Classic Poem

There stood, in long-gone ages, a castle tall and grand;
Blue ocean caught its glances o'er many a league of land;
Fair, fragrant gardens round it, hung like a garland bright,
Within leaped up fresh fountains in rainbow-tinted light.

There sate a haughty monarch, for lands and wars renowned;
All pale and dark and cloudy sate he, the throned and crowned;
For what he thinks is terror; his looks they bode no good;
And what he speaks is daggers, and what he writes is blood.

Two minstrels to this castle came once, a noble pair:
The one, his locks were golden — the other grey of hair;
With harp in hand the old man, a stately steed he rode —
The blooming youth beside him with step elastic strode.

The old man spake his comrade: " Be ready now, my son!
Think o'er our deepest music, sound out the fullest tone;
Each thrill of pleasure summon, and sorrow's piercing smart!
To day must break, or never, this proud king's flinty heart."

The minstrels twain have entered the lofty pillared hall;
The monarch and his consort sit high enthroned o'er all:
The King, in dreadful splendor, like bloody North-lights gleamed;
The Queen, benign and tender, like the full May moon beamed.

The old man struck the harp-strings, — he swept them wondrous well,
And richer still and richer, came sounding up the swell;
Then forth with heavenly clearness the young man's voice it streamed, —
The old man's, wildly blending, a ghostly choral seemed.

Of love and spring they chanted, and golden days of bliss,
Of freedom and of manhood, of truth and holiness;
They sang of all the tenderness to which man's bosom thrills, —
They sang of all the nobleness which man's brave bosom fills.

In all that throng of courtlings no jest is thought of now;
The king's defiant warriors, before their God they bow;
The queen, with tears of rapture, her mournful joy confessed,
And threw before the minstrel the rose that decked her breast.

" Ye have seduced my people; ensnare ye now my bride?"
His frame with fury shaking, the monarch fiercely cried;
Then at the young man's bosom his flashing blade he flings, —
Where gushed that golden music, the spouting heart's-blood springs.

Like dust before the tempest, is fled that listening swarm;
The groaning youth expires upon his master's arm;
He wraps him in his mantle, then sets him, stiff and straight,
Upon the horse, and leads him out through the castle gate.

Before the lofty gateway, the hoary bard turned round,
His harp on high he lifted, — that harp of sweetest sound, —
Back from a marble column the precious fragments fly,
Then peals through court and garden this wild and dismal cry:

" Woe, woe on you, proud chambers! sweet sound no more shall ring,
For ever, through your spaces, of voice or tuneful string;
No! only sighs and groanings, and shuddering slave-steps creep,
Till Heaven's just vengeance leaves you a waste, unsightly heap.

" Woe, woe on you, fair gardens, fragrant in May-light's glow!
This dead, distorted visage to you I here do show,
That, seeing, ye may wither, your fountains all grow dry,
That ye, in coming ages, a stony waste may lie.

" Woe, woe on thee, foul murderer! thou curse of minstrelsy!
Vain all thy strife for garlands of bloody fame shall be,
Thy name shall be forgotten, in endless night shall die,
Like a last groan expiring, in a black and empty sky!"

The grey old bard hath ended, the Heavens have heard his cry;
The lofty walls are prostrate, the halls in ruins lie,
Save one tall column, telling what splendor took its flight,
And this, already tottering, may crumble down tonight.

All round, for fragrant gardens, is now a barren land;
No tree gives shade, no fountain comes gushing through the sand;
No song, no book of heroes the monarch's name rehearse;
Extinguished and forgotten! that is the minstrel's curse!