Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Frankland Mansion
By Oliver Wendell Holmes (18091894)O
One half-hour guide the rein,
We reach at last, o’er hill and dale,
The village on the plain.
With stained and warping floor,
A stately mansion stands aloof,
And bars its haughty door.
That breaks the gable wall;
And lo! with arches opening wide,
Sir Harry Frankland’s hall!
They sought the forest shade,
The knotted trunks they cleared away,
The massive beams they laid,
They smoothed the terraced ground,
They reared the marble-pillared wall
That fenced the mansion round.
The Master’s broad domain;
With page and valet, horse and hound,
He kept a goodly train.
The ploughman stopped to gaze
Whene’er his chariot swept in view
Behind the shining bays,
Repaid by nod polite,—
For such the way with high and low
Till after Concord fight.
I tell you, as my tale began,
The Hall is standing still;
And you, kind listener, maid or man,
May see it if you will.
Like trees the lilacs grow,
Three elms high-arching still are seen,
And one lies stretched below.
Flap on the latticed wall;
And o’er the mossy ridge-pole towers
The rock-hewn chimney tall.
Her lawless lover’s hand;
The lowly maiden so became
A lady in the land!
To track their after ways,
And string again the golden beads
Of love’s uncounted days.
For bleak New England’s shore;
How gracious is the courtly smile
Of all who frowned before!
They watch the river’s gleam,
And shudder as her shadowy towers
Shake in the trembling stream.
His cheek, alas! grows pale;
The breast that trampling death could spare
His noiseless shafts assail.
For England’s clouded sky,—
To breathe the air his boyhood knew;
He seeks them but to die.
With massive bolt and bar,
The heavy English-moulded sash
Scarce can the night-winds jar.
A graded terrace yet remains;
If on its turf you stand
And look along the wooded plains
That stretch on either hand,
A dim, receding view,
Where, on the far horizon’s line,
He cut his vista through.