Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HALL OF FAME, by ARTHUR GUITERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HALL OF FAME, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A noble fane of marble wall and moonlit ...
Last Line: Entered new names on the roll of fame.
Subject(s): Death; Fame; Halloween; Harlem River, New York; New York City; Dead, The; Reputation; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple


A NOBLE fane of marble wall and moonlit colonnade
Looks southward from a crest that rears o'er Haarlem's gentle glade
To watch the jeweled city's rest in majesty serene --
The calm, strong sleep that midnight gives our sea-enthroned queen --
Looks westward to the Palisades, whose frowning foreheads throw
An even shade upon the gleam of Hudson's silver flow.

The hall is filled with wondrous light and faint sweet minstrelsy
And softly echoed laugh and song of elfin revelry;
'Tis Hallowe'en! and once again to view those walls, repair
The spirits of the mighty dead whose names are graven there.
Within is mirth and merriment among the chosen Great;
Without, a surly Porter stands to guard the sacred gate
Against each unelected Shade that foreign birth must claim;
For thus decreed the gentle soul that reared the Hall of Fame.

Forward stepped a graceful sprite,
Quick of action, straight and slight,
Ruddy-hued, with tawny hair,
Free of speech yet debonair;
One round hole (ah, mortal hurt!)
Through the neatly ruffled shirt.
"Open, Porter! I would lief
Greet again my noble chief,
He whose service was my school
First in warfare, then in rule.
Of his dearest I was one --
Alexander Hamilton."

Answered the Porter in sullen-voiced scorn,
"Ere I admit thee say where thou wast born."

"Where the tropic breeze beguiles
On the sea-kissed Leeward Isles
First I breathed. But well ye ken
All our breed were Britons then."

"To all but the home-born this portal is barred,
Hie back to thy barrow in Trinity Yard!"

A stalwart form in the Blue and Buff,
With a shot-rent sash of the silken stuff,
With shoulders squared and head held high,
A statesman's brow and a soldier's eye,
The mouth where butter wouldn't melt,
And the lilting laugh of the dauntless Celt,
Sprang up the slope in the moonlight dim
And shouted clear to the Warden grim,
"Unbar the gate, my man, for me!
Make way for Dick Montgomerie!"
(So rang that voice before his fall
On old Quebec's ensanguined wall.)

Again spake the Porter: "I know not thy worth.
Proclaim, ere I open, the land of thy birth."

"My faith and troth! yer wit is flat!
I thought my tongue would tell ye that!
In Ireland, sure, I first drew breath;
But what of birth -- so long since death?"
"No foreign-born spirit may enter these walls.
Go back to thy tomb in the crypt of St. Paul's!"

"Room for the governor!" iron-jawed
Stout Peter Stuyvesant walks abroad,
Quitting his charnel in old St. Mark's,
Up through the tangle of streets and parks,
Stumping away on his wooden peg
And the high-heeled shoe of his one sound leg.
Monarch of Shadows, he governs still,
Ruler by force of a stubborn will.
Sharp and direct was the word he spake:
"Rules that mislike me I dare to break.
Open the portal, ye varlet, quick!
'Ware of the swing of mine oaken stick!
Forward, my heroes!' And, at his call,
Freely they strode through the ringing hall.
Round them the banded Immortals drew,
Hailed them as brothers and comrades true.
There, in the center, I saw them stand
Pressing their lips to the Founder's hand,
Who, with a pencil of golden flame,
Entered new names on the Roll of Fame.





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