 | Poems |  |
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THE DESOLATE HALL.
I
A lonely hall, upon a lonelier moor,For many a league no other dwelling near;
Northward, an ancient wood, whose tall trees roar
When the wild winds their huge broad branches tear:
In this old hall, a servant deaf and grey
On me in silence waits, throughout the dreary day.
II
Before my threshold waves the long white grass,That like a living desolation stands,
Nodding its withered head whene'er I pass,
The last sad heir of these cold barren lands;
Last in the ruined chapel to repose,
Then its old mouldering door upon our race will close.
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III
Along the roof the dark moss thickly spreads,A dampness o'er the oaken rafters throwing;
A chilling moisture settles on the beds,
And green decay along the walls is growing;
The very curtains, with their damask dyes,
Drop piecemeal on the floor, where the grey lichens rise.
IV
And when the wind sweeps o'er those low damp floors,It makes a weary noise, a wailing moan;
All night I hear the clap of broken doors,
That on their rusty hinges grate and groan;
And then old voices, calling from behind,
The worn and wormy wainscot flapping in the wind.
V
The silver moth in the carved wardrobe feeds,The unturned keys are rusted in the locks;
Beneath my hearth the brown mouse safely breeds,
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The white owl in the chamber dreams all day,
For there is no one now to frighten her away.
VI
Sometimes I seem to hear, above my head,A tramping noise, as if of human feet;
In clanking mail they move with measured tread,
Then to the sound of solemn music beat,
Till with a crash the deep-dyed casements close,
Shaking the crazy walls, and breaking my repose.
VII
The toothless mastiff bitch howls all night long,And in her kennel sleepeth all the day;
The deaf old man said, “Something must be wrong,
She was not wont to yell and howl this way.
I marked her first do so, at dark Yule-tide:
It was the very night my lady Ellen died.”
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VIII
The high-piled books with cobwebs are o'ergrown,Their costly bindings rusty, dim, and dead;
Last night the huge old Bible thundered down,
And opened at the place which Ellen read
The night she died. I knew the page again,
'Twas marked with many a tear,—her last sad earthly stain.
IX
And now I shun the room in which she died,The books, the flowers, the harp she caused to sound;
The flowers are dead, the books are thrown aside,
The harp is mute, and dust has gathered round
The piled-up songs she sung; the very chair
Unmovèd stands, in which she sung her last sad air.
X
The fish-ponds now are mantled o'er with green;The rooks have left their old ancestrel trees,
Their ruined nests amid the boughs are seen.
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No steed neighs out, no flocks bleat from the fold,
For upland, hill, and vale, are empty, brown and cold.
XI
I cannot sleep!—when slumber o'er me creeps,The old house-clock rings out its dreary sound,
The unwearied warder, who his march still keeps;
And then the rusty vane turns round, and round:
These are sad tones,—'tis Desolation calls,
While Ruin loudly roars around my father's halls.
XII
Then hollow gusts through the rent casements stream,Moving the ancient portraits on the wall;
And when upon them slopes the moon's pale beam,
Their floating costumes seem to rise and fall,
And as I come or go—move where I will,
Their cold white deadly eyes turning pursue me still.
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XIII
'Tis past! and never more shall these walls ringWith dance and song, and music's dulcet strains;
Beauty will here no more her daughters bring,
Nor stately pleasure shake her golden chains.
Such things have been, but they have had “their day:”
Our name—our race—our home—with me shall fade away.
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