Classic Poem

The music of the marriage bell
Woke all the morning air to pleasure,
And breasts there were that rose and fell
To the delightful measure.
Oh, well it were if they might hear alway
The music of their nuptial day
Flowing, as o'er enchanted lakes and streams
Out of the land of dreams —
Sweet sounds that melt but never cease,
Dropped from celestial bells of peace.
Oh, well it were if those rare bridal flowers
Had drunken deep of life's perpetual dews,
Had drunken of those charmed showers
For ever falling in ambrosial hues
Through the far loving skies,
Beyond the flaming walls of long-lost Paradise;
Or grown beside that fabled river
Where it is spring-time ever;
Where, when the aged pilgrim stooped and drank,
He rose again upon that primrose bank
In all the bloom of youth to bloom for ever.
Ah, well for Beauty's transient bowers
If they might bud and blow in life's autumnal hours: —
For she, who wore that bridal wreath
Was Naples' noblest child;
The fairest maid that e'er beguiled
An Abbot of a prayerful breath.
And he who rode beside her there
Was Fame and Fortune's richest heir;
One who had come from foreign realms afar
To dazzle like a new-discovered star.
Yet as they passed between the crowd
He looked not scornfully nor proud,
But to the beggars thronging every side
Scattered the golden coin in plenteous rain,
And smiled to see their joy insane.
And passing, thus addressed the bride: —
" The merry bells make music sweet,
But never to the beggar's ear
Fell music half so sweet and clear
As the chime of gold when it strikes the street;
It drives their hearts to swifter swinging,
And fills their brains with gladder ringing
Than ever bells will swing or ring,
Even though the sturdy sacristan
Should labour the very best he can
To chime for the wedding of a king.
Such sights to me will always bring
The story of a beggar, who
Perchance has ofttimes begged of you;
And here the tale may well be told,
To while away this idle gait
That keeps us from our happy fate:
For time is very lame and old
Whene'er the surly graybeard brings
A prayed-for pleasure on his wings;
But robbing us of a joy can flee
As fleet of foot as Mercury.

" Avoiding every wintry shade,
The lazzaroni crawled to sunny spots, —
At every corner miserable knots
Pursued their miserable trade;
And held the sunshine in their asking palms,
Which gave unthanked its glowing alms,
Thawing the blood until it ran
As wine within a vintage runs.
And there was one among that begging clan,
One of Italia's listless dreamy sons,
A native Neapolitan —
A boy whose cheeks had drawn their olive tan
From fifteen summer suns.
Long had he stood with naked feet
Upon the lava of the street,
With shadowy eyes cast down,
Making neither a smile nor frown,
And in the crowd he stood alone,
Alone with empty hanging hands,
And through his brain the idle dreams
Slid down like idle sands;
Or hung like mists o'er sleeping streams
In uninhabitable lands.
To him, I ween, the same,
All seasons went and came
Nor did ambition's pomp and show
Disturb his fancy's tranquil flow;
For, like the blossom of the soil,
Existence was his only toil
" One morn (the bells had summoned all to mass)
He knelt before the old cathedral door —
At such a place the wealthier who pass
Will throw a pious pittance to the poor,
Who kneel with face demure,
With their mute eyes and hands saying their " alas!"
Oh, beautiful it was to see him there,
Looking his wordless prayer,
With solemn head depressed,
And hands laid crosswise on his breast, —
Such figures saw Murillo in his dream,
The painter and the pride of Spain;
With such he made his living canvas gleam,
As canvas touched by man may never gleam again.

" Upon the beggar's heart the matin hymn
Fell faint and dim
As when upon some margin of the sea
The fisher breathes the briny air,
And hears the far waves' symphony,
But hears it unaware.
The music from the lofty aisle,
And all the splendour of the sacred pile, —
The pictures hung at intervals
Like windows, giving from the walls
Clear glimpses of the days agone,
From that blest hour when over Bethlehem shone
The shepherd's Star, until that darker time
When groaned the earth aloud with agony sublime: —
All were unheeded,
And came, but as his breath;
Or if there came a thought, that thought unheeded
Even in its birth met death.
The names of Raphael, — Angelo, — Lorraine, —
Da Vinci, — Roso, — Titian, — and the rest,
Are sounds to thrill the Italian's soul and brain
With all the impulse native to his breast;
And Dante, — Petrarch, — these are mighty names
The meanest tongue with a true pride proclaims;
And Ariosto's song a loved bequest;
And Tasso's sung by all — by all is loved and blest.
But what cared he, the sunburnt beggar-boy?
All these bequeathed no other joy
Than did the silent stars,
Or morn or evening with their golden bars,
Or the great azure arch of day,
Or his own bright, unrivalled bay,
Or old Vesuvius' deathless flames —
And these to him alone were empty sights and names.

" Few were there who did any alms bestow,
For few will hear accustomed sounds of woe;
Yet there was one among that few
Who but a moment stopped,
And in the beggar's hands the silver dropped,
And shed the benediction of her smile.
Such smile as hers might well renew
A heart to its lost light, and might beguile
The shadow of a mourner's hour;
Such smiles are like the blessed dew
By evening shed upon a wayside flower,
Sinking to the heart of hearts with a miraculous power.
The earliest primrose of the spring,
Which at the brook-side suddenly in sight
Gleams like a water sprite;
And the first herald bird on southern wing,
Chanting his wild, enthusiastic rhyme
About the summer time —
Wake in the soul an instant, deep delight!
But there are eyes whose first sweet look
Outshines the primrose by the brook;
And there are lips whose simplest words
Outrival even the spring-time birds.
Ah, well, I ween, the beggar felt their power,
And wore them in his heart from that bright hour.
She passed — a maiden very young and fair,
Of an illustrious house the pride and heir;
She passed — but ah, she left.
The miserable boy bereft! —
Bereft of all that quiet which had lain
Like a low mist within his brain, —
The idle fogs of some rank weedy isle
Hanging on the breezeless atmosphere,
Over a miasmatic mere; —
All this the beauty of her smile
Had blown into a storm that would not rest again.
At once upstarting from his knees,
He watched her as she went;
The blood awakened from its slothful ease,
Through all his frame a flaming flood was sent.
He stood as with a statue's fixed surprise,
Great wonder making marble in his eyes!
She, like a morn, had dawned upon his soul;
And now he saw the marvellous whole.
Of that mysterious land,
And felt a sense of awe as they who stand
For the first time upon an alien strand, —
Some sailor of a foreign sea,
Who, from the smooth waves swinging lazily,
Is thrown upon a shore
Where life is full of noise and strife for evermore
He stood awake and suddenly there burst
The music of the organ on his brain,
And into every sense athirst
Dispensed a welcome rain.
Now that his soul had passed from its eclipse,
All things at once became a glorious show;
Now could he see the sainted pictures glow;
And instantly unto his lips
Rolled fragments of old song —
Fragments which had been thrown
Into his heart unknown,
And buried there had lain in silence deep and long.

" He saw his fellows kneel where he had knelt
With tattered garb and supplicating air;
And for the first time in his life he felt
How mean was his attire, and that his feet were bare.
He sighed and bit his lips, and passed away;
And from that day,
His fellows idly as before,
Without a hope, without a care,
Stood clustered in the sunny air,
But there the beggar boy was seen no more.

" His childhood, like a dry and sandy bar,
Lay all behind him as he hurled
His soul's hot bark to sea, and wide unfurled
The straining sail upon a billowy world.
And now he joined the sacred fleet afar,
And 'mid tempestuous waves of war
Defied the Saracen and Death,
And won the warrior's laurel wreath,
And gave his beggar name to Fame's industrious breath.

" Years came and went, and no one missed the boy,
Nor wept his long farewell;
They little guessed how much their joy
Was of his deeds to tell.
And when he knew his native town
Had learned to talk of his renown,
The youth a bearded man returned;
And more than for renown he yearned
To see that blessed smile again
Which erst made beauty in his brain,
And ever in the van of war
Had shown a most propitions star.
He came, and she of whom he long had dreamed
With hopes which nought could e'er destroy,
In brighter beauty on him beamed,
And blessed him with a deeper joy;
Even she, the noblest lady of the land,
Bestowed on him her virgin hand!
Ah, sure it was the fairest alms
That ever blessed a beggar's palms!

" To him the chime which filled the skies
Upon his nuptial morn,
When down the loving breezes borne,
Did seem to be by angels rung
From silver bells of Paradise,
In golden turrets hung.
And she, who woke the boy to man,
As little dreamed, I guess, as now,
My gentle lady, as dost thou,
How proud she was to wed that barefoot Neapolitan. "