Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]

THE PORTRAIT

IN some quaint Nurnberg maler-atelier Uprummaged. When and where was never clear Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom 'Twas painted — who shall say? itself a gloom Resisting inquisition. I opine It is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line; Are they deniable? — Distinguished grace Of the pure oval of the noble face Tarnished in color badly. Half in light Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn; Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn Of light, disdainful eyes and... well! no use! Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse Of patience. — Often, vaguely visible, The portrait fills each feature, making swell The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair Start out in living hues; astonished, "There!—The picture lives!" your soul exults, when, lo! You hold a blur; an undetermined glow Dislimns a daub. — "Restore? " — Ah, I have tried Our best restorers, and it has defied.

Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps a ghost Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost; A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; dared Not tell he worshiped. From his window stared Of Nuremberg one sunny morn when she Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility Loved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and plied A feverish brush — her face! — Despaired and died.

The narrow Judengasse: gables frown Around a humpbacked usurer's, where brown, Neglected in a corner, long it lay, Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as — say, Retables done in tempora and old Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold Of martyrs and apostles, — names forgot,—Holbeins and Dürers, say; a haloed lot Of praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance, 'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance; A crucifix and rosary; inlaid Arms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayedNiëllo of Byzantium; rich work, In bronze, of Florence: here a murderous dirk, There holy patens.

So. — My ancestor, The first De Herancour, esteemed by far This piece most precious, most desirable;

Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well In the dark paneling above the old Hearth of the room. The head's religious gold, The soft severity of the nun face, Made of the room an apostolic place Revered and feared.—

Like some lived scene I see That Gothic room: its Flemish tapestry; Embossed within the marble hearth a shield, Carved 'round with thistles; in its argent field Three sable mallets — arms of Herancour — Topped with the crest, a helm and hands that bore, Outstretched, two mallets. On a lectern laid, — Between two casements, lozenge-paned, embayed, — A vellum volume of black-lettered text. Near by a taper, winking as if vexed With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends, Behind which, haply, daggered Murder bends.

And then I seem to see again the hall; The stairway leading to that room. — Then all The terror of that night of blood and crime Passes before me. —

It is Catherine's time: The house De Herancour's. On floors, splashed red, Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed. Down carven corridors and rooms, — where couch

And chairs lie shattered and black shadows crouch Torch-pierced with fear, — a sound of swords draws near — The stir of searching steel.

What find they here, Torch-bearer, swordsman, and fierce halberdier, On St. Bartholomew's? — A Huguenot! Dead in his chair! Eyes, violently shot With horror, glaring at the portrait there: Coiling his neck a blood line, like a hair Of finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend, — Looking exalted visitation, — leaned From its black panel; in its eyes a hate Satanic; hair — a glowing auburn; late A dull, enduring golden.

"Just one thread Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said, "Twisting a burning ray; he — staring dead."