Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/The hostelry
THE HOSTELRY.
1700.
Bay-windowed, pendant-gabled, broad,
It stood beside an ancient road,
By squire, and hind, and farmer trod.
The Tudors from the stones did speak;
The quoins were curled in fret and freak,
With griffin’s head and vulture’s beak.
Red glowed the roof in crimson tiles,
From ridge to eave; save where, in whiles,
The black rain blurred the channelled aisles.
And all around brown mosses clung,
And blossomed trailers looped and swung,
From crocket-tops, where linnets sung.
The diamond sashes of each room
Were half turned back into the gloom,
And muffled half in jasmine bloom;
Great honeysuckle blooms that share
A jealous odour with the air
When noons are wet, and April’s fair.
High at the chamber windows stood
Three flower-pots, as red as blood,
With precious plants in leaf and bud.
All day within the chambers old
Great squares of sunlight paved with gold
The floor, and upward, slantwise, rolled;
Touched the brown portraits, thick with dust,
The helmet, black with battle rust,
And scent-jars, rich in Indian must.
Under the vane-top, slim and hoar,
A cracked clock beat for evermore;
Three elm-trees sentinelled the door.
A broken dial; and beyond,
The fresh brim of the cattle pond,
Hidden in weed and elder frond.
Thereby, on benches in the sun,
When half the day to rest had run,
The gossips chattered, smocked and brown.
Plump was mine host, and pleasant-faced,
Given to laughter, sober-paced,
His keybunch jangling at his waist.
He leans across the garden rail,
His right hand cupped with yellow ale,
To tell his guests the latest tale
Of busy London. Close behind
His brave head, shiver in the wind,
The privet blossoms white and kind.
And right and left the highway goes,
A streakèd glare that winds and flows
By streamlet edge and hamlet rows.
Thence, looking westward, you might see,
Broad tracts of corn and purple lea,
And windmills whirring dreamily.
The low manse with its crooked eaves,
Black in the dusk of walnut leaves,
And the gold lights of wheaten sheaves.
The night is cold. Above, below,
On window-sill and poplar row,
A blank, bright glory falls the snow.
Or, lifted by the warring wind,
There glimmer on the window blind,
Three elm-trees, with the moon behind.
A moment there, with branches crossed,
They glimmer keener than the frost,
And then, in sudden gloom, are lost.
Beside me, couched in fireside ease,
Dreaming, the miller sleeps and sees
His dead child sitting on his knees.
The bearded fiddler doses near,
Nods to-and-fro; starts up with fear,
Searching the room with eyes severe,
And hearing nothing but the din
Of stormed roofs, sleeps, his fingers thin
Beating a phantom violin.
Keen-witted, cunning, trinket-wise,
Full stretched, the footsore pedlar lies,
His broad hand clasped across his eyes.
Anon, the courtyard door swings back,
And, thickly-snowed, on head and back,
In trots the miller’s mastiff Jack.
And shaking off the smoking sleet,
He coils him at his master’s feet,
Pointing his broad nose to the heat.
Then comes mine host into the shine,
With pipes and cups of spicèd wine,
And mellow jests, rich, ripe, and fine.
He hath a quip for every hour,
Brimful and sweet, of genial power,
For him the seasons always flower.
Across his sleeping guests he steps,—
Then sits him down; the spiced wine sips,
Blinks both his eyes and smacks his lips.
Bravely he talks, and chuckles hoarse,
When I opine the times grow worse,
And that the world has gone to nurse.
“Marry,” quoth he, “your wit’s ill-spent,
If both the good and bad are blent,
We have the middling; be content.”
And so he prates, whilst I lean back,
Watching the oak ribs hiss and crack,
Blurring the walls with bright and black.
Till vague and vast the chamber seems,
And, downward, from the knitted beams,
Falls the sweet rest that breedeth dreams.