THE PORTRAIT

In some quaint Nürnberg 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 And 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 woman lives," your soul exults, when, lo! You hold a blur; an undetermined glow Dislimns a daub.—Restore?—Ah, I have tried Our best restorers, but 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 And dirty 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 strayed Nïello of Byzantium; rich work, In bronze, of Florence; here a delicate 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 his 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, Wreathed round with thistles; in its argent field Three sable mallets—arms of Herancour— Carved 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, blinking 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 the shadows crouch, Torch-pierced, with fear,—a sound of swords draws near, The stir of searching steel. What find they here On St. Bartholomew's?—A Huguenot Dead in his chair! Eyes violently shot With horror, fastened on a portrait there; Coiling his neck one 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 Demonic; 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."