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In: Poetry·American Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #7391.
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The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is told in the ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. These were obtained from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in company with whom I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then standing; from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of Medford; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or more properly Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, and on our return we called at the house where she resided.--[She was living June 10, 1861, when this ballad was published]--Her account is little more than paraphrased in the poem. If the incidents are treated with a certain liberality at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as literal truth. So with regard to most of the trifling details which are given; they are taken from the record. It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland Mansion no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this ballad was written. A visit to it was like stepping out of the century into the years before the Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and arrangements to the old one, has been built upon its site, and the terraces, the clump of box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear witness to the truth of this story.
The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been made the subject of a carefully studied and interesting romance by Mr. E. L. Bynner.
THE tale I tell is gospel true, As all the bookmen know, And pilgrims who have strayed to view The wrecks still left to show.
The old, old story,--fair, and young, And fond,--and not too wise,-- That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, To maids with downcast eyes.
Ah! maidens err and matrons warn Beneath the coldest sky; Love lurks amid the tasselled corn As in the bearded rye!
But who would dream our sober sires Had learned the old world's ways, And warmed their hearths with lawless fires In Shirley's homespun days?
'T is like some poet's pictured trance His idle rhymes recite,-- This old New England-born romance Of Agnes and the Knight;
Yet, known to all the country round, Their home is standing still, Between Wachusett's lonely mound And Shawmut's threefold hill.
One hour we rumble on the rail, One half-hour guide the rein, We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, The village on the plain.
With blackening wall and mossy roof, With stained and warping floor, A stately mansion stands aloof And bars its haughty door.
This lowlier portal may be tried, That breaks the gable wall; And lo! with arches opening wide, Sir Harry Frankland's hall!
'T was in the second George's day They sought the forest shade, The knotted trunks they cleared away, The massive beams they laid,
They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, They smoothed the terraced ground, They reared the marble-pillared wall That fenced the mansion round.
Far stretched beyond the village bound The Master's broad domain; With page and valet, horse and hound, He kept a goodly train.
And, all the midland county through, The ploughman stopped to gaze Whene'er his chariot swept in view Behind the shining bays,
With mute obeisance, grave and slow, Repaid by nod polite,-- For such the way with high and low Till after Concord fight.
Nor less to courtly circles known That graced the three-hilled town With far-off splendors of the Throne, And glimmerings from the Crown;
Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state For Shirley over sea; Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late The King Street mob's decree;
And judges grave, and colonels grand, Fair dames and stately men, The mighty people of the land, The "World" of there and then.
'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous Form," And "Eyes' celestial Blew," This Strephon of the West could warm, No Nymph his Heart subdue.
Perchance he wooed as gallants use, Whom fleeting loves enchain, But still unfettered, free to choose, Would brook no bridle-rein.
He saw the fairest of the fair, But smiled alike on all; No band his roving foot might snare, No ring his hand enthrall.
Why seeks the knight that rocky cape Beyond the Bay of Lynn? What chance his wayward course may shape To reach its village inn?
No story tells; whate'er we guess, The past lies deaf and still, But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, Can lead us where she will.
Make way! Sir Harry's coach and four, And liveried grooms that ride! They cross the ferry, touch the shore On Winnisimmet's side.
They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach,-- The level marsh they pass, Where miles on miles the desert reach Is rough with bitter grass.
The shining horses foam and pant, And now the smells begin Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, And leather-scented Lynn.
Next, on their left, the slender spires And glittering vanes that crown The home of Salem's frugal sires, The old, witch-haunted town.
So onward, o'er the rugged way That runs through rocks and sand, Showered by the tempest-driven spray, From bays on either hand,
That shut between their outstretched arms The crews of Marblehead, The lords of ocean's watery farms, Who plough the waves for bread.
At last the ancient inn appears, The spreading elm below, Whose flapping sign these fifty years Has seesawed to and fro.
How fair the azure fields in sight Before the low-browed inn The tumbling billows fringe with light The crescent shore of Lynn;
Nahant thrusts outward through the waves Her arm of yellow sand, And breaks the roaring surge that braves The gauntlet on her hand;
With eddying whirl the waters lock Yon treeless mound forlorn, The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, That fronts the Spouting Horn;
Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, And wide the ocean smiles, Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide The two bare Misery Isles.
The master's silent signal stays The wearied cavalcade; The coachman reins his smoking bays Beneath the elm-tree's shade.
A gathering on the village green! The cocked-hats crowd to see, On legs in ancient velveteen, With buckles at the knee.
A clustering round the tavern-door Of square-toed village boys, Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, The old-world corduroys!
A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,--- A rush of great and small,-- With hurrying servants' mingled din And screaming matron's call.
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