PART SECOND
PRELUDE
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.