uprising north or southward fly, | 70 |
| And flying write upon the sky | |
| The biforked letter of the Greeks, | |
| As hath been said by Rucellai; | |
| All birds that sing or chirp or cry, | |
| Even those migratory bands, | 75 |
| The minor poets of the air, | |
| The plover, peep, and sanderling, | |
| That hardly can be said to sing, | |
| But pipe along the barren sands,— | |
| All these have souls akin to ours; | 80 |
| So hath the lovely race of flowers: | |
| Thus much I grant, but nothing more. | |
| The rusty hinges of a door | |
| Are not alive because they creak; | |
| This chimney, with its dreary roar, | 85 |
| These rattling windows, do not speak!” | |
| “To me they speak,” the Jew replied; | |
| “And in the sounds that sink and soar, | |
| I hear the voices of a tide | |
| That breaks upon an unknown shore!” | 90 |
| |
| Here the Sicilian interfered: | |
| “That was your dream, then, as you dozed | |
| A moment since, with eyes half-closed, | |
| And murmured something in your beard.” | |
| The Hebrew smiled, and answered, “Nay; | 95 |
| Not that, but something very near; | |
| Like, and yet not the same, may seem | |
| The vision of my waking dream; | |
| Before it wholly dies away, | |
| Listen to me, and you shall hear.” | 100 |
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