Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom, Like birds escaping from a snare, Like school-boys at the hour of play, All left at once the pent-up room, And rushed into the open air; And no more tales were told that day.
PART THIRD
PRELUDE
The evening came; the golden vane A moment in the sunset glanced, Then darkened, and then gleamed again, As from the east the moon advanced And touched it with a softer light; While underneath, with flowing mane, Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced, And galloped forth into the night.
But brighter than the afternoon That followed the dark day of rain, And brighter than the golden vane That glistened in the rising moon, Within the ruddy fire-light gleamed; And every separate window-pane, Backed by the outer darkness, showed A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed And flickered to and fro, and seemed A bonfire lighted in the road.
Amid the hospitable glow, Like an old actor on the stage, With the uncertain voice of age, The singing chimney chanted low The homely songs of long ago.
The voice that Ossian heard of yore, When midnight winds were in his hall; A ghostly and appealing call, A sound of days that are no more! And dark as Ossian sat the Jew, And listened to the sound, and knew The passing of the airy hosts, The gray and misty cloud of ghosts In their interminable flight; And listening muttered in his beard, With accent indistinct and weird, "Who are ye, children of the Night?"
Beholding his mysterious face, "Tell me," the gay Sicilian said, "Why was it that in breaking bread At supper, you bent down your head And, musing, paused a little space, As one who says a silent grace?"
The Jew replied, with solemn air, "I said the Manichaean's prayer. It was his faith,—perhaps is mine,— That life in all its forms is one, And that its secret conduits run Unseen, but in unbroken line, From the great fountain-head divine Through man and beast, through grain and grass. Howe'er we struggle, strive, and cry, From death there can be no escape, And no escape from life, alas Because we cannot die, but pass From one into another shape: It is but into life we die.