Tales of a Wayside Inn. Генри Уодсуорт Лонгфелло

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       The heart of all things he embraced,

       And yet of such fastidious taste,

       He never found the best too good.

       Books were his passion and delight,

       And in his upper room at home

       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;

       Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance,

       And banner waves, and trumpet sounds,

       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 Boccaccio'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!"

      A Spanish Jew from Alicant

       With aspect grand and grave was there;

       Vender of silks and fabrics rare,

       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 chin,

       The tumbling cataract of his beard.

       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 rumored 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

       There was a mystery in his looks;

       His eyes seemed gazing far away,

       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,

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