Explore "Tales of a Wayside Inn" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom, / That cast upon each listener's face / Its shadow, and for some brief space / Unbroken silence filled the room. / The Jew was thoughtful and distressed; / Upon his memory thronged and pressed / The persecution of his race, / Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace; / His head was sunk upon his breast, / And from his eyes alternate came / Flashes of wrath and tears of shame.
The student first the silence broke, / As one who long has lain in wait / With purpose to retaliate, / And thus he dealt the avenging stroke. / "In such a company as this, / A tale so tragic seems amiss, / That by its terrible control / O'ermasters and drags down the soul / Into a fathomless abyss. / The Italian Tales that you disdain, / Some merry Night of Straparole, / Or Machiavelli's Belphagor, / Would cheer us and delight us more, / Give greater pleasure and less pain / Than your grim tragedies of Spain!"