White as a sea-fog, landward bound, No other voice nor sound was there, But, when the old cathedral bell Down the broad valley fast and far Up rose the glorious morning star, I have read, in the marvellous heart of man, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Encamped beside Life's rushing stream, Upon its midnight battle-ground No other voice nor sound is there, And, when the solemn and deep church-bell The midnight phantoms feel the spell, Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled; MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING YEAR YES, the Year is growing old, And his eye is pale and bleared! The leaves are falling, falling, Caw! caw! the rooks are calling, Through woods and mountain-passes And the hooded clouds, like friars, MIDNIGHT MASS FOR DYING YEAR 25 There he stands in the foul weather, Crowned with wild flowers and with heather, Then comes the summer-like day, His joy! his last! Oh, the old man grey To the crimson woods he saith, And now the sweet day is dead! No mist or stain ! Then, too, the Old Year dieth, Then comes, with an awful roar, The storm-wind! Howl! howl! and from the forest For there shall come a mightier blast, And the stars, from heaven down-cast, L'ENVOI YE voices, that arose And whispered to my restless heart repose! Go, breathe it in the ear Of all who doubt and fear, And say to them, "Be of good cheer!" Ye sounds, so low and calm, That in the groves of balm Seemed to me like an angel's psalm ! Go, mingle yet once more With the perpetual roar Of the pine forest, dark and hoar ! Tongues of the dead, not lost, Glimmer, as funeral lamps, Amid the chills and damps Of the vast plain where Death encamps! BALLADS 1842 THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR PREFATORY NOTE THE following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors. Professor Rafn, in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, for 1838-39, says : "There is no mistaking in this instance the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the North were constructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or AnteGothic architecture, and which, especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued to predominate until the close of the twelfth century; that style which some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristics, called the round-arch style, the same which in England is denominated Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture. "On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier rather than of a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old Northern architecture will concur, THAT THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. |