Speak, crumbling mound, and tell to all the wood,
How that beneath these weeds whereon I stray,
A dark-roofed feasting hall of old has stood,
A hall with heralds, knights and courtiers gay ;
Ah! Once was heard amid this quiet glen,
The clank of armour and the clash of steel,
The neighs of horses and the groans of men
For, oft amid these shadows, Death his seal
Had laid upon the lips of many knight.
But see ! High o’er the wood the moon shines clear
And all the trees are bathed in silver light-
Hark ! Through the stillness of the starlit air
Come sounds of laughter, jests and merriment.
Four steps-there were, of ancient trodden stone
Where waving weed and grass had sprung unchecked
And ‘mid whose jagged cracks careless had grown,
And with their flowing hair the surface decked
Four steps and then a door of battered oak,
Strengthened with rusty bands, studded with steal;
Within, clamour and mirth ‘mid drifting smoke
And rancous laughter of a merry meal.
A long low table on the rush-strewn floor,
Flushed faces darkly shadowed by the light,
Of flickering torches; dancing bards who bore
Hot steaming food to quell the appetite,
Of lusty men-at-arms and eager boys,
Who jesting with them watch with sparkling eye,
Clenched fist and head erect with manly poise,
The scene of hearty joviality.
But lo, a king, his presence casts a fear
Throughout the hall where torches slowly burn ;
He sits with bended shoulders in his chair,
And on the curves, his hands, like serpents turn
Twisting and writhing, terribly alive,
Whilst in his face, a frown of surly wrath,
Besprates the passions that malignant strive
To burst their straining bonds and bursting forth
To o’erwhelm his livid countenance with fire.
But lo! the vision fades, I hear the bells
Of some old chapel, hidden from my sight,
And through the quiet of these wooded dells,
Steal soft the myriad whispers of the night.
The halls, the knights, the bards, the varied throng,
The flaring torches and the sullen king,
The clattering feasting and the rancous song
Have passed forgotten and instead there ring
The melodies of Night within my ear —
Gone are those days, as words that long since read,
Leave but a vision in the cloudy air
Of memory. For see there stands instead
A quiet glen with trees whose silent gaze
Would mock the memory of those far-off days.
(R S Ward)
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