Classic Poem

It is told, in a quaint old nursery tale,
That perchance you have often read,
How a castle lies hid in some charmed vale,
Remote from the usual tread;
And within an enchanted Princess lies,
Asleep in her silken bed;
Whilst round about, under slumberous charms,
Lie the forms of her lordly train —
And their squires, and archers, and yeomen-at-arms,
As valiant as ever drew rein;
But with helmets, and bucklers, and lances,
All clouded with mildew-stain.

All corroded and mildew'd with rust of time,
They are lying in court and hall;
Every young knight's beard bears a frosty rime —
Like the beard of the Seneschal
Who awaits, in his chair, at the postern gate,
The sound of a trumpet call;
While below, in the crypts of this castle strange
O'erbrooded by self-same spell,
There are shapes like friars, in cloister'd range,
Lying each at the door of his cell,
And awaiting, in motionless slumber,
The stroke of a summoning bell!

For whenever a Knight who is tried and true
Rides late o'er the haunted wold,
And peals a loud summons the trumpet through,
That hangs at the postern old,
Then, in all the crypts of this castle
A bell is solemnly toll'd —
And the Princess arises, in royal gear,
From the couch of her charmed rest,
And her knights and her nobles take shield and spear,
At their beautiful lady's behest;
And they hie to the gate of the postern
To welcome their midnight guest!

Then afar through the cloisters and corridors
Sounds a monotone stroke of the bell;
And each friar steals forth, o'er the marble floors,
From the door of his darksome cell;
And he creepeth away to the postern gate —
His marvelous story to tell;
While the bell of the castle is ringing amain,
And the wondering guest comes in;
And the Seneschal leading his ghastly train
Away through the ghostly din;
Then the friars rehearse to the stranger knight
Their stories of sorrow and sin.

With a patter of prayers and a dropping of beads,
They recount, to the shuddering man,
How their souls waxed heavy with sinful deeds
In the days of their mortal span;
And how Heaven's avenging sentence
Their earthly years o'erran!
And the Princess reveals to the stranger knight
How she needs must slumber alway,
Till a Prince of the Temple, in valorous fight,
Shall a Saracen sorcerer slay —
And the spell of his midnight magic
Disperse under morn's sweet ray!

But alas! for that guest of the haunted grange,
If no Templar Knight he be;
And woe, when he listeth that story strange,
If no memories pure hath he!
To the spell of the sorcerer's magic
He must bow his powerless knee;
He must sink into sleep, with the shape he sees,
And his buckler and helm will rust!
He must lie in the cloisters and crypts, with these
Who have risen, to greet him, from dust!
And await, with them, an awakening
By hero more pure and just!

Like that charmed castle, in haunted vale,
Is the wondrous Masonic Past!
Where the heroes and yeomen of History's tale
Are reclining in slumbers fast;
With the spell of an indolent seeming
Over all their memories cast!
But the Princess, who sleeps in her silken bed,
Is the spirit of ancient Truth;
Lying evermore shrouded with tatter and shred,
But for evermore fresh with youth —
And awaiting the pure-hearted Seeker
To come, with his valor and truth!

Like the knights and the nobles in slumber profound,
Are our riddles and fables of old;
In their rust and their dust they incumber the ground,
And abide in their garments of mold —
Keeping truth, like a charmed Princess,
Asleep in their ghostly hold.
'Mid the haunted cloisters of History's script,
In the House of the Past they dwell;
Like the sours of the friars, they hide in each crypt,
And emerge from each darksome cell —
At the blast of a summoning trumpet,
Their wonderful stories to tell!

In the volumed marvels of Grecian mind,
And the records of Roman fore,
There are riddles of wisdom for human kind,
To ponder a lifetime o'er;
And to all of their mystical meanings
Each heart is an open door!
Every human heart is a postern gate
To the house of the wondrous Past,
Where the heroes and sages of History wait
The sound of a trumpet blast,
That shall break the enchanted slumbers
For ages around them cast!

How the voices of song, out of Dorian aisles.
With their Iliad and Odyssey swell!
How they roll'd from the shadows of Tuscan piles,
Where the Florentine chanted of Hell!
And how grandly, through Gothic chancels,
Of Paradise Lost they tell!
And the whispers of hearts, and responses of souls.
Flow around, like the west wind kind,
When the song of the Singer of Avon rolls
Through the gates of our listening mind,
And the plaint of the pilgrim Harold
Sounds fitful and strange behind!

All the climes of the earth are as Holy Lands
To the feet of the children of Song;
Every realm hath its Mecca, where pilgrim bands
To some Kaäba of Poesy throng;
And the homes and the tombs of the poets
To the whole wide world belong.
In the paths of their minstrels the nations tread,
And the king on his bard awaits;
For Ulysses is dumb, and Achilles is dead,
Until Homer their soul creates;
And 'tis Tasso who frees Jerusalem,
Though Godfrey wins her gates.

Through the twilight of oaks and of mistletoe bowers,
The hymns of the Druids I hear;
And the Fairie Queene, through lab'rinths of flowers,
Lures me with her melodies clear,
From the echoes of " woodly Morven, "
To the murmurs of sweet Windermere;
And I hear the old Norsemen chanting their tunes,
Under arches of boreal fires,
And the Troubadours singing, through long, rich lunes,
To their soft Provencal lyres;
And the bards of the Cambrian mountains,
O'ersweeping their 'wildered wires.

O! those voices of Song, how they ebb, how they flow!
How they swell, like the tides of the main!
Every age, every clime, hath its life-giving throe,
And its utterance of generous pain —
Till its master-thought feapeth, full armor'd,
From out some Jove-like brain!
O! the heroes and kings have no story to tell,
In the dust of their funeral urns;
But the songs of the poets immortally dwell
Wheresoever a true heart yearns —
In the halls of the royal David,
Or the cottage of Robert Burns!