Within its frame in shadow fine,
The misty glass that still endures
Reveals another face than mine,—
The earliest of my portraitures.
A retrospective ghost, with face
Of vanished type, steps from the vast
Dim mirror of his biding-place
In tenebrous, forgotten past.
Gay in his doublet satin-rose,
Coloured in bold and vivid way,
He seems as if about to pose
For Deveria or Boulanger.
Terror of glabrous commoner,
His flowing locks in royal guise,
Like mane of lion, or sinister
King's hair, fall heavy to his thighs.
Romanticist of bold conceit,
Knight of an art which strives anew,
He hurled himself at Drama's feet,
When erst Hernani's trumpet blew.
Night falls. The corners are astir
With many shapes and shadows tall.
The Unknown—grim stage-carpenter—
Sets up its darksome frights o'er all.
A sudden burst of candles, weird
With aureoles, like lamps of death!
The room is populous, and bleared
With folk brought hither by a breath!
Down step the portraits from the wall,—
A ruddy-litten company!
Circling the fireplace in the hall,
Where the wood blazes suddenly.
The figures wrested from the tombs
Have lost their rigid, frozen mien,
The gradual glow of life illumes
The Past with flush incarnadine.
A colour lights the faces pale,
As in the days of old delight.
Friends whom my thought shall never fail,
I thank ye, that ye came to-night!