Prelude - The Wayside Inn - Part Second

A cold, uninterrupted rain,     That washed each southern window-pane,     And made a river of the road;     A sea of mist that overflowed     The house, the barns, the gilded vane,     And drowned the upland and the plain,     Through which the oak-trees, broad and high,     Like phantom ships went drifting by;     And, hidden behind a watery screen,     The sun unseen, or only seen     As a faint pallor in the sky;--     Thus cold and colorless and gray,     The morn of that autumnal day,     As if reluctant to begin,     Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,     And all the guests that in it lay.     Full late they slept.    They did not hear     The challenge of Sir Chanticleer,     Who on the empty threshing-floor,     Disdainful of the rain outside,     Was strutting with a martial stride,     As if upon his thigh he wore     The famous broadsword of the Squire,     And said, "Behold me, and admire!"     Only the Poet seemed to hear,     In drowse or dream, more near and near     Across the border-land of sleep     The blowing of a blithesome horn,     That laughed the dismal day to scorn;     A splash of hoofs and rush of wheels     Through sand and mire like stranding keels,     As from the road with sudden sweep     The Mail drove up the little steep,     And stopped beside the tavern door;     A moment stopped, and then again     With crack of whip and bark of dog     Plunged forward through the sea of fog,     And all was silent as before,--     All silent save the dripping rain.     Then one by one the guests came down,     And greeted with a smile the Squire,     Who sat before the parlor fire,     Reading the paper fresh from town.     First the Sicilian, like a bird,     Before his form appeared, was heard     Whistling and singing down the stair;     Then came the Student, with a look     As placid as a meadow-brook;     The Theologian, still perplexed     With thoughts of this world and the next;     The Poet then, as one who seems     Walking in visions and in dreams;     Then the Musician, like a fair     Hyperion from whose golden hair     The radiance of the morning streams;     And last the aromatic Jew     Of Alicant, who, as he threw     The door wide open, on the air     Breathed round about him a perfume     Of damask roses in full bloom,     Making a garden of the room.     The breakfast ended, each pursued     The promptings of his various mood;     Beside the fire in silence smoked     The taciturn, impassive Jew,     Lost in a pleasant revery;     While, by his gravity provoked,     His portrait the Sicilian drew,     And wrote beneath it "Edrehi,     At the Red Horse in Sudbury."     By far the busiest of them all,     The Theologian in the hall     Was feeding robins in a cage,--     Two corpulent and lazy birds,     Vagrants and pilferers at best,     If one might trust the hostler's words,     Chief instrument of their arrest;     Two poets of the Golden Age,     Heirs of a boundless heritage     Of fields and orchards, east and west,     And sunshine of long summer days,     Though outlawed now and dispossessed!--     Such was the Theologian's phrase.     Meanwhile the Student held discourse     With the Musician, on the source     Of all the legendary lore     Among the nations, scattered wide     Like silt and seaweed by the force     And fluctuation of the tide;     The tale repeated o'er and o'er,     With change of place and change of name,     Disguised, transformed, and yet the same     We've heard a hundred times before.     The Poet at the window mused,     And saw, as in a dream confused,     The countenance of the Sun, discrowned,     And haggard with a pale despair,     And saw the cloud-rack trail and drift     Before it, and the trees uplift     Their leafless branches, and the air     Filled with the arrows of the rain,     And heard amid the mist below,     Like voices of distress and pain,     That haunt the thoughts of men insane,     The fateful cawings of the crow.     Then down the road, with mud besprent,     And drenched with rain from head to hoof,     The rain-drops dripping from his mane     And tail as from a pent-house roof,     A jaded horse, his head down bent,     Passed slowly, limping as he went.     The young Sicilian--who had grown     Impatient longer to abide     A prisoner, greatly mortified     To see completely overthrown     His plans for angling in the brook,     And, leaning o'er the bridge of stone,     To watch the speckled trout glide by,     And float through the inverted sky,     Still round and round the baited hook--     Now paced the room with rapid stride,     And, pausing at the Poet's side,     Looked forth, and saw the wretched steed,     And said: "Alas for human greed,     That with cold hand and stony eye     Thus turns an old friend out to die,     Or beg his food from gate to gate!     This brings a tale into my mind,     Which, if you are not disinclined     To listen, I will now relate."     All gave assent; all wished to hear,     Not without many a jest and jeer,     The story of a spavined steed;     And even the Student with the rest     Put in his pleasant little jest     Out of Malherbe, that Pegasus     Is but a horse that with all speed     Bears poets to the hospital;     While the Sicilian, self-possessed,     After a moment's interval     Began his simple story thus.