And taught it justly to reply, To all who question skilfully, In language gentle as thine own; Whispering in enamoured tone Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells. For it had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains, And the many-voicèd fountains; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills, The melodies of birds and bees, The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, And airs of evening; and it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its way: -All this it knows, but will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before By those who tempt it to betray These secrets of an elder day. But, sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill, It keeps its highest holiest tone For one beloved Friend alone.
IN the ancient town of Bruges, In the quaint old Flemish city, As the evening shades descended, Low and loud and sweetly blended, Low at times and loud at times And changing like a poet's rhymes, Rang the beautiful wild chimes From the belfry in the market Of the ancient town of Bruges.
Then, with deep sonorous clangor Calmly answering their sweet anger, When the wrangling bells had ended, Slowly struck the clock eleven, And, from out the silent heaven, Silence on the town descended. Silence, silence everywhere, On the earth and in the air, Save that footsteps here and there Of some burgher home returning, By the street lamps faintly burning, For a moment woke the echoes Of the ancient town of Bruges.
But amid my broken slumbers Still I heard those magic numbers, As they loud proclaimed the flight And stolen marches of the night; Till their chimes in sweet collision Mingled with each wandering vision,
Mingled with the fortune-telling Gipsy-bands of dreams and fancies, Which amid the waste expanses Of the silent land of trances Have their solitary dwelling. All else seemed asleep in Bruges, In the quaint old Flemish city.
And I thought how like these chimes Are the poet's airy rhymes, All his rhymes and roundelays, His conceits, and songs, and ditties, From the belfry of his brain,
Scattered downward, though in vain, On the roofs and stones of cities! For by night the drowsy ear Under its curtains cannot hear, And by day men go their ways, Hearing the music as they pass, But deeming it no more, alas! Than the hollow sound of brass.
Yet perchance a sleepless wight, Lodging at some humble inn In the narrow lanes of life, When the dusk and hush of night Shut out the incessant din
Of daylight and its toil and strife, May listen with a calm delight To the poet's melodies,
Till he hears, or dreams he hears, Intermingled with the song,
Thoughts that he has cherished long; Hears amid the chime and singing The bells of his own village ringing, And wakes, and finds his slumbrous eyes Wet with most delicious tears.
Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Blé, Listening with a wild delight
To the chimes that, through the night, Rang their changes from the Belfry
Of that quaint old Flemish city.
IN the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.
At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghostlike, into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.
Then, most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again:
All the Foresters of Flanders,-mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre.
I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies; Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and
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