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 Drer. 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 tempera and old     Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold     Of martyrs and apostles, - names forgot, -     Holbeins and Drers, 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     Niello 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."