Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful! hateful!
The sunlight hateful! hateful!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 to v20 - Phi to Qui
He came of the best New England ancestry, tra-
cing his descent in one line back to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins
of the original Plymouth Colony, whose marriage he celebrates in the
'Courtship of Miles Standish. ' He graduated from Bowdoin in 1825,
in the same class with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Even in his boyhood
he evinced the refinement, the trustworthy, equable judgment, and
the love for the quietly beautiful in literature, which were his most
strongly marked characteristics through life. Such elements are sure
to develop, and it was safe to send the young Longfellow at nine-
teen for a three-years' stay in Europe. His nature had no affinity
for evil in any form; partly from the lack of emotional intensity, and
partly from natural sympathy with all that was beautiful and of good
report. He acquired during his tour of Europe a knowledge of the
French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages, and a general lit-
erary acquaintance with the best writers in them. He had shown in
college some aptitude for versification and for languages, and went
abroad to fit himself for the position of professor of modern lan-
guages in Bowdoin. His industrious devotion to true culture through-
out life is evidence of an overmastering bent. In 1829 he returned
to America and took the professorship of modern languages at Bow-
doin. In 1831 he married Mary Potter.
In 1835 he published 'Outre Mer,' a sketchy account of his years
abroad, in a form evidently suggested by Irving's 'Sketch Book,'
though by no means rivaling Irving's quaint and charming humor.
From 1831 he contributed a number of articles on literary subjects to
the North American Review; and in 1833 he published his first poet-
ical work, Coplas' (couplets or verses) 'de Manrique,'- translations
of Spanish verse. His gradually increasing reputation as a writer
and enthusiastic instructor led to his appointment in 1835 as pro-
fessor of modern languages at Harvard, then as now on the lookout
for young scholars likely to add to the reputation of the University.
Before entering upon his new duties he went abroad to perfect his
――
## p. 9144 (#152) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9144
knowledge of the Teutonic languages. He was accompanied by his
young wife, who died at Rotterdam in 1835. In 1836 he settled at
Cambridge, living in the well-known Craigie House, which had been
occupied by Washington when the headquarters of the army were
near Boston. In 1843 he made his third voyage to Europe; and in
the same year he married Frances Appleton, and the Craigie House
thenceforward to be one of the literary landmarks of America-
became his home. His environment was an ideal one; and though
he was somewhat burdened with the drudgery of his professorship,
he added almost yearly to his reputation as a poet.
He published Voices of the Night' in 1839; 'Ballads and Other
Poems, 1841; Poems on Slavery,' 1842; The Spanish Student,'
1843 Belfry of Bruges,' 1846; Evangeline,' 1847; 'Seaside and
Fireside,' 1850; The Golden Legend,' 1851; and the prose works
'Hyperion' (1839) and Kavanagh' (1849), which last add very little
if anything to his reputation. Finally, in 1854 he felt justified in
resigning his position, that his literary activity might be uninter-
rupted. He was succeeded by Lowell, and it is doubtful if a like
fitness of succession could be discovered in academic annals. He
remained the first literary figure in America till his death in 1882,
and his European reputation was but little inferior to that which he
enjoyed in his own country. He received the degree of LL. D. from
Harvard in 1859 and in 1868 from Cambridge, England, and the
D. C. L. from Oxford in the same year.
The peaceful and prosperous tenor of his life was disturbed by
one terrible misfortune. His wife met her death in 1861 from the
accidental burning of her dress. Otherwise his career was of almost
idyllic tranquillity. He had the happy capacity of being cheered by
appreciative praise and unaffected by adverse criticism. He attracted
numerous friends, among them Felton, Sumner, Agassiz, Lowell,
Hawthorne. His nature was so well balanced that he is his own
best biographer; and appears to better advantage in his letters and
diary, published by his brother, than in any of the lives that have
appeared.
>
If we judge from his diary, Longfellow was never subject to over-
mastering impulses, but always acted with foresight,—not from selfish
calculation, but from a sane and temperate judgment. He was as
trustworthy at nineteen as if years of experience had molded his
character and settled his principles of conduct. In fact, he negatives
the theory of original sin,-the flower of Puritanism disproves the
cherished Puritan dogma. This quality of radical goodness of heart
is reflected in his verse. The ardor of soul, the deep dejection
and despair, the rebellion, of the revolutionary natures are entirely
unknown to him. He is the poet of the well-disposed, the virtuous
## p. 9145 (#153) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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and intelligent New-Englander; in whose land there is found only a
mild and colorless beauty untormented by cyclones or active volca-
noes, and nature is not altogether favorable, nor entirely hostile, to
humanity. To Hawthorne, New England was full of a quaint mys-
tery; in Longfellow's world there was no hell, and hardly room for a
picturesque old-fashioned Devil. This is not so much due to super-
ficial observation as to the fact that he simply avoided or ignored the
places where "Satan shows his cloven foot and hides his titled
name. " Even in Longfellow's antislavery poems there is no hint of
consuming indignation. His mark is charm and grace rather than
power. In his own words, he is not one of -
"the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of time. »
He does not appeal to the great elemental passions, but rather to
the pathetic sense of the transitoriness of familiar and every-day
scenes, to the conviction that the calm joys of home are after all the
surest foretaste of happiness allowed to man, and that the perform-
ance of duty is as noble in the humble sphere as in the elevated
one: in a word, to a range of feelings that are based on reality,
though they exist in the more superficial part of our natures. There-
fore, Longfellow, though a man of general culture, does not write
for the literary public. His relation is to the great body of readers,
though his personal intimacies seem to have been almost exclusively
with literary or academic people. Sympathy with the broadly human
is one of the marks of the true poet. To put simple things into
graceful and intelligible poetic form requires genius; for thousands
try to do it every day, and fail for lack of the special gift. Long-
fellow succeeded; and those who say that his themes and method
are alike commonplace forget that the touch which illuminates the
commonplace is the most delicate in art.
In consequence of this characteristic of simplicity and graceful
melody, many of Longfellow's lyrics have become general favorites.
'Resignation,' 'The Skeleton in Armor,' 'My Lost Youth,' 'The Old
Clock on the Stairs,' 'The Arrow and the Song,' the 'Psalm of
Life,' 'Excelsior,' 'The Wreck of the Hesperus,' 'The Arsenal at
Springfield, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport,' and many others,
have a secure lodgment in the popular memory. They are known
to more people than are familiar with an equal number of the lyr-
ics of Wordsworth. Longfellow's clientèle is larger than that of any
other modern poet except Burns. 'The Building of the Ship'-long
enough to be called an ode—has had as much effect in developing
a sense of nationality as anything ever written: not excepting the
## p. 9146 (#154) ###########################################
9146
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Declaration of Independence or Webster's reply to Hayne. It has
been recited so many times that it has become a national document.
In form it is a frank imitation of Schiller's 'Song of the Bell,' and
in tone it possesses the dithyrambic quality of the true ode. If we
possessed a national song, of the reach and stirring power of Long-
fellow's ode, we might be less patient with the clumsy disguises in
which selfishness masquerades as Americanism. It is one of the
highest functions of art to crystallize national sentiment by putting
into striking and intelligible form what we all feel, and criticism of
poems which do this is entirely out of place-except by a foreigner;
and then it is impertinent.
Longfellow's longer poems may be conveniently divided into two
classes, according to subject-matter. One would include his poems
on mediæval themes or based on mediæval models, as 'Christus,' in
dramatic form, in three parts, - 'The Divine Tragedy,' 'The Golden
Legend,' and 'The New England Tragedies,' - presenting three
phases of the development of the Christian religion; Tales of a
Wayside Inn, The Spanish Student,' and 'Judas Maccabæus,' also
dramatic in form, and his translation of Dante. The other division
would contain Evangeline,' 'The Song of Hiawatha,' and 'The
Courtship of Miles Standish. ' To the writer it seems that his literary
reputation rests most securely on these last, his popular reputation
on these and the lyrics already mentioned. He casts the same gently
romantic light over the Middle Ages that he does over everything he
presents in poetical form; and Mr. Ruskin says that in the 'Golden
Legend' he has "entered more closely into the character of the monk
for good and evil than ever yet theological writer or historian, though
they have given their lives' labor to the analysis. " Longfellow's
studies were largely mediæval; old cities and their quaint archi-
tecture and legends were to him of special interest, but he never
"entered into the evil" of any state of society. It was not germane
to him, and he lacked the insight into the horrors and abominations
of the past which Mr. Ruskin's words would imply.
In passing, we may remark that Longfellow was by nature more
akin to the spirit of Greek culture than to the spirit of the Christian
centuries: he was healthily objective. But his studies were in the
period in which the great conflict between the natural man and the
conviction of sin filled society with grotesque contrasts. He uses lit-
tle of the old classical imagery and the beautiful Greek mythology.
Had he been professor of Greek instead of modern languages, his
genius might have found a type of artistic feeling and expression
more in accordance with its nature. For the dramatic form he lacks
two requisites: he cannot throw himself into a character so as to
reproduce in himself and express the dominant note of that character,
## p. 9147 (#155) ###########################################
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9147
especially if it is an evil one. He cannot group the actions of a
set of people into a unity. Consequently his dramas are the work
of a conscientious student with a gift for graceful expression; the
scholar in tragedy, not the born dramatist. The 'Tales of a Wayside
Inn,' too, charmingly graceful in expression,- especially in the verses.
which link the poems together, - seem to fail in the qualities given
by the born story-teller. But some of the tales, notably the 'Bell of
Atri' and the 'Birds of Killingworth,' are in Longfellow's best man-
The echoes from Chaucer's verse have never been reflected
more perfectly, though they have struck on hundreds of poetic souls.
ner.
His translation of Dante may be regarded as simply the work of
a competent and cultured scholar. He aims to reproduce the terse-
ness of the original rather than its form. Perhaps this is all that a
sustained translation of a great poem can do; for poetic worth lies.
in the relation between the group of words and the idea, and even
individual poetic words—much more, groups of them-have no for-
eign equivalents. But Longfellow's version is one of the few great
translations of literature.
His American poems, 'Evangeline' and the Song of Hiawatha,'
vindicate his claim to the name of poet in the sense of a creator of
original and characteristic works of art. Of both these the themes
are American, and of such nature as to be well adapted to Longfel-
low's temperament. The story of Evangeline—the Acadian girl sepa-
rated from her lover in the deportation of her people, and wandering
in the search all her life till she finally found him an old man dying
in a hospital in Philadelphia- had been suggested to Hawthorne as
the material for a story. He showed his sense of his own powers
and limitations in rejecting it; for it contains no elements of the
psychologically sombre or tragic,-it is simply pathetic. To Long-
fellow it appealed at once for that very reason. It is on the every-
day plane of emotion; everybody can understand it. Granting the
extreme simplicity of the action, Longfellow has handled the inci-
dents with great skill. The metre he adopted sets the story in a
more idyllic medium than blank verse could have done, and gives it
a higher artistic worth than Tennyson's 'Enoch Arden. ' Goethe's
'Hermann and Dorothea' had shown him that the modern hexameter
was well adapted to the modern pastoral; and Longfellow's skill in
phrasing prevents the terminal cadence from becoming too monoto-
nous. The poem embodies three contrasts which are so admirably
handled that they reinforce each other: first, the contrast between
the simplicity and peace of the rural community and the rigor and
confusion of the embarkation; second, the contrast between the north-
ern landscape of Nova Scotia and the southern landscape of Louisi-
ana; third, the contrast which pervades the whole poem, between the
## p. 9148 (#156) ###########################################
9148
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
youthful lovers at the betrothal and the old man and woman at the
death-bed. There is no modern poem which, with the entire absence
of sentimentality or of any emotion foreign to the situation, presents
a more perfect poetic unity. There is no more beautiful passage in
poetry than the scene of the arrival of the girl and priest at the
house of Gabriel's father, only to find that the son has just departed.
The description of the mocking-bird's song-perfect to those who
have heard the bird in its southern home seems the prelude to a
rapturous meeting of the lovers. Yet in it are heard-
"Single notes in sorrowful, low lamentation,»
that seem to hint, as all beautiful things do, that happiness is un-
attainable.
In 'Hiawatha,' Longfellow undertook the extremely difficult task
of recreating the sub-conscious life of a savage people as embodied
in their myths. There are in us only a few deeply buried moods
of feeling, inherited from our remote ancestors, that respond to the
primitive interpretation of nature. "The world is too much with us. "
Our senses are too dull to "hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. "
But Longfellow went much further back into the primitive nature-
worship, and recalled for us the cultus of infantile, half-articulate man.
No one but a poet, and no poet but Longfellow, could have written
the Song of Hiawatha. ' The simplicity of the metre and the fre-
quent repetitions are features entirely consistent with the conception.
And furthermore the conception, though ideal, is consistent with the
character of the Indian as we know it. The poem is no dream, nor
phantasmagoria, nor thing of shreds and patches; it is a poetic unity.
Of course this results partly from the fact that it is built up from
real legends, but more from the fact that the legends are put in form
by a real artist.
-
-
The use of the trochaic four-accent line has been severely criticized.
It is true that this line is not natural to English. It forces the sun-
dering of syllables that the language has joined together: the mono-
syllabic noun and the article, the sign of the infinitive and the
monosyllabic verb for instance, which are in ordinary pronunciation
agglutinated into natural iambi. Such lines as-
"Make a bed for | me to | lie in;
I, the friend of | Man, Mon | damin,
Come to warn you | and in | struct you».
in their scansion do violence to the natural union of syllables. Still
it is possible to read verse with only the slightest sub-consciousness
of the metre, and to emphasize the rhythm. But it must be remem-
bered in the first place that a strange primitive metre was absolutely
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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.
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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"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;
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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!
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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;
―
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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.
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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!
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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,
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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.
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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.
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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.
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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
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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! "
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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!
cing his descent in one line back to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins
of the original Plymouth Colony, whose marriage he celebrates in the
'Courtship of Miles Standish. ' He graduated from Bowdoin in 1825,
in the same class with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Even in his boyhood
he evinced the refinement, the trustworthy, equable judgment, and
the love for the quietly beautiful in literature, which were his most
strongly marked characteristics through life. Such elements are sure
to develop, and it was safe to send the young Longfellow at nine-
teen for a three-years' stay in Europe. His nature had no affinity
for evil in any form; partly from the lack of emotional intensity, and
partly from natural sympathy with all that was beautiful and of good
report. He acquired during his tour of Europe a knowledge of the
French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages, and a general lit-
erary acquaintance with the best writers in them. He had shown in
college some aptitude for versification and for languages, and went
abroad to fit himself for the position of professor of modern lan-
guages in Bowdoin. His industrious devotion to true culture through-
out life is evidence of an overmastering bent. In 1829 he returned
to America and took the professorship of modern languages at Bow-
doin. In 1831 he married Mary Potter.
In 1835 he published 'Outre Mer,' a sketchy account of his years
abroad, in a form evidently suggested by Irving's 'Sketch Book,'
though by no means rivaling Irving's quaint and charming humor.
From 1831 he contributed a number of articles on literary subjects to
the North American Review; and in 1833 he published his first poet-
ical work, Coplas' (couplets or verses) 'de Manrique,'- translations
of Spanish verse. His gradually increasing reputation as a writer
and enthusiastic instructor led to his appointment in 1835 as pro-
fessor of modern languages at Harvard, then as now on the lookout
for young scholars likely to add to the reputation of the University.
Before entering upon his new duties he went abroad to perfect his
――
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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knowledge of the Teutonic languages. He was accompanied by his
young wife, who died at Rotterdam in 1835. In 1836 he settled at
Cambridge, living in the well-known Craigie House, which had been
occupied by Washington when the headquarters of the army were
near Boston. In 1843 he made his third voyage to Europe; and in
the same year he married Frances Appleton, and the Craigie House
thenceforward to be one of the literary landmarks of America-
became his home. His environment was an ideal one; and though
he was somewhat burdened with the drudgery of his professorship,
he added almost yearly to his reputation as a poet.
He published Voices of the Night' in 1839; 'Ballads and Other
Poems, 1841; Poems on Slavery,' 1842; The Spanish Student,'
1843 Belfry of Bruges,' 1846; Evangeline,' 1847; 'Seaside and
Fireside,' 1850; The Golden Legend,' 1851; and the prose works
'Hyperion' (1839) and Kavanagh' (1849), which last add very little
if anything to his reputation. Finally, in 1854 he felt justified in
resigning his position, that his literary activity might be uninter-
rupted. He was succeeded by Lowell, and it is doubtful if a like
fitness of succession could be discovered in academic annals. He
remained the first literary figure in America till his death in 1882,
and his European reputation was but little inferior to that which he
enjoyed in his own country. He received the degree of LL. D. from
Harvard in 1859 and in 1868 from Cambridge, England, and the
D. C. L. from Oxford in the same year.
The peaceful and prosperous tenor of his life was disturbed by
one terrible misfortune. His wife met her death in 1861 from the
accidental burning of her dress. Otherwise his career was of almost
idyllic tranquillity. He had the happy capacity of being cheered by
appreciative praise and unaffected by adverse criticism. He attracted
numerous friends, among them Felton, Sumner, Agassiz, Lowell,
Hawthorne. His nature was so well balanced that he is his own
best biographer; and appears to better advantage in his letters and
diary, published by his brother, than in any of the lives that have
appeared.
>
If we judge from his diary, Longfellow was never subject to over-
mastering impulses, but always acted with foresight,—not from selfish
calculation, but from a sane and temperate judgment. He was as
trustworthy at nineteen as if years of experience had molded his
character and settled his principles of conduct. In fact, he negatives
the theory of original sin,-the flower of Puritanism disproves the
cherished Puritan dogma. This quality of radical goodness of heart
is reflected in his verse. The ardor of soul, the deep dejection
and despair, the rebellion, of the revolutionary natures are entirely
unknown to him. He is the poet of the well-disposed, the virtuous
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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and intelligent New-Englander; in whose land there is found only a
mild and colorless beauty untormented by cyclones or active volca-
noes, and nature is not altogether favorable, nor entirely hostile, to
humanity. To Hawthorne, New England was full of a quaint mys-
tery; in Longfellow's world there was no hell, and hardly room for a
picturesque old-fashioned Devil. This is not so much due to super-
ficial observation as to the fact that he simply avoided or ignored the
places where "Satan shows his cloven foot and hides his titled
name. " Even in Longfellow's antislavery poems there is no hint of
consuming indignation. His mark is charm and grace rather than
power. In his own words, he is not one of -
"the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of time. »
He does not appeal to the great elemental passions, but rather to
the pathetic sense of the transitoriness of familiar and every-day
scenes, to the conviction that the calm joys of home are after all the
surest foretaste of happiness allowed to man, and that the perform-
ance of duty is as noble in the humble sphere as in the elevated
one: in a word, to a range of feelings that are based on reality,
though they exist in the more superficial part of our natures. There-
fore, Longfellow, though a man of general culture, does not write
for the literary public. His relation is to the great body of readers,
though his personal intimacies seem to have been almost exclusively
with literary or academic people. Sympathy with the broadly human
is one of the marks of the true poet. To put simple things into
graceful and intelligible poetic form requires genius; for thousands
try to do it every day, and fail for lack of the special gift. Long-
fellow succeeded; and those who say that his themes and method
are alike commonplace forget that the touch which illuminates the
commonplace is the most delicate in art.
In consequence of this characteristic of simplicity and graceful
melody, many of Longfellow's lyrics have become general favorites.
'Resignation,' 'The Skeleton in Armor,' 'My Lost Youth,' 'The Old
Clock on the Stairs,' 'The Arrow and the Song,' the 'Psalm of
Life,' 'Excelsior,' 'The Wreck of the Hesperus,' 'The Arsenal at
Springfield, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport,' and many others,
have a secure lodgment in the popular memory. They are known
to more people than are familiar with an equal number of the lyr-
ics of Wordsworth. Longfellow's clientèle is larger than that of any
other modern poet except Burns. 'The Building of the Ship'-long
enough to be called an ode—has had as much effect in developing
a sense of nationality as anything ever written: not excepting the
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9146
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Declaration of Independence or Webster's reply to Hayne. It has
been recited so many times that it has become a national document.
In form it is a frank imitation of Schiller's 'Song of the Bell,' and
in tone it possesses the dithyrambic quality of the true ode. If we
possessed a national song, of the reach and stirring power of Long-
fellow's ode, we might be less patient with the clumsy disguises in
which selfishness masquerades as Americanism. It is one of the
highest functions of art to crystallize national sentiment by putting
into striking and intelligible form what we all feel, and criticism of
poems which do this is entirely out of place-except by a foreigner;
and then it is impertinent.
Longfellow's longer poems may be conveniently divided into two
classes, according to subject-matter. One would include his poems
on mediæval themes or based on mediæval models, as 'Christus,' in
dramatic form, in three parts, - 'The Divine Tragedy,' 'The Golden
Legend,' and 'The New England Tragedies,' - presenting three
phases of the development of the Christian religion; Tales of a
Wayside Inn, The Spanish Student,' and 'Judas Maccabæus,' also
dramatic in form, and his translation of Dante. The other division
would contain Evangeline,' 'The Song of Hiawatha,' and 'The
Courtship of Miles Standish. ' To the writer it seems that his literary
reputation rests most securely on these last, his popular reputation
on these and the lyrics already mentioned. He casts the same gently
romantic light over the Middle Ages that he does over everything he
presents in poetical form; and Mr. Ruskin says that in the 'Golden
Legend' he has "entered more closely into the character of the monk
for good and evil than ever yet theological writer or historian, though
they have given their lives' labor to the analysis. " Longfellow's
studies were largely mediæval; old cities and their quaint archi-
tecture and legends were to him of special interest, but he never
"entered into the evil" of any state of society. It was not germane
to him, and he lacked the insight into the horrors and abominations
of the past which Mr. Ruskin's words would imply.
In passing, we may remark that Longfellow was by nature more
akin to the spirit of Greek culture than to the spirit of the Christian
centuries: he was healthily objective. But his studies were in the
period in which the great conflict between the natural man and the
conviction of sin filled society with grotesque contrasts. He uses lit-
tle of the old classical imagery and the beautiful Greek mythology.
Had he been professor of Greek instead of modern languages, his
genius might have found a type of artistic feeling and expression
more in accordance with its nature. For the dramatic form he lacks
two requisites: he cannot throw himself into a character so as to
reproduce in himself and express the dominant note of that character,
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
9147
especially if it is an evil one. He cannot group the actions of a
set of people into a unity. Consequently his dramas are the work
of a conscientious student with a gift for graceful expression; the
scholar in tragedy, not the born dramatist. The 'Tales of a Wayside
Inn,' too, charmingly graceful in expression,- especially in the verses.
which link the poems together, - seem to fail in the qualities given
by the born story-teller. But some of the tales, notably the 'Bell of
Atri' and the 'Birds of Killingworth,' are in Longfellow's best man-
The echoes from Chaucer's verse have never been reflected
more perfectly, though they have struck on hundreds of poetic souls.
ner.
His translation of Dante may be regarded as simply the work of
a competent and cultured scholar. He aims to reproduce the terse-
ness of the original rather than its form. Perhaps this is all that a
sustained translation of a great poem can do; for poetic worth lies.
in the relation between the group of words and the idea, and even
individual poetic words—much more, groups of them-have no for-
eign equivalents. But Longfellow's version is one of the few great
translations of literature.
His American poems, 'Evangeline' and the Song of Hiawatha,'
vindicate his claim to the name of poet in the sense of a creator of
original and characteristic works of art. Of both these the themes
are American, and of such nature as to be well adapted to Longfel-
low's temperament. The story of Evangeline—the Acadian girl sepa-
rated from her lover in the deportation of her people, and wandering
in the search all her life till she finally found him an old man dying
in a hospital in Philadelphia- had been suggested to Hawthorne as
the material for a story. He showed his sense of his own powers
and limitations in rejecting it; for it contains no elements of the
psychologically sombre or tragic,-it is simply pathetic. To Long-
fellow it appealed at once for that very reason. It is on the every-
day plane of emotion; everybody can understand it. Granting the
extreme simplicity of the action, Longfellow has handled the inci-
dents with great skill. The metre he adopted sets the story in a
more idyllic medium than blank verse could have done, and gives it
a higher artistic worth than Tennyson's 'Enoch Arden. ' Goethe's
'Hermann and Dorothea' had shown him that the modern hexameter
was well adapted to the modern pastoral; and Longfellow's skill in
phrasing prevents the terminal cadence from becoming too monoto-
nous. The poem embodies three contrasts which are so admirably
handled that they reinforce each other: first, the contrast between
the simplicity and peace of the rural community and the rigor and
confusion of the embarkation; second, the contrast between the north-
ern landscape of Nova Scotia and the southern landscape of Louisi-
ana; third, the contrast which pervades the whole poem, between the
## p. 9148 (#156) ###########################################
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
youthful lovers at the betrothal and the old man and woman at the
death-bed. There is no modern poem which, with the entire absence
of sentimentality or of any emotion foreign to the situation, presents
a more perfect poetic unity. There is no more beautiful passage in
poetry than the scene of the arrival of the girl and priest at the
house of Gabriel's father, only to find that the son has just departed.
The description of the mocking-bird's song-perfect to those who
have heard the bird in its southern home seems the prelude to a
rapturous meeting of the lovers. Yet in it are heard-
"Single notes in sorrowful, low lamentation,»
that seem to hint, as all beautiful things do, that happiness is un-
attainable.
In 'Hiawatha,' Longfellow undertook the extremely difficult task
of recreating the sub-conscious life of a savage people as embodied
in their myths. There are in us only a few deeply buried moods
of feeling, inherited from our remote ancestors, that respond to the
primitive interpretation of nature. "The world is too much with us. "
Our senses are too dull to "hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. "
But Longfellow went much further back into the primitive nature-
worship, and recalled for us the cultus of infantile, half-articulate man.
No one but a poet, and no poet but Longfellow, could have written
the Song of Hiawatha. ' The simplicity of the metre and the fre-
quent repetitions are features entirely consistent with the conception.
And furthermore the conception, though ideal, is consistent with the
character of the Indian as we know it. The poem is no dream, nor
phantasmagoria, nor thing of shreds and patches; it is a poetic unity.
Of course this results partly from the fact that it is built up from
real legends, but more from the fact that the legends are put in form
by a real artist.
-
-
The use of the trochaic four-accent line has been severely criticized.
It is true that this line is not natural to English. It forces the sun-
dering of syllables that the language has joined together: the mono-
syllabic noun and the article, the sign of the infinitive and the
monosyllabic verb for instance, which are in ordinary pronunciation
agglutinated into natural iambi. Such lines as-
"Make a bed for | me to | lie in;
I, the friend of | Man, Mon | damin,
Come to warn you | and in | struct you».
in their scansion do violence to the natural union of syllables. Still
it is possible to read verse with only the slightest sub-consciousness
of the metre, and to emphasize the rhythm. But it must be remem-
bered in the first place that a strange primitive metre was absolutely
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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.
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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,
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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:
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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;
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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.
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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;
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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!
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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;
―
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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.
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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! "
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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!
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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,
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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.
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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.
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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.
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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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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
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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! "
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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!
