In some quaint N'rnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear,
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'T was painted, who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine
It is a D'rer. Humph? that touch, this line
Are not deniable; distinguished grace
In the pure oval of the noble face;
The color badly tarnished. Half in light
Extend it, so; incline; the exquisite
Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn,
Imperial beauty; icy, each a 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 soul with hope: avoiding face and hair
Alive with lively warmth; astonished there
"Occult substantial!" you exult, when, ho!
You hold a blur; an undetermined glow
Dislimns a daub. Restore? ah, I have tried
Our best restorers, all! it has defied ...
Storied, mysterious, say, mayhap a ghost
Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost,
A duchess', haply. Her he worshipped; dared
Not tell he worshipped; from his window stared
Of Nuremburg 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 skinny 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 D'rers, say, a haloed lot
Of praying saints, madonnas: such, perchance,
Mid wine-stained purples mothed; a whole romance
Of crucifixes, rosaries; inlaid
Arms Saracen-elaborate; a strayed
Niello 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 panelling 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 above the aged lintel, shield
Deep Or-enthistled, in an Argent field
Three Sable mallets, arms De Herancour,
Carved with the torso of the crest that bore,
Outstretched, two mallets. Lozenge-paned, embayed,
Its slender casements; on a lectern laid,
A vellum volume of black-lettered text;
Near by a blinking taper, as if vexed
With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends,
Behind which, maybe, daggered Murder bends;
Waxed floors of rosy oak, whereon the red
Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed,
Down knightly corridors; a carven couch
Sword-slashed; dark velvets of the chairs that crouch,
It seems, with fright; clear-clashing near, more near,
The stir of searching steel.
What find they here?
'T is St. Bartholomew's, a Huguenot
Dead in his chair? dead! violently shot
With horror, eyes glued 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 dim, enduring golden.
"Just one thread
Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said,
"Twisting a burning ray, he staring-dead."