And again the
whiskered
Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland!
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 - Lev to Mai
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necessary. The strength and solid English qualities of the unrhymed
pentameter would be out of place in this barbaric chant. Secondly,
the Song of Hiawatha' must be read with little reference to the
metric scheme. It will then be found that the metric scheme is over-
laid with a beautiful rhythmic scheme of clause and sentence, break-
ing up the monotony of the trochees. Longfellow's sweet and simple
phrase-music is woven into many novel combinations which are his
own, which no one can exactly copy. But the real beauty of this
poem does not lie in its form; it lies in the fact that it is an inter-
pretation of an unfamiliar type of life, and as such possesses an ideal
beauty and truth.
The group of American writers of the first half of the nineteenth
century, the best-known members of which are Longfellow, Emerson,
Holmes, Lowell, and Hawthorne, will always be regarded as having
laid the foundations of American literature. Each of these men pos-
sessed a distinct artistic individuality; but they form one of the most
interesting groups in history. The elements which give them simi-
larity and unite them in our general conception are their common
consciousness of the worth and reality of the moral quality in life,
and their belief in the beauty of righteousness. Theirs was a temper
of mind equally removed from the disordered pessimism which sees
in the moral order only a mechanical balance of the forces of selfish-
ness, from a shallow sentimental optimism, and from a servile rever-
ence for organized dogma. Serenity, kindliness, and earnestness are
the notes of sanity. Undoubtedly an artistic temperament is some-
times dominated by moods far different from these; and undoubtedly
too the artist whose life vision is clouded by doubt or by denial of
ethical truth, has a strange and unwholesome attraction. Such a one
appeals at least to our sympathy for mental distress. We rejoice
that the foundations of our literature were laid by artists of the nor-
mal and healthy type, and believe that a civilization which produced
a poet like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow must hold in its heart
some of the love of beauty and order and righteousness which was
the underlying principle of his verse.
Chaves & Johnsna
## p. 9150 (#158) ###########################################
9150
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
[All the following selections from Longfellow's Poems are reprinted by per-
mission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston, Massachusetts. ]
HYMN TO THE NIGHT
I
HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!
I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.
I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold soft chimes
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep cisterns flows.
O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.
Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!
THE BELEAGUERED CITY
I
HAVE read in some old, marvelous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9151
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of th dead.
White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen;
And with a sorrowful, deep sound
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,-
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmèd air.
Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,—
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read in the marvelous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And with a sorrowful, deep sound
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of life's wave.
And when the solemn and deep church bell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
## p. 9152 (#160) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
THE SKELETON IN ARMOR
"S"
PEAK! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me ? »
Then from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
And like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
From the heart's chamber.
"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse!
For this I sought thee.
"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;
And with my skates fast bound
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.
"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
## p. 9153 (#161) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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XVI-573
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark
Sang from the meadow.
"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew
With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.
«< Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long winter out;
Often our midnight shout
Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
Filled to o'erflowing.
"Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendor.
"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade
Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.
"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall;
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory:
## p. 9154 (#162) ###########################################
9154
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.
"While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.
"She was a prince's child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?
"Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,-
Fairest of all was she
Among the Norsemen! -
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armèd hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
With twenty horsemen.
―――
"Then launched they to the blast;
Bent like a reed each mast:
Yet we were gaining fast,
When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
Laugh as he hailed us.
"And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
Death! was the helmsman's hail,
Death without quarter!
Midships with iron keel.
Struck we her ribs of steel;
## p. 9155 (#163) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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Down her black hulk did reel
Through the black water!
"As with his wings aslant
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden,
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane
Bore I the maiden.
"Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which to this very hour
Stands looking seaward.
"There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden's tears;
She had forgot her fears,
She was a mother:
Death closed her mild blue eyes;
Under that tower she lies;
Ne'er shall the sun arise
On such another!
"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,-
Oh, death was grateful!
"Thus seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal! »
Thus the tale ended.
## p. 9156 (#164) ###########################################
9156
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
MAIDENHOOD
M
AIDEN! with the meek brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing with a timid glance
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem
As the river of a dream.
Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?
Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands,-life hath snares;
Care and age come unawares!
Like the swell of some sweet tune
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
Childhood is the bough, where slumbered
Birds and blossoms many-numbered;
Age, that bough with snows incumbered.
Gather then each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.
## p. 9157 (#165) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Bear a lily in thy hand:
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;
And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart;
For a smile of God thou art.
SERENADE
From The Spanish Student>
TARS of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
ST
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch! while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
9157
## p. 9158 (#166) ###########################################
9158
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
GENIUS
From The Spanish Student >
ROM the barred visor of Antiquity
Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth,
As from a mirror! All the means of action-
The shapeless masses, the materials-
Lie everywhere about us. What we need
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.
The son of genius comes, footsore with travel,
And begs a shelter from the inclement night.
He takes the charcoal from the peasant's hand,
And by the magic of his touch at once
Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine,
And in the eyes of the astonished clown
It gleams a diamond! Even thus transformed,
Rude popular traditions and old tales
Shine as immortal poems at the touch
FR
Of some poor houseless, homeless, wandering bard,
Who had but a night's lodging for his pains.
THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS
T WAS the schooner Hesperus,
IT That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.
Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.
## p. 9159 (#167) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9159
"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see! »
The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.
"Come hither, come hither, my little daughter!
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow. "
He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.
"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
O say, what may it be? "—
'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast! "
And he steered for the open sea.
"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be? "—
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea! "
"O father! I see a gleaming light,
O say, what may it be? "
But the father answered never a word,—
A frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
## p. 9160 (#168) ###########################################
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave
On the lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.
And ever, the fitful gusts between,
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;
But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank,—
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!
## p. 9161 (#169) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9161
THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH
UNDE
[NDER a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands:
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys,
And hears the parson pray and preach;
He hears his daughter's voice
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling, rejoicing,- sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
―
## p. 9162 (#170) ###########################################
9162
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.
THE RAINY DAY
THE
HE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining:
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,—
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
THE BELFRY OF BRUGES
IN
IN THE market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the
town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood.
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors
gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.
## p. 9163 (#171) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9163
At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished ghost-like into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and
high;
And the world beneath me sleeping seemed more distant than the
sky.
Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the
choir:
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only, seemed to walk the earth again:
All the Foresters of Flanders,- mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.
I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of
Gold;
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;
And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed be-
tween.
I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;
Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.
And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland! I am Roland! There is victory in the land! "
## p. 9164 (#172) ###########################################
9164
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once
more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.
THE BRIDGE
STOOD on the bridge at midnight,
I
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.
I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.
And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.
Among the long black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away;
As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide,
And streaming into the moonlight
The seaweed floated wide.
And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, oh how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
## p. 9165 (#173) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9165
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-incumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro;
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes,-
The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven
And its wavering image here.
-
SEAWEED
WHEN
HEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reef; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
## p. 9166 (#174) ###########################################
9166
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;-
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate;
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
## p. 9167 (#175) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9167
THE DAY IS DONE
HE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
TH
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist;
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
## p. 9168 (#176) ###########################################
9168
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music;
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
THE ARROW AND THE SONG
SHOT an arrow into the air,
I
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
THE CROSS OF SNOW
IN
IN THE long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face- the face of one long dead
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
-
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
## p. 9169 (#177) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9169
THE LAUNCHING
From The Building of the Ship'
A
LL is finished! and at length
Has come the bridal day
Of beauty and of strength.
To-day the vessel shall be launched!
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,
Slowly, in all his splendors dight,
The great sun rises to behold the sight.
XVI-574
The ocean old,
Centuries old,
Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,
Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,
With ceaseless flow,
His beard of snow
Heaves with the heaving of his breast.
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,
With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honor of her marriage day,
Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,
Ready to be
The bride of the gray old sea.
On the deck another bride
Is standing by her lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.
The prayer is said,
The service read,
The joyous bridegroom bows his head;
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son,
I
## p. 9170 (#178) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9170
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster
Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-
The shepherd of that wandering flock
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock-
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart
Of the sailor's heart,
All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,
And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he:-
"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats and swings the horizon's bound,
Seems at its distant rim to rise
-
And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,
As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,
It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves
That rock and rise
With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true
To the toil and the task we have to do,
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach
The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,
Will be those of joy and not of fear! "
## p. 9171 (#179) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Then the Master,
With a gesture of command,
Waved his hand;
And at the word,
Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below,
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts, she moves,- she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms! "
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust:
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
9171
## p. 9172 (#180) ###########################################
9172
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,-
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,- are all with thee!
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT
OUTHWARD with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,
And the east wind was his breath.
Sou
His lordly ships of ice.
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land wind failed.
Alas! the land wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
## p. 9173 (#181) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9173
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land! »
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea mysteriously
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds:
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
MY LOST YOUTH
FTEN I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
OF
-
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
## p. 9174 (#182) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9174
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:-
:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
-
I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:-
-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
## p. 9175 (#183) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9175
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
―
There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:-
-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there;
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
## p. 9176 (#184) ###########################################
9176
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
MY BOOKS
ADLY as some old mediæval knight
SAD
Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield,
The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,—
So I behold these books upon their shelf,
My ornaments and arms of other days;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self,
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways
In which I walked, now clouded and confused.
CHANGED
ROM the outskirts of the town
Where of old the milestone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
FR
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.
Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.
Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun;
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.
## p. 9176 (#185) ###########################################
## p. 9176 (#186) ###########################################
1
1
די
## p. 9176 (#187) ###########################################
LONGFELLOW'S
HOME, CAMBRIDGE,
MASS.
## p. 9176 (#188) ###########################################
## p. 9177 (#189) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
PAUL REVERE'S RIDE
'The Landlord's Tale' in 'Tales of a Wayside Inn'
L
ISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm. "
Then he said, “Good night! " and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
9177
## p. 9178 (#190) ###########################################
9178
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well! »
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
## p. 9179 (#191) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,-
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
9179
## p. 9180 (#192) ###########################################
9180
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
J
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
THANGBRAND THE PRIEST
From The Saga of King Olaf' in 'Tales of a Wayside Inn'
SHO
HORT of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
"Look! " they said,
With nodding head,
"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. "
All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,
A man of mark,
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl;
Everywhere
Would drink and swear,-
Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
-
In his house this malcontent
Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent
To convert the heathen there;
And away
One summer day
Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
## p. 9181 (#193) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9181
There in Iceland, o'er their books
Pored the people day and night;
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.
"All this rhyme
Is waste of time! "
Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
To the alehouse, where he sat,
Came the skalds and saga-men:
Is it to be wondered at
That they quarreled now and then,
When o'er his beer
Began to leer
Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?
All the folk in Altafiord
Boasted of their island grand;
Saying in a single word,
"Iceland is the finest land
That the sun
Doth shine upon! "
Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
And he answered, "What's the use
Of this bragging up and down,
When three women and one goose
Make a market in your town! "
Every skald
Satires scrawled
On poor Thangbrand. Olaf's Priest.
Something worse they did than that:
And what vexed him most of all
Was a figure in shovel hat,
Drawn in charcoal on the wall;
With words that go
Sprawling below,
"This is Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. "
Hardly knowing what he did,
Then he smote them might and main;
Thorvald Veile and Veterlid
Lay there in the alehouse slain.
"To-day we are gold,
To-morrow mold! "
Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
## p. 9182 (#194) ###########################################
9182
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Much in fear of axe and rope,
Back to Norway sailed he then.
"O King Olaf! Little hope
Is there of these Iceland men! "
Meekly said,
With bending head,
Pious Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
KAMBALU
"The Spanish Jew's Tale' in Tales of a Wayside Inn'
NTO the city of Kambalu,
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan,
At the head of his dusty caravan,
Laden with treasure from realms afar,
Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar,
Rode the great captain Alau.
The Khan from his palace window gazed,
And saw in the thronging street beneath,
In the light of the setting sun, that blazed
Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised,
The flash of harness and jeweled sheath,
And the shining scimitars of the guard,
And the weary camels that bared their teeth,
As they passed and passed through the gates unbarred
Into the shade of the palace-yard.
Thus into the city of Kambalu
Rode the great captain Alau;
And he stood before the Khan, and said:
"The enemies of my lord are dead;
All the Kalifs of all the West
Bow and obey thy least behest;
The plains are dark with the mulberry-trees,
The weavers are busy in Samarcand,
The miners are sifting the golden sand,
The divers plunging for pearls in the seas,
And peace and plenty are in the land.
"Baldacca's Kalif, and he alone,
Rose in revolt against thy throne:
His treasures are at thy palace-door,
With the swords and the shawls and the jewels he wore;
His body is dust o'er the desert blown.
## p. 9183 (#195) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9183
"A mile outside of Baldacca's gate
I left my forces to lie in wait,
Concealed by forests and hillocks of sand,
And forward dashed with a handful of men,
To lure the old tiger from his den
Into the ambush I had planned.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9149
necessary. The strength and solid English qualities of the unrhymed
pentameter would be out of place in this barbaric chant. Secondly,
the Song of Hiawatha' must be read with little reference to the
metric scheme. It will then be found that the metric scheme is over-
laid with a beautiful rhythmic scheme of clause and sentence, break-
ing up the monotony of the trochees. Longfellow's sweet and simple
phrase-music is woven into many novel combinations which are his
own, which no one can exactly copy. But the real beauty of this
poem does not lie in its form; it lies in the fact that it is an inter-
pretation of an unfamiliar type of life, and as such possesses an ideal
beauty and truth.
The group of American writers of the first half of the nineteenth
century, the best-known members of which are Longfellow, Emerson,
Holmes, Lowell, and Hawthorne, will always be regarded as having
laid the foundations of American literature. Each of these men pos-
sessed a distinct artistic individuality; but they form one of the most
interesting groups in history. The elements which give them simi-
larity and unite them in our general conception are their common
consciousness of the worth and reality of the moral quality in life,
and their belief in the beauty of righteousness. Theirs was a temper
of mind equally removed from the disordered pessimism which sees
in the moral order only a mechanical balance of the forces of selfish-
ness, from a shallow sentimental optimism, and from a servile rever-
ence for organized dogma. Serenity, kindliness, and earnestness are
the notes of sanity. Undoubtedly an artistic temperament is some-
times dominated by moods far different from these; and undoubtedly
too the artist whose life vision is clouded by doubt or by denial of
ethical truth, has a strange and unwholesome attraction. Such a one
appeals at least to our sympathy for mental distress. We rejoice
that the foundations of our literature were laid by artists of the nor-
mal and healthy type, and believe that a civilization which produced
a poet like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow must hold in its heart
some of the love of beauty and order and righteousness which was
the underlying principle of his verse.
Chaves & Johnsna
## p. 9150 (#158) ###########################################
9150
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
[All the following selections from Longfellow's Poems are reprinted by per-
mission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston, Massachusetts. ]
HYMN TO THE NIGHT
I
HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!
I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.
I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold soft chimes
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep cisterns flows.
O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.
Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!
THE BELEAGUERED CITY
I
HAVE read in some old, marvelous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
## p. 9151 (#159) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9151
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of th dead.
White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen;
And with a sorrowful, deep sound
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,-
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmèd air.
Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,—
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read in the marvelous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And with a sorrowful, deep sound
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of life's wave.
And when the solemn and deep church bell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
## p. 9152 (#160) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9152
Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
THE SKELETON IN ARMOR
"S"
PEAK! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me ? »
Then from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
And like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
From the heart's chamber.
"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse!
For this I sought thee.
"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;
And with my skates fast bound
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.
"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
## p. 9153 (#161) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9153
XVI-573
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark
Sang from the meadow.
"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew
With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.
«< Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long winter out;
Often our midnight shout
Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
Filled to o'erflowing.
"Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendor.
"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade
Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.
"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall;
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory:
## p. 9154 (#162) ###########################################
9154
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.
"While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.
"She was a prince's child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?
"Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,-
Fairest of all was she
Among the Norsemen! -
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armèd hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
With twenty horsemen.
―――
"Then launched they to the blast;
Bent like a reed each mast:
Yet we were gaining fast,
When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
Laugh as he hailed us.
"And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
Death! was the helmsman's hail,
Death without quarter!
Midships with iron keel.
Struck we her ribs of steel;
## p. 9155 (#163) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9155
Down her black hulk did reel
Through the black water!
"As with his wings aslant
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden,
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane
Bore I the maiden.
"Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which to this very hour
Stands looking seaward.
"There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden's tears;
She had forgot her fears,
She was a mother:
Death closed her mild blue eyes;
Under that tower she lies;
Ne'er shall the sun arise
On such another!
"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,-
Oh, death was grateful!
"Thus seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal! »
Thus the tale ended.
## p. 9156 (#164) ###########################################
9156
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
MAIDENHOOD
M
AIDEN! with the meek brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing with a timid glance
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem
As the river of a dream.
Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?
Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands,-life hath snares;
Care and age come unawares!
Like the swell of some sweet tune
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
Childhood is the bough, where slumbered
Birds and blossoms many-numbered;
Age, that bough with snows incumbered.
Gather then each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.
## p. 9157 (#165) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Bear a lily in thy hand:
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;
And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart;
For a smile of God thou art.
SERENADE
From The Spanish Student>
TARS of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
ST
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch! while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
9157
## p. 9158 (#166) ###########################################
9158
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
GENIUS
From The Spanish Student >
ROM the barred visor of Antiquity
Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth,
As from a mirror! All the means of action-
The shapeless masses, the materials-
Lie everywhere about us. What we need
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.
The son of genius comes, footsore with travel,
And begs a shelter from the inclement night.
He takes the charcoal from the peasant's hand,
And by the magic of his touch at once
Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine,
And in the eyes of the astonished clown
It gleams a diamond! Even thus transformed,
Rude popular traditions and old tales
Shine as immortal poems at the touch
FR
Of some poor houseless, homeless, wandering bard,
Who had but a night's lodging for his pains.
THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS
T WAS the schooner Hesperus,
IT That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.
Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.
## p. 9159 (#167) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9159
"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see! »
The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.
"Come hither, come hither, my little daughter!
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow. "
He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.
"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
O say, what may it be? "—
'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast! "
And he steered for the open sea.
"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be? "—
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea! "
"O father! I see a gleaming light,
O say, what may it be? "
But the father answered never a word,—
A frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
## p. 9160 (#168) ###########################################
9160
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave
On the lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.
And ever, the fitful gusts between,
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;
But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank,—
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!
## p. 9161 (#169) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9161
THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH
UNDE
[NDER a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands:
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys,
And hears the parson pray and preach;
He hears his daughter's voice
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling, rejoicing,- sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
―
## p. 9162 (#170) ###########################################
9162
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.
THE RAINY DAY
THE
HE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining:
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,—
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
THE BELFRY OF BRUGES
IN
IN THE market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the
town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood.
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors
gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.
## p. 9163 (#171) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9163
At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished ghost-like into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and
high;
And the world beneath me sleeping seemed more distant than the
sky.
Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the
choir:
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only, seemed to walk the earth again:
All the Foresters of Flanders,- mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.
I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of
Gold;
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;
And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed be-
tween.
I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;
Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.
And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland! I am Roland! There is victory in the land! "
## p. 9164 (#172) ###########################################
9164
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once
more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.
THE BRIDGE
STOOD on the bridge at midnight,
I
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.
I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.
And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.
Among the long black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away;
As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide,
And streaming into the moonlight
The seaweed floated wide.
And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, oh how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
## p. 9165 (#173) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9165
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-incumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro;
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes,-
The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven
And its wavering image here.
-
SEAWEED
WHEN
HEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reef; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
## p. 9166 (#174) ###########################################
9166
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;-
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate;
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
## p. 9167 (#175) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9167
THE DAY IS DONE
HE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
TH
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist;
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
## p. 9168 (#176) ###########################################
9168
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music;
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
THE ARROW AND THE SONG
SHOT an arrow into the air,
I
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
THE CROSS OF SNOW
IN
IN THE long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face- the face of one long dead
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
-
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
## p. 9169 (#177) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9169
THE LAUNCHING
From The Building of the Ship'
A
LL is finished! and at length
Has come the bridal day
Of beauty and of strength.
To-day the vessel shall be launched!
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,
Slowly, in all his splendors dight,
The great sun rises to behold the sight.
XVI-574
The ocean old,
Centuries old,
Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,
Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,
With ceaseless flow,
His beard of snow
Heaves with the heaving of his breast.
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,
With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honor of her marriage day,
Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,
Ready to be
The bride of the gray old sea.
On the deck another bride
Is standing by her lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.
The prayer is said,
The service read,
The joyous bridegroom bows his head;
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son,
I
## p. 9170 (#178) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9170
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster
Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-
The shepherd of that wandering flock
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock-
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart
Of the sailor's heart,
All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,
And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he:-
"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats and swings the horizon's bound,
Seems at its distant rim to rise
-
And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,
As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,
It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves
That rock and rise
With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true
To the toil and the task we have to do,
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach
The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,
Will be those of joy and not of fear! "
## p. 9171 (#179) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Then the Master,
With a gesture of command,
Waved his hand;
And at the word,
Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below,
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts, she moves,- she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms! "
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust:
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
9171
## p. 9172 (#180) ###########################################
9172
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,-
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,- are all with thee!
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT
OUTHWARD with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,
And the east wind was his breath.
Sou
His lordly ships of ice.
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land wind failed.
Alas! the land wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
## p. 9173 (#181) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9173
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land! »
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea mysteriously
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds:
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
MY LOST YOUTH
FTEN I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
OF
-
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
## p. 9174 (#182) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9174
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:-
:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
-
I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:-
-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
## p. 9175 (#183) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9175
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
―
There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:-
-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there;
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:-
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. "
## p. 9176 (#184) ###########################################
9176
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
MY BOOKS
ADLY as some old mediæval knight
SAD
Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield,
The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,—
So I behold these books upon their shelf,
My ornaments and arms of other days;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self,
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways
In which I walked, now clouded and confused.
CHANGED
ROM the outskirts of the town
Where of old the milestone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
FR
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.
Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.
Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun;
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.
## p. 9176 (#185) ###########################################
## p. 9176 (#186) ###########################################
1
1
די
## p. 9176 (#187) ###########################################
LONGFELLOW'S
HOME, CAMBRIDGE,
MASS.
## p. 9176 (#188) ###########################################
## p. 9177 (#189) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
PAUL REVERE'S RIDE
'The Landlord's Tale' in 'Tales of a Wayside Inn'
L
ISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm. "
Then he said, “Good night! " and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
9177
## p. 9178 (#190) ###########################################
9178
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well! »
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
## p. 9179 (#191) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,-
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
9179
## p. 9180 (#192) ###########################################
9180
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
J
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
THANGBRAND THE PRIEST
From The Saga of King Olaf' in 'Tales of a Wayside Inn'
SHO
HORT of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
"Look! " they said,
With nodding head,
"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. "
All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,
A man of mark,
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl;
Everywhere
Would drink and swear,-
Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
-
In his house this malcontent
Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent
To convert the heathen there;
And away
One summer day
Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
## p. 9181 (#193) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9181
There in Iceland, o'er their books
Pored the people day and night;
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.
"All this rhyme
Is waste of time! "
Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
To the alehouse, where he sat,
Came the skalds and saga-men:
Is it to be wondered at
That they quarreled now and then,
When o'er his beer
Began to leer
Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?
All the folk in Altafiord
Boasted of their island grand;
Saying in a single word,
"Iceland is the finest land
That the sun
Doth shine upon! "
Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
And he answered, "What's the use
Of this bragging up and down,
When three women and one goose
Make a market in your town! "
Every skald
Satires scrawled
On poor Thangbrand. Olaf's Priest.
Something worse they did than that:
And what vexed him most of all
Was a figure in shovel hat,
Drawn in charcoal on the wall;
With words that go
Sprawling below,
"This is Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. "
Hardly knowing what he did,
Then he smote them might and main;
Thorvald Veile and Veterlid
Lay there in the alehouse slain.
"To-day we are gold,
To-morrow mold! "
Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
## p. 9182 (#194) ###########################################
9182
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Much in fear of axe and rope,
Back to Norway sailed he then.
"O King Olaf! Little hope
Is there of these Iceland men! "
Meekly said,
With bending head,
Pious Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
KAMBALU
"The Spanish Jew's Tale' in Tales of a Wayside Inn'
NTO the city of Kambalu,
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan,
At the head of his dusty caravan,
Laden with treasure from realms afar,
Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar,
Rode the great captain Alau.
The Khan from his palace window gazed,
And saw in the thronging street beneath,
In the light of the setting sun, that blazed
Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised,
The flash of harness and jeweled sheath,
And the shining scimitars of the guard,
And the weary camels that bared their teeth,
As they passed and passed through the gates unbarred
Into the shade of the palace-yard.
Thus into the city of Kambalu
Rode the great captain Alau;
And he stood before the Khan, and said:
"The enemies of my lord are dead;
All the Kalifs of all the West
Bow and obey thy least behest;
The plains are dark with the mulberry-trees,
The weavers are busy in Samarcand,
The miners are sifting the golden sand,
The divers plunging for pearls in the seas,
And peace and plenty are in the land.
"Baldacca's Kalif, and he alone,
Rose in revolt against thy throne:
His treasures are at thy palace-door,
With the swords and the shawls and the jewels he wore;
His body is dust o'er the desert blown.
## p. 9183 (#195) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9183
"A mile outside of Baldacca's gate
I left my forces to lie in wait,
Concealed by forests and hillocks of sand,
And forward dashed with a handful of men,
To lure the old tiger from his den
Into the ambush I had planned.
