Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.
Antwerp
By Elizabeth G. BarberW
Where the lone warder, Memory, waits,
Again as in a bygone day,
I stand by Antwerp’s ancient gates.
The ivied towers, the blackened walls;
And o’er the long and winding streets
The sunset’s golden glory falls.
Amid the city’s busy mart,
With soul-lit brow, and folded hands,
Of Antwerp’s noblest fame a part.
Which well might be the painter’s theme;
Nor softer eyes nor purer grace
Could haunt the poet’s raptured dream.
Where Teniers wooed divinest art;
The spot where Quintin Matsys wrought
For Love and Fame with giant heart.
O’er hoary towers from smiling skies,
And o’er the Scheldt’s delicious stream
A golden path of ripples lies.
And soften into twilight time,
Slow stealing through the gathering shade,
I hear the bells of vesper chime.
Their notes of dream-like music fall,
The holiest voices of the hour,
And welcomed like an angel’s call.
As in that vesper hour gone by;
And following through the arched door,
I pause amid them silently.
I hear the organ’s mighty swells,
The chorus of the chanted hymn,
And over all, the chiming bells.
The wreathing incense o’er the crowd,
The shadowy forms of sculpture rare,
The groups in silent worship bowed.
Touched by the sunset’s fading glow,
The misty light through long arcades,
The checkered marble just below.
As ’neath a seraph’s wing I bow;
These lips of mine can never tell
The silent awe that thrills me now.
In evening shadows fade away,
Again as in the bygone hours,
I turn upon my pilgrim way.
I keep thy golden memories yet;
This heart of mine must chill or break,
Ere I thy loveliness forget.