The rusted gates whose forgings fine
Enlace a gilded coronet,
Now dim in lustreless decline,
Groaned as I passed the lichened shapes
Of rampant griffin on each side,
Stiff with heraldic, stony pride.
Then through the grass-grown drive I passed
With ancient oaks on either hand,
Throwing their shadows dark and vast
Upon the bracken at their feet
Where rabbits peeped in fear and ran
From the rare sound of living man.
For here no more the sumptuous train
Displays the pomp of falconry;
No more, besprent with mire and rain,
The messenger-at-arms rides in:
Nor, with his retinue of knights
Some great man at the house alights.
Above the portico
Of the great silent house,
The quarterings' tinctures glow,
Blazoning its history,
From the old Sieur de Caulx,
Whose heavy Norman sword
Helped Harold's overthrow,
And whose long line of sons
Stretches, like a shadow,
Thrown in the eventide,
Through the old folio
Where illumined pages
Bravely the records show,
Till the last, lonely heir
Was carried down below,
To the cold marble vaults
A century ago.
A gallery o'erlooks the hall,
A gallery where minstrels played
And with their lutes sweet music made,
While from the weapons on the wall,
Reflected shone the lights that glowed
Above the hospitable board
When each successive, generous lord
His loyalty or grandeur showed.
Kings feasted there with stately dames,
Ambassadors and Cardinals
Who, cheered with wine and madrigals,
Fed with their fancies amorous flames.
And at some great eventful scene
Full many a dance the chamber graced,
Pavanes and sarabands were paced,
And minuets when Anne was queen.
My footsteps echoing from the panelled walls,
Stayed the long sleep of years,
Stirring the thick, accumulated dust
To movement in the ray of light that falls,
From a half-shuttered oriel which appears
Between the rafters, just
Where a stone mullion its carved apex rears.
Faint voices whispered round me as I stood
Spellbound and listening there:
The ghostly strains of melodies forgot,
The happy laughter of fair womanhood:
Children in noisy play, without a care:
Fierce cries with passion hot,
Triumphant some, and some wild with despair.
Leaving the chamber so haunted by voices,
Fearful, I hastened to where the great staircase
Rears its proud height in a double ascension
Till it is hid in the deepening shadows.
Stiffly upstanding on each chief baluster,
Absently gaze the historical griffins,
Plunged in their silent and deep meditation.
Many a Caulx have they seen pass before them,
Long generations in motley procession,
Halting and feeble, the sick and the aged:
Sanguine and joyous, the young and the hopeful:
Manhood triumphant, crestfallen or thoughtless:
Urbane and discreet, my lady's confessor:
Stealthily creeping, the villainous traitor:
Quick and impatient, the fortunate lover:
Children unconscious of aught but their playthings:
Nobles in ermine, and simpering ladies:
Then, the one end of all human emotions,
Slow-pacing figures who bear on their shoulders,
Silenced for ever, some lord of the staircase.
The steward, from the all-pervading gloom,
Flung wide the shutters of the drawing-room,
Showing a terrace graced with urn and faun
And steps that led to a neglected lawn,
Whilst rounded hill and valley far were seen
Lit by the summer's radiating sheen.
The room's magnificence, its noble size
And faded splendour filled me with surprise.
A costly pierglass in its tarnished frame,
Which once reflected gallant squire and dame,
Now with fidelity displayed the clear
And gleaming lustres of the chandelier,
Pendent, with ten score sconces silver chased,
From the high ceiling which a master graced
With courtly scenes wherein could be descried
Ancestral figures in their pomp and pride.
The sunlight played on gilded girandole,
On silver candlestick and stiff console,
All of that period when here befell
The scene on which the steward loves to dwell,
Showing the floor's dark stain of sombre red
And how it came about that blood was shed.
I marked the punchbowls, full of leaves and dust,
A slim sword, silver-hiked, flecked with rust:
A daintily escutcheoned chiffonier,
Inlaid with shell and finished with veneer:
Timepieces silent, set in ormolu:
The damask screens of faded red and blue.
And, to enhance the chamber's stately air,
Great Chippendale had made each slender chair.
The stream of life, arrested, seemed to wait
A magic word to set it flowing straight.
Heated by wine and ombre-play,
Two hundred years ago or more,
Three gamblers, on a morning gray,
Quarrelled about a questioned score.
Two blades were soon engaged. A tierce,
Ill parried, stretched a swordsman low,
Who lunged with failing point but fierce,
And dying, dropped before his foe.
And when the growing light of morn
Lit the Venetian mirror's face,
He died, 'twixt pain and passion torn,
And left a curse upon the place.
And from that day the records show
A slowly creeping, sure decline
That, just a hundred years ago,
Ended the once illustrious line.
Sometimes upon the dusky hour
That comes before the sun's first rays,
When things occult display their power,
A strange light on the chamber plays
That is not of the earth or sky,
While hurrying footsteps come and go
And then into the silence die
With whispered mutterings hoarse and low.
A sliding panel, by the wainscot hid,
Showed, in the unmarked thickness of the walls,
A narrow passage and a secret stair
That brought us to the level of the moat.
Long dry and choked with bracken and with brier,
It made a rugged pathway to a court
Where stands the ruin of an ancient tower,
Fenced in with walls pierced by an entrance low.
"Here," said my guide, "when James the first was king,
"A daughter of the house, through three long years,
"Was by her father close a prisoner kept
"Because she would not wed the man he chose.
"Stern and unyielding, as became her race,
"She set her will against her father's strength.
"Through all the time she saw no living face:
"No sound of human voice, except her own,
"Fell on her ear. She nothing saw but clouds
"That swept athwart the cold and pitiless sky,
"And blinking stars at night that rose and set
"Across the little window in the roof:
"Then she went mad and on the stony walls
"One day beat out her life in frenzied rage,
"And refuge found beyond her father's power."
Time passed, and it was late
When once again I stood
Outside the ancient gate,
Where the stone griffins ramped,
Cold as relentless fate
Changeless as destiny.
And I said: "'Tis in vain,
Guardians impassible,
That ye your watch maintain
Over the ghosts of Caulx,
While the years wax and wane
Century by century.
"For behold! I have been
Among them and have heard
Their voices, I have seen
With swift-discerning eyes
Over their wide demesne
Of human history."