 | Fra Cipolla, and other poems |  |
An antique legend of thy days of pride
'Tis now, fair Bruges, in the horizon wide
Far, by thy tower of mariners descried.
But they go gliding on their airy track
To Baltic shores and Danish Skagerack.
Or where the Dutchman from his wave-lashed piles
To Helder looks, and Texel's sandy isles,
And hails his convoy, that with canvass free
Breasts the long swell of rolling Zuyder Zee,
And memory's filmy pall hangs idly over thee.
'Tis now, fair Bruges, in the horizon wide
Far, by thy tower of mariners descried.
But they go gliding on their airy track
To Baltic shores and Danish Skagerack.
Or where the Dutchman from his wave-lashed piles
To Helder looks, and Texel's sandy isles,
And hails his convoy, that with canvass free
Breasts the long swell of rolling Zuyder Zee,
And memory's filmy pall hangs idly over thee.
But when thy streets to gathering earth displayed
The pomp of arms and lustiness of trade,
And thronged the stranger merchants in thy squares,
And spoke thy speech, and still thy gates were theirs,
And in thy port was clustered many a prow,
By pier and tower so solitary now;
Then sat three revellers, where a golden pard,
Emblem of riot , seemed its haunts to guard.
Noontide and night they sat, and when for prime
The yawning verger slowly wakes the chime,
And scared the grave old burghers with their fray,
Who slow to matins went, and chaffered by the way.
The pomp of arms and lustiness of trade,
52
And spoke thy speech, and still thy gates were theirs,
And in thy port was clustered many a prow,
By pier and tower so solitary now;
Then sat three revellers, where a golden pard,
Emblem of riot , seemed its haunts to guard.
Noontide and night they sat, and when for prime
The yawning verger slowly wakes the chime,
And scared the grave old burghers with their fray,
Who slow to matins went, and chaffered by the way.
| Fra Cipolla, and other poems | |