Classic Poem

There is an old low room I love;
Dark broken plaster spreads above.
Near-by is heard the muffled tone
Of roaring sluice and saw-mill's drone.
The furniture's of ancient mould,
Ample, and stoutly made,
With curving legs of white and gold,
And flower-enwrought brocade.

Out of a corner, dim and swart
Stares a bronze bust of Bonaparte,
Who with his white horse rides in all
The pale engravings on the wall;
Through Ulm and Austerlitz they go,
At Beresina too,
From victory to overthrow
At bloody Waterloo.

Karl-Johan gazes, white with dust,
Upon the Emperor's gloomy bust.
His royal nose is thin and bent,
His lips, though tight and reticent,
Prepared to hurl forth accents dire
In thundering cascade,
Hot with the heart's volcanic fire,
A mighty gasconade.

A book-case old of curly birch,
Where massive carvings darkly perch,
Holds many a poet of romance.
We see as o'er the backs we glance
Per Atterbom with all his line,
Tegnér, an honored guest;
Stagnelius, mystic and divine,
With Almqvist and the rest.

A fly is buzzing on the sill,
The clock's long pendulum is still;
The languorous breath of jasmine pours
From blooming bushes out-of-doors,
And pungent from a near-by vase
Comes scent of rose-leaf sear,
While glints the bright prismatic glass
Of crystal chandelier.

Between the windows there appears
A spinet dumb these sixty years,
But I can picture some one there
In straw-hued skirt upon the chair,
With corkscrew curls and shawl of lace,—
The form is my great-aunt's.
Pale orange is her faded face,
And dark her wide-eyed glance.

As languishing as poppy-dreams,
She sings with tender tone, and seems
To sway her head in time to words
That tell of love and Persian birds;
Of nightingales that never cease,
And violets' perfumed sighs,
Of roses' pain and lilies' peace
In that far paradise.

The chamber fills with sweetest scent
Of ambergris and flowers blent,
With down of flitting butterflies,
And such tinsel fooleries;
Till dainty little fairies dance
On tiptoe through the room,
And spirit-birds of old romance
Call through the charmèd gloom.