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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409601" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Prelude; The Wayside Inn</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,<br>Across the meadows bare and brown,<br>The windows of the wayside inn<br>Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves<br>Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves<br>Their crimson curtains rent and thin. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As ancient is this hostelry<br>As any in the land may be,<br>Built in the old Colonial day,<br>When men lived in a grander way,<br>With ampler hospitality;<br>A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,<br>Now somewhat fallen to decay,<br>With weather-stains upon the wall,<br>And stairways worn, and crazy doors,<br>And creaking and uneven floors,<br>And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A region of repose it seems,<br>A place of slumber and of dreams,<br>Remote among the wooded hills!<br>For there no noisy railway speeds,<br>Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds;<br>But noon and night, the panting teams<br>Stop under the great oaks, that throw<br>Tangles of light and shade below,<br>On roofs and doors and window-sills.<br>Across the road the barns display<br>Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay,<br>Through the wide doors the breezes blow,<br>The wattled cocks strut to and fro,<br>And, half effaced by rain and shine,<br>The Red Horse prances on the sign.<br>Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode<br>Deep silence reigned, save when a gust<br>Went rushing down the county road,<br>And skeletons of leaves, and dust,<br>A moment quickened by its breath,<br>Shuddered and danced their dance of death,<br>And through the ancient oaks o'erhead<br>Mysterious voices moaned and fled. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But from the parlor of the inn<br>A pleasant murmur smote the ear,<br>Like water rushing through a weir:<br>Oft interrupted by the din<br>Of laughter and of loud applause,<br>And, in each intervening pause,<br>The music of a violin.<br>The fire-light, shedding over all<br>The splendor of its ruddy glow,<br>Filled the whole parlor large and low;<br>It gleamed on wainscot and on wall,<br>It touched with more than wonted grace<br>Fair Princess Mary's pictured face;<br>It bronzed the rafters overhead,<br>On the old spinet's ivory keys<br>It played inaudible melodies,<br>It crowned the sombre clock with flame,<br>The hands, the hours, the maker's name,<br>And painted with a livelier red<br>The Landlord's coat-of-arms again;<br>And, flashing on the window-pane,<br>Emblazoned with its light and shade<br>The jovial rhymes, that still remain,<br>Writ near a century ago,<br>By the great Major Molineaux,<br>Whom Hawthorne has immortal made. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Before the blazing fire of wood<br>Erect the rapt musician stood;<br>And ever and anon he bent<br>His head upon his instrument,<br>And seemed to listen, till he caught<br>Confessions of its secret thought,--<br>The joy, the triumph, the lament,<br>The exultation and the pain;<br>Then, by the magic of his art,<br>He soothed the throbbings of its heart,<br>And lulled it into peace again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Around the fireside at their ease<br>There sat a group of friends, entranced<br>With the delicious melodies<br>Who from the far-off noisy town<br>Had to the wayside inn come down,<br>To rest beneath its old oak-trees.<br>The fire-light on their faces glanced,<br>Their shadows on the wainscot danced,<br>And, though of different lands and speech,<br>Each had his tale to tell, and each<br>Was anxious to be pleased and please.<br>And while the sweet musician plays,<br>Let me in outline sketch them all,<br>Perchance uncouthly as the blaze<br>With its uncertain touch portrays<br>Their shadowy semblance on the wall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But first the Landlord will I trace;<br>Grave in his aspect and attire;<br>A man of ancient pedigree,<br>A Justice of the Peace was he,<br>Known in all Sudbury as 'The Squire.'<br>Proud was he of his name and race,<br>Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh,<br>And in the parlor, full in view,<br>His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed,<br>Upon the wall in colors blazed;<br>He beareth gules upon his shield,<br>A chevron argent in the field,<br>With three wolf's-heads, and for the crest<br>A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed<br>Upon a helmet barred; below<br>The scroll reads, 'By the name of Howe.'<br>And over this, no longer bright,<br>Though glimmering with a latent light,<br>Was hung the sword his grandsire bore<br>In the rebellious days of yore,<br>Down there at Concord in the fight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A youth was there, of quiet ways,<br>A Student of old books and days,<br>To whom all tongues and lands were known,<br>And yet a lover of his own;<br>With many a social virtue graced,<br>And yet a friend of solitude;<br>A man of such a genial mood<br>The heart of all things he embraced,<br>And yet of such fastidious taste,<br>He never found the best too good.<br>Books were his passion and delight,<br>And in his upper room at home<br>Stood many a rare and sumptuous tome,<br>In vellum bound, with gold bedight,<br>Great volumes garmented in white,<br>Recalling Florence, Pisa, Rome.<br>He loved the twilight that surrounds<br>The border-land of old romance;<br>Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance,<br>And banner waves, and trumpet sounds,<br>And ladies ride with hawk on wrist,<br>And mighty warriors sweep along,<br>Magnified by the purple mist,<br>The dusk of centuries and of song.<br>The chronicles of Charlemagne,<br>Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure,<br>Mingled together in his brain<br>With tales of Flores and Blanchefleur,<br>Sir Ferumbras, Sir Eglamour,<br>Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,<br>Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A young Sicilian, too, was there;<br>In sight of Etna born and bred,<br>Some breath of its volcanic air<br>Was glowing in his heart and brain,<br>And, being rebellious to his liege,<br>After Palermo's fatal siege,<br>Across the western seas he fled,<br>In good King Bomba's happy reign.<br>His face was like a summer night,<br>All flooded with a dusky light;<br>His hands were small; his teeth shone white<br>As sea-shells, when he smiled or spoke;<br>His sinews supple and strong as oak;<br>Clean shaven was he as a priest,<br>Who at the mass on Sunday sings,<br>Save that upon his upper lip<br>His beard, a good palm's length least,<br>Level and pointed at the tip,<br>Shot sideways, like a swallow's wings.<br>The poets read he o'er and o'er,<br>And most of all the Immortal Four<br>Of Italy; and next to those,<br>The story-telling bard of prose,<br>Who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales<br>Of the Decameron, that make<br>Fiesole's green hills and vales<br>Remembered for Boccaccio's sake.<br>Much too of music was his thought;<br>The melodies and measures fraught<br>With sunshine and the open air,<br>Of vineyards and the singing sea<br>Of his beloved Sicily;<br>And much it pleased him to peruse<br>The songs of the Sicilian muse,--<br>Bucolic songs by Meli sung<br>In the familiar peasant tongue,<br>That made men say, 'Behold! once more<br>The pitying gods to earth restore<br>Theocritus of Syracuse!' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A Spanish Jew from Alicant<br>With aspect grand and grave was there;<br>Vender of silks and fabrics rare,<br>And attar of rose from the Levant.<br>Like an old Patriarch he appeared,<br>Abraham or Isaac, or at least<br>Some later Prophet or High-Priest;<br>With lustrous eyes, and olive skin,<br>And, wildly tossed from cheeks and chin,<br>The tumbling cataract of his beard.<br>His garments breathed a spicy scent<br>Of cinnamon and sandal blent,<br>Like the soft aromatic gales<br>That meet the mariner, who sails<br>Through the Moluccas, and the seas<br>That wash the shores of Celebes.<br>All stories that recorded are<br>By Pierre Alphonse he knew by heart,<br>And it was rumored he could say<br>The Parables of Sandabar,<br>And all the Fables of Pilpay,<br>Or if not all, the greater part!<br>Well versed was he in Hebrew books,<br>Talmud and Targum, and the lore<br>Of Kabala; and evermore<br>There was a mystery in his looks;<br>His eyes seemed gazing far away,<br>As if in vision or in trance<br>He heard the solemn sackbut play,<br>And saw the Jewish maidens dance. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A Theologian, from the school<br>Of Cambridge on the Charles, was there;<br>Skilful alike with tongue and pen,<br>He preached to all men everywhere<br>The Gospel of the Golden Rule,<br>The New Commandment given to men,<br>Thinking the deed, and not the creed,<br>Would help us in our utmost need.<br>With reverent feet the earth he trod,<br>Nor banished nature from his plan,<br>But studied still with deep research<br>To build the Universal Church,<br>Lofty as in the love of God,<br>And ample as the wants of man. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A Poet, too, was there, whose verse<br>Was tender, musical, and terse;<br>The inspiration, the delight,<br>The gleam, the glory, the swift flight,<br>Of thoughts so sudden, that they seem<br>The revelations of a dream,<br>All these were his; but with them came<br>No envy of another's fame;<br>He did not find his sleep less sweet,<br>For music in some neighboring street<br>Nor rustling hear in every breeze<br>The laurels of Miltiades.<br>Honor and blessings on his head<br>While living, good report when dead,<br>Who, not too eager for renown,<br>Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Last the Musician, as he stood<br>Illumined by that fire of wood;<br>Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,<br>His figure tall and straight and lithe,<br>And every feature of his face<br>Revealing his Norwegian race;<br>A radiance, streaming from within,<br>Around his eyes and forehead beamed,<br>The Angel with the violin,<br>Painted by Raphael, he seemed.<br>He lived in that ideal world<br>Whose language is not speech, but song;<br>Around him evermore the throng<br>Of elves and sprites their dances whirled;<br>The Strömkarl sang, the cataract hurled<br>Its headlong waters from the height;<br>And mingled in the wild delight<br>The scream of sea-birds in their flight,<br>The rumor of the forest trees,<br>The plunge of the implacable seas,<br>The tumult of the wind at night,<br>Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing,<br>Old ballads, and wild melodies<br>Through mist and darkness pouring forth,<br>Like Elivagar's river flowing<br>Out of the glaciers of the North. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The instrument on which he played<br>Was in Cremona's workshops made,<br>By a great master of the past,<br>Ere yet was lost the art divine;<br>Fashioned of maple and of pine,<br>That in Tyrolean forests vast<br>Had rocked and wrestled with the blast;<br>Exquisite was it in design,<br>Perfect in each minutest part,<br>A marvel of the lutist's art;<br>And in its hollow chamber, thus,<br>The maker from whose hands it came<br>Had written his unrivalled name,--<br>'Antonius Stradivarius.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when he played, the atmosphere<br>Was filled with magic, and the ear<br>Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold,<br>Whose music had so weird a sound,<br>The hunted stag forgot to bound,<br>The leaping rivulet backward rolled,<br>The birds came down from bush and tree,<br>The dead came from beneath the sea,<br>The maiden to the harper's knee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The music ceased; the applause was loud,<br>The pleased musician smiled and bowed;<br>The wood-fire clapped its hands of flame,<br>The shadows on the wainscot stirred,<br>And from the harpsichord there came<br>A ghostly murmur of acclaim,<br>A sound like that sent down at night<br>By birds of passage in their flight,<br>From the remotest distance heard. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then silence followed; then began<br>A clamor for the Landlord's tale,--<br>The story promised them of old,<br>They said, but always left untold;<br>And he, although a bashful man,<br>And all his courage seemed to fail,<br>Finding excuse of no avail,<br>Yielded; and thus the story ran.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Wadsworth+Longfellow">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409601" data-title="Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Prelude; The Wayside Inn de Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" data-description="One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves
Their crimson curtains rent and thin. 

As ancient is this host..."></div>
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