Deep silence reigned, save when a gust

Went rushing down the country road,
And skeletons of leaves, and dust,
A moment quickened by its breath,
Shuddered and danced their dance of
death,

And through the ancient oaks o'erhead

Mysterious voices moaned and fled.

But from the parlour of the inn
A pleasant murmur smote the ear,
Like water rushing through a weir ;
Oft interrupted by the din
Of laughter and of loud applause,
And, in each intervening pause,
The music of a violin.

The fire-light, shedding over all
The splendour of its ruddy glow,
Filled the whole parlour large and low;
It gleamed on wainscot and on wall,
It touched with more than wonted
grace

Fair Princess Mary's pictured face;
It bronzed the rafters overhead,
On the old spinet's ivory keys
It played inaudible melodies,
It crowned the sombre clock with

flame,

[name,
The hands, the hours, the maker's
And painted with a livelier red
The Landlord's coat-of-arms again;
And, flashing on the window-pane,
Emblazoned with its light and shade
The jovial rhymes, that still remain,
Writ near a century ago,

By the great Major Molineaux,
Whom Hawthorne has immortal

made.

Before the blazing fire of wood
Erect the rapt musician stood;
And ever and anon he bent
His head upon his instrument,
And seemed to listen till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought,—
The joy, the triumph, the lament,
The exultation and the pain;
Then, by the magic of his art,
He soothed the throbbings of its heart,
And lulled it into peace again.

There sata group of friends, entranced
With the delicious melodies;
Who from the far-off noisy town
Had to the wayside inn come down,
To rest beneath its old oak-trees.
The fire-light on their faces glanced,
Their shadows on the wainscot
danced,

And, though of different lands and speech,

Each had his tale to tell, and each
Was anxious to be pleased and please.
And while the sweet musician plays,
Let me in outline sketch them all,
Perchance uncouthly as the blaze
With its uncertain touch portrays
Their shadowy semblance on the wall.

But first the Landlord will I trace;
Grave in his aspect and attire ;
A man of ancient pedigree,
A Justice of the Peace was he,
Known in all Sudbury as The
Squire."

"

Proud was he of his name and race,
Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh,
And in the parlour, full in view,
His coat-of-arms, well framed and
glazed,

Upon the wall in colours blazed ;
He beareth gules upon his shield,
A chevron Argent in the field,
With three wolves' heads, and for the

Stood many a rare and sumptuous

tome,

In vellum bound, with gold bedight,
Great volumes garmented in white,
Recalling Florence, Pisa, Rome.
He loved the twilight that surrounds
The border-land of old romance;

lance,

Where glitter hauberk, helm, and
[sounds,
And banner waves, and trumpet
And ladies ride with hawk on wrist,
And mighty warriors sweep along,
Magnified by the purple mist,
The dusk of centuries and of song.
The chronicles of Charlemagne,
Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure,
Mingled together in his brain
With tales of Flores and Blanchefleur,
Sir Ferumbras, Sir Eglamour,
Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,
Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain.

A young Sicilian, too, was there ;
In sight of Etna born and bred,
Some breath of its volcanic air
Was glowing in his heart and brain,
And, being rebellious to his liege,
After Palermo's fatal siege,
Across the western seas he fled,
In good king Bomba's happy reign.
His face was like a summer night,
All flooded with a dusky light;
His hands were small; his teeth shone

white

As sea-shells, when he smiled or spoke;
His sinews supple and strong as oak;
Clean shaven was he as a priest,
Who at the mass on Sunday sings,
Save that upon his upper lip
His beard, a good palm's length at
least,

Level and pointed at the tip,
Shot sideways, like a swallow's wings.
The poets read he o'er and o'er,
And most of all the Immortal Four
Of Italy and next to those,
The story-telling bard of prose,
Who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales
Of the Decameron, that make
Fiesole's green hills and vales
Remembered for Boccaceio's sake.
Much too of music was his thought;
The melodies and measures fraught
With sunshine and the open air,
Of vineyards and the singing sea
Of his beloved Sicily;

And much it pleased him to peruse
The songs of the Sicilian muse,--

Bucolic songs by Meli sung
In the familiar peasant tongue,
That made men say,
"Behold! once

more

The pitying gods to earth restore
Theocritus of Syracuse!"

With aspect grand and grave was
A Spanish Jew from Alicant

Vender of silks and fabrics rare,
there;
And attar of rose from the Levant.
Like an old Patriarch he appeared,
Abraham or Isaac, or at least
Some later Prophet or High-Priest;
With lustrous eyes, and olive skin,
And, wildly tossed from cheeks and
The tumbling cataract of his beard.
chin,
His garments breathed a spicy scent
Of cinnamon and sandal blent,
Like the soft aromatic gales
That meet the mariner, who sails
Through the Moluccas, and the seas
That wash the shores of Celebes.
All stories that recorded are
By Pierre Alphonse he knew by heart,
And it was rumoured he could say
The Parables of Sandabar,
And all the Fables of Pilpay,
Or if not all, the greater part!
Well versed was he in Hebrew books,
Talmud and Targum, and the lore
Of Kabala; and evermore
His eyes seemed gazing far away,
There was a mystery in his looks:
As if in vision or in trance

He heard the solemn sackbut play,
And saw the Jewish maidens dance.
A Theologian, from the school
Of Cambridge on the Charles, was there;
Skilful alike with tongue and pen,
He preached to all men everywhere
The Gospel of the Golden Rule,
The New Commandment given to men,
Thinking the deed, and not the creed,
Would help us in our utmost need.
With reverent feet the earth he trod,
Nor banished nature from his plan,
But studied still with deep research
To build the Universal Church,
Lofty as in the love of God,
And ample as the wants of man.

A Poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical and terse;
The inspiration, the delight,
The gleam, the glory, the swift flight

000000

Last the Musician, as he stood
Illumined by that fire of wood;
Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his
blithe,
His figure tall and straight and lithe,
And every feature of his face
Revealing his Norwegian race;
A radiance, streaming from within,
Around his eyes and forehead beamed,
The Angel with the violin,
Painted by Raphael, he seemed.
He lived in that ideal world

Whose language is not speech,
song;

but

Around him evermore the throng Of elves and sprites their dances whirled ;

The Strömkarl sang, the cataract hurled

Its headlong waters from the height;
And mingled in the wild delight
The scream of sea-birds in their flight,
The rumour of the forest trees,
The plunge of the implacable seas,
The tumult of the wind at night,
Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing,
Old ballads, and wild melodies
Through mist and darkness pouring
forth,

Like Elivagar's river flowing
Out of the glaciers of the North.
The instrument on which he played
Was in Cremona's workshops made,
By a great master of the past,
Ere yet was lost the art divine;
Fashioned of maple and of pine,
That in Tyrolian forests vast

Had rocked and wrestled with the

blast;

Exquisite was it in design,
Perfect in each minutest part,
A marvel of the lutist's art;
And in its hollow chamber, thus,

The maker from whose hands it came

The shadows on the wainscot stirred,
And from the harpsichord there came
A sound like that sent down at night,
A ghostly murmur of acclaim,
By birds of passage in their flight,
From the remotest distance heard.
Then silence followed; then began
A clamour for the Landlord's tale,-
The story promised them of old,
They said, but always left untold;
And he, although a bashful man,
And all his courage seemed to fail,
Finding excuse of no avail,
Yielded; and thus the story ran.