VERSE: A LEGEND OF
PROVENCE
The lights extinguished, by the hearth I leant, Half weary with a
listless discontent. The flickering giant-shadows, gathering near, Closed
round me with a dim and silent fear. All dull, all dark; save when the
leaping flame, Glancing, lit up a Picture\'s ancient frame. Above the hearth
it hung. Perhaps the night, My foolish tremors, or the gleaming light,
Lent power to that Portrait dark and quaint - A Portrait such as Rembrandt
loved to paint - The likeness of a Nun. I seemed to trace A world of
sorrow in the patient face, In the thin hands folded across her breast - Its
own and the room\'s shadow hid the rest. I gazed and dreamed, and the dull
embers stirred, Till an old legend that I once had heard Came back to me;
linked to the mystic gloom Of that dark Picture in the ghostly room. In the
far south, where clustering vines are hung; Where first the old chivalric
lays were sung, Where earliest smiled that gracious child of France, Angel
and knight and fairy, called Romance, I stood one day. The warm blue
June was spread Upon the earth; blue summer overhead, Without a cloud
to fleck its radiant glare, Without a breath to stir its sultry air. All still, all
silent, save the sobbing rush Of rippling waves, that lapsed in silver hush
Upon the beach; where, glittering towards the strand, The purple
Mediterranean kissed the land.