Bjorn'S Banquet

Bjorn, odd and lonely cenobite, High on a barren rock's plateau, Far out of time's and the world's sight, Dwells in a castle none may know.

No modern thought may violate His darkened and secluded hall. Bjorn bolts with care his postern-gate, And barricades his castle wall.

When others wait the rising sun, He from his mouldering parapet Still contemplates the valley dun, Where he beheld the red sun set.

Securely doth the past enlock His retrospective spirit lone. The pendulum within his clock Was broken centuries agone.

Waking the echoes wanders he Beneath his feudal arches drear, His ringing footsteps seemingly Followed by other footsteps clear.

Nor priests nor friends with him make bold, Nor burghers plain nor gentlemen; But his ancestral portraits hold A parley with him now and then.

And of a midnight, sparing him The ennui of a lonely cup, Bjorn, harbouring a gloomy whim, Invites his ancestors to sup.

Forth stepping at the hour's grim stroke, Come phantoms armed from foot to head. Bjorn, quaking, to the solemn folk Proffers with state the goblet red.

To seat itself each panoply With joints that grumble in revolt Maketh an angle with its knee, That creaketh like a rusty bolt;

Till all at once the suit of mail, Rude coffin of an absent bulk, Cleaving the silence with a wail, Falls in its chair, a clanking hulk.

Landgraves and burgraves, spare and stout, Come down from heaven or up from hell, The iron guests of many a bout, Arc bound within the midnight spell.

Their blow-indented helmets bear Heraldic beasts that bay and grin, Athwart the shades the red lights glare On crest and ancient lambrequin.

Each empty, open casque now seems Like to the helms of heraldries, Save for two strange and livid gleams That issue forth in threatening wise.

Seated is each old combatant In the vast hall, at Bjorn's behest, And the uncertain shadows grant A swarthy page to every guest.

The liquors in the candle-shine Take on suspicious purples. All The viands in their gravy's wine Grow lurid and fantastical.

Sometimes a breastplate glitters bright, A morion speeds its flashes wroth, A rondelle from a hand of might Drops heavily upon the cloth.

Heard are the softly flapping wings Of unseen bats. The shimmer flicks Upon the carven panellings The banners of the heretics.

The stiffly bended gauntlets play In the dull glow incarnadine, And, creaking, to the helmets gray Pour bumpers full of Rhenish wine;

Or with their daggers keen of blade Carve boars upon the plates of gold. The corridor's uncanny shade Hath clamours vague and manifold.

The orgy waxes riotsome-- One could not hear God's voice for it-- For when a phantom sups from home, What wrong if he carouse a bit?

Now every ghostly care they drown With jokes and jeers and loud guffaws. A wine-cascade is running down Each rusty helmet's iron jaws.

The full and rounded hauberks bulge, And to the neck the river mounts. Their eyes with liquid fire effulge. They're howling drunk, these valiant counts!

One through the salad idly wields A foot; another scolds the sick. Some like the lions on their shields With gaping mouths the fancy trick.

In voice still hoarse from silence long In the tomb's dampness and restraint, Max playfully intones a song Of thirteen hundred, crude and quaint.

Albrecht, of quarrelsome repute, Stirs right and left a war intense, And drubs about with fist and foot, As once he drubbed the Saracens.

And heated Fritz his helmet doffs, Not deeming he's a headless trunk. Then down pell-mell mid roars and scoffs Together roll the phantoms drunk.

Ah! 'T is a hideous battle-ground, Where pots and weapons bang and scud, Where every dead man through some wound Doth vomit victuals up for blood.

And Bjorn observes them, sad of eye, And haggard, while athwart the panes The dawn comes creeping stealthily, With blue, thin lights, and darkness wanes.

The prostrate mass of rusty brown Pales like a torch in daylight's room, Until the drunkest pours him down At last the stirrup-cup of doom.

The cock crows loud. And with the day Once more with haughty mien and bold, Their revel-weary heads they lay Upon their marble pillows cold.