{"id":357,"date":"2016-10-26T15:54:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T15:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/ivytech-engl206-master\/?post_type=chapter&p=357"},"modified":"2016-11-10T00:55:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T00:55:22","slug":"selected-works-by-henry-wadsworth-longfellow","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/chapter\/selected-works-by-henry-wadsworth-longfellow\/","title":{"raw":"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Selected Works, 1855","rendered":"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Selected Works, 1855"},"content":{"raw":"

Page Contents<\/h2>\r\nAn April Day\r\n\r\nThe Arrow and the Song\r\n\r\nThe Arsenal at Springfield\r\n\r\nAutumn Sunset\r\n\r\nThe Beleaguered City\r\n\r\nThe Belfry of Bruges, Carillon\r\n\r\nThe Bridge\r\n\r\nBurial of the Minnisink\r\n\r\nDante\r\n\r\nThe Day Is Done\r\n\r\nEndymion\r\n\r\nThe Evening Star\r\n\r\nExcelsior\r\n\r\nFlowers\r\n\r\nFootsteps of Angels\r\n\r\nA Gleam of Sunshine\r\n\r\nThe Goblet of Life\r\n\r\nGod's-Acre\r\n\r\n...\r\n\r\n \r\n

<\/h2>\r\n

An April Day<\/h2>\r\n
     When the warm sun, that brings\r\n Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,\r\n \u2018T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs\r\n     The first flower of the plain.\r\n \r\n     I love the season well,\r\n When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,\r\n Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell\r\n     The coming-on of storms.\r\n \r\n     From the earth\u2019s loosened mould\r\n The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;\r\n Though stricken to the heart with winter\u2019s cold,\r\n     The drooping tree revives.\r\n \r\n     The softly-warbled song\r\n Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings\r\n Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along\r\n     The forest openings.\r\n \r\n     When the bright sunset fills\r\n The silver woods with light, the green slope throws\r\n Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,\r\n     And wide the upland glows.\r\n \r\n     And when the eve is born,\r\n In the blue lake the sky, o\u2019er-reaching far,\r\n Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,\r\n     And twinkles many a star.\r\n \r\n     Inverted in the tide\r\n Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,\r\n And the fair trees look over, side by side,\r\n     And see themselves below.\r\n \r\n     Sweet April! many a thought\r\n Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;\r\n Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,\r\n     Life\u2019s golden fruit is shed.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Arrow and the Song<\/h2>\r\n
 I shot an arrow into the air,\r\n It fell to earth, I knew not where;\r\n For, so swiftly it flew, the sight\r\n Could not follow it in its flight.\r\n \r\n I breathed a song into the air,\r\n It fell to earth, I knew not where;\r\n For who has sight so keen and strong,\r\n That it can follow the flight of song?\r\n \r\n Long, long afterward, in an oak\r\n I found the arrow, still unbroke;\r\n And the song, from beginning to end,\r\n I found again in the heart of a friend.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Arsenal at Springfield<\/h2>\r\n
This is the Arsenal.  From floor to ceiling,\r\n   Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;\r\n But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing\r\n   Startles the villages with strange alarms.\r\n \r\n Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,\r\n   When the death-angel touches those swift keys\r\n What loud lament and dismal Miserere\r\n   Will mingle with their awful symphonies\r\n \r\n I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,\r\n   The cries of agony, the endless groan,\r\n Which, through the ages that have gone before us,\r\n   In long reverberations reach our own.\r\n \r\n On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,\r\n   Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman\u2019s song,\r\n And loud, amid the universal clamor,\r\n O\u2019er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.\r\n \r\n I hear the Florentine, who from his palace\r\n   Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,\r\n And Aztec priests upon their teocallis\r\n   Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent\u2019s skin;\r\n \r\n The tumult of each sacked and burning village;\r\n   The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;\r\n The soldiers\u2019 revels in the midst of pillage;\r\n   The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;\r\n \r\n The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,\r\n   The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;\r\n And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,\r\n   The diapason of the cannonade.\r\n \r\n Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,\r\n   With such accursed instruments as these,\r\n Thou drownest Nature\u2019s sweet and kindly voices,\r\n   And jarrest the celestial harmonies?\r\n \r\n Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,\r\n   Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,\r\n Given to redeem the human mind from error,\r\n   There were no need of arsenals or forts:\r\n \r\n The warrior\u2019s name would be a name abhorred!\r\n   And every nation, that should lift again\r\n Its hand against a brother, on its forehead\r\n   Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!\r\n \r\n Down the dark future, through long generations,\r\n   The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;\r\n And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,\r\n   I hear once more the voice of Christ say, \u201cPeace!\u201d\r\n \r\n Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals\r\n   The blast of War\u2019s great organ shakes the skies!\r\n But beautiful as songs of the immortals,\r\n   The holy melodies of love Thearise.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Autumn Sonnet<\/h2>\r\n
Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,\r\n   With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,\r\n   Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,\r\n   And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!\r\n Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,\r\n   Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand\r\n   Outstretched with benedictions o\u2019er the land,\r\n   Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!\r\n Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended\r\n   So long beneath the heaven\u2019s o\u2019er-hanging eaves;\r\n   Thy steps are by the farmer\u2019s prayers attended;\r\n Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;\r\n   And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,\r\n   Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Beleaguered City<\/h2>\r\n
I have read, in some old, marvellous tale,\r\n  Some legend strange and vague,\r\nThat a midnight host of spectres pale\r\n  Beleaguered the walls of Prague.\r\n\r\nBeside the Moldau's rushing stream,\r\n  With the wan moon overhead,\r\nThere stood, as in an awful dream,\r\n  The army of the dead.\r\n\r\nWhite as a sea-fog, landward bound,\r\n  The spectral camp was seen,\r\nAnd, with a sorrowful, deep sound,\r\n  The river flowed between.\r\n\r\nNo other voice nor sound was there,\r\n  No drum, nor sentry's pace;\r\nThe mist-like banners clasped the air,\r\n  As clouds with clouds embrace.\r\n\r\nBut when the old cathedral bell\r\n  Proclaimed the morning prayer,\r\nThe white pavilions rose and fell\r\n  On the alarmed air.\r\n\r\nDown the broad valley fast and far\r\n  The troubled army fled;\r\nUp rose the glorious morning star,\r\n  The ghastly host was dead.\r\n\r\nI have read, in the marvellous heart of man,\r\n  That strange and mystic scroll,\r\nThat an army of phantoms vast and wan\r\n  Beleaguer the human soul.\r\n\r\nEncamped beside Life's rushing stream,\r\n  In Fancy's misty light,\r\nGigantic shapes and shadows gleam\r\n  Portentous through the night.\r\n\r\nUpon its midnight battle-ground\r\n  The spectral camp is seen,\r\nAnd, with a sorrowful, deep sound,\r\n  Flows the River of Life between.\r\n\r\nNo other voice nor sound is there,\r\n  In the army of the grave;\r\nNo other challenge breaks the air,\r\n  But the rushing of Life's wave.\r\n\r\nAnd when the solemn and deep churchbell\r\n  Entreats the soul to pray,\r\nThe midnight phantoms feel the spell,\r\n  The shadows sweep away.\r\n\r\nDown the broad Vale of Tears afar\r\n  The spectral camp is fled;\r\nFaith shineth as a morning star,\r\n  Our ghastly fears are dead.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Belfry of Bruges, Carillon<\/h2>\r\n
In the ancient town of Bruges,\r\nIn the quaint old Flemish city,\r\nAs the evening shades descended,\r\nLow and loud and sweetly blended,\r\nLow at times and loud at times,\r\nAnd changing like a poet's rhymes,\r\nRang the beautiful wild chimes\r\nFrom the Belfry in the market\r\nOf the ancient town of Bruges.\r\n\r\nThen, with deep sonorous clangor\r\nCalmly answering their sweet anger,\r\nWhen the wrangling bells had ended,\r\nSlowly struck the clock eleven,\r\nAnd, from out the silent heaven,\r\nSilence on the town descended.\r\nSilence, silence everywhere,\r\nOn the earth and in the air,\r\nSave that footsteps here and there\r\nOf some burgher home returning,\r\nBy the street lamps faintly burning,\r\nFor a moment woke the echoes\r\nOf the ancient town of Bruges.\r\n\r\nBut amid my broken slumbers\r\nStill I heard those magic numbers,\r\nAs they loud proclaimed the flight\r\nAnd stolen marches of the night;\r\nTill their chimes in sweet collision\r\nMingled with each wandering vision,\r\nMingled with the fortune-telling\r\nGypsy-bands of dreams and fancies,\r\nWhich amid the waste expanses\r\nOf the silent land of trances\r\nHave their solitary dwelling;\r\nAll else seemed asleep in Bruges,\r\nIn the quaint old Flemish city.\r\n\r\nAnd I thought how like these chimes\r\nAre the poet's airy rhymes,\r\nAll his rhymes and roundelays,\r\nHis conceits, and songs, and ditties,\r\nFrom the belfry of his brain,\r\nScattered downward, though in vain,\r\nOn the roofs and stones of cities!\r\nFor by night the drowsy ear\r\nUnder its curtains cannot hear,\r\nAnd by day men go their ways,\r\nHearing the music as they pass,\r\nBut deeming it no more, alas!\r\nThan the hollow sound of brass.\r\n\r\nYet perchance a sleepless wight,\r\nLodging at some humble inn\r\nIn the narrow lanes of life,\r\nWhen the dusk and hush of night\r\nShut out the incessant din\r\nOf daylight and its toil and strife,\r\nMay listen with a calm delight\r\nTo the poet's melodies,\r\nTill he hears, or dreams he hears,\r\nIntermingled with the song,\r\nThoughts that he has cherished long;\r\nHears amid the chime and singing\r\nThe bells of his own village ringing,\r\nAnd wakes, and finds his slumberous eyes\r\nWet with most delicious tears.\r\n\r\nThus dreamed I, as by night I lay\r\nIn Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble,\r\nListening with a wild delight\r\nTo the chimes that, through the night\r\nBang their changes from the Belfry\r\nOf that quaint old Flemish city.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Bridge<\/h2>\r\n
I stood on the bridge at midnight,\r\n  As the clocks were striking the hour,\r\nAnd the moon rose o'er the city,\r\n  Behind the dark church-tower.\r\n\r\nI saw her bright reflection\r\n  In the waters under me,\r\nLike a golden goblet falling\r\n  And sinking into the sea.\r\n\r\nAnd far in the hazy distance\r\n  Of that lovely night in June,\r\nThe blaze of the flaming furnace\r\n  Gleamed redder than the moon.\r\n\r\nAmong the long, black rafters\r\n  The wavering shadows lay,\r\nAnd the current that came from the ocean\r\n  Seemed to lift and bear them away;\r\n\r\nAs, sweeping and eddying through them,\r\nRose the belated tide,\r\nAnd, streaming into the moonlight,\r\n  The seaweed floated wide.\r\n\r\nAnd like those waters rushing\r\n  Among the wooden piers,\r\nA flood of thoughts came o'er me\r\n  That filled my eyes with tears.\r\n\r\nHow often, oh, how often,\r\n  In the days that had gone by,\r\nI had stood on that bridge at midnight\r\n  And gazed on that wave and sky!\r\n\r\nHow often, oh, how often,\r\n  I had wished that the ebbing tide\r\nWould bear me away on its bosom\r\n  O'er the ocean wild and wide!\r\n\r\nFor my heart was hot and restless,\r\n  And my life was full of care,\r\nAnd the burden laid upon me\r\n  Seemed greater than I could bear.\r\n\r\nBut now it has fallen from me,\r\n  It is buried in the sea;\r\nAnd only the sorrow of others\r\n  Throws its shadow over me.\r\n\r\nYet whenever I cross the river\r\n  On its bridge with wooden piers,\r\nLike the odor of brine from the ocean\r\n  Comes the thought of other years.\r\n\r\nAnd I think how many thousands\r\n  Of care-encumbered men,\r\nEach bearing his burden of sorrow,\r\n  Have crossed the bridge since then.\r\n\r\nI see the long procession\r\n  Still passing to and fro,\r\nThe young heart hot and restless,\r\n  And the old subdued and slow!\r\n\r\nAnd forever and forever,\r\n  As long as the river flows,\r\nAs long as the heart has passions,\r\n  As long as life has woes;\r\n\r\nThe moon and its broken reflection\r\n  And its shadows shall appear,\r\nAs the symbol of love in heaven,\r\n  And its wavering image here.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Burial of the Minnisink<\/h2>\r\n
On sunny slope and beechen swell,\r\nThe shadowed light of evening fell;\r\nAnd, where the maple's leaf was brown,\r\nWith soft and silent lapse came down,\r\nThe glory, that the wood receives,\r\nAt sunset, in its golden leaves.\r\n\r\nFar upward in the mellow light\r\nRose the blue hills.  One cloud of white,\r\nAround a far uplifted cone,\r\nIn the warm blush of evening shone;\r\nAn image of the silver lakes,\r\nBy which the Indian's soul awakes.\r\n\r\nBut soon a funeral hymn was heard\r\nWhere the soft breath of evening stirred\r\nThe tall, gray forest; and a band\r\nOf stern in heart, and strong in hand,\r\nCame winding down beside the wave,\r\nTo lay the red chief in his grave.\r\n\r\nThey sang, that by his native bowers\r\nHe stood, in the last moon of flowers,\r\nAnd thirty snows had not yet shed\r\nTheir glory on the warrior's head;\r\nBut, as the summer fruit decays,\r\nSo died he in those naked days.\r\n\r\nA dark cloak of the roebuck's skin\r\nCovered the warrior, and within\r\nIts heavy folds the weapons, made\r\nFor the hard toils of war, were laid;\r\nThe cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,\r\nAnd the broad belt of shells and beads.\r\n\r\nBefore, a dark-haired virgin train\r\nChanted the death dirge of the slain;\r\nBehind, the long procession came\r\nOf hoary men and chiefs of fame,\r\nWith heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,\r\nLeading the war-horse of their chief.\r\n\r\nStripped of his proud and martial dress,\r\nUncurbed, unreined, and riderless,\r\nWith darting eye, and nostril spread,\r\nAnd heavy and impatient tread,\r\nHe came; and oft that eye so proud\r\nAsked for his rider in the crowd.\r\n\r\nThey buried the dark chief; they freed\r\nBeside the grave his battle steed;\r\nAnd swift an arrow cleaved its way\r\nTo his stern heart!  One piercing neigh\r\nArose, and, on the dead man's plain,\r\nThe rider grasps his steed again.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Dante<\/h2>\r\n
Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,\r\n  With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,\r\n  Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,\r\n  Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.\r\nThy sacred song is like the trump of doom;\r\n  Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,\r\n  What soft compassion glows, as in the skies\r\n  The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!\r\nMethinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,\r\n  By Fra Hilario in his diocese,\r\n  As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,\r\nThe ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;\r\n  And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,\r\n  Thy voice along the cloister whispers, \"Peace!\"<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Day Is Done<\/h2>\r\n
The day is done, and the darkness\r\n  Falls from the wings of Night,\r\nAs a feather is wafted downward\r\n  From an eagle in his flight.\r\n\r\nI see the lights of the village\r\n  Gleam through the rain and the mist,\r\nAnd a feeling of sadness comes o'er me\r\n  That my soul cannot resist:\r\n\r\nA feeling of sadness and longing,\r\n  That is not akin to pain,\r\nAnd resembles sorrow only\r\n  As the mist resembles the rain.\r\n\r\nCome, read to me some poem,\r\n  Some simple and heartfelt lay,\r\nThat shall soothe this restless feeling,\r\n  And banish the thoughts of day.\r\n\r\nNot from the grand old masters,\r\n  Not from the bards sublime,\r\nWhose distant footsteps echo\r\n  Through the corridors of Time.\r\n\r\nFor, like strains of martial music,\r\n  Their mighty thoughts suggest\r\nLife's endless toil and endeavor;\r\n  And to-night I long for rest.\r\n\r\nRead from some humbler poet,\r\n  Whose songs gushed from his heart,\r\nAs showers from the clouds of summer,\r\n  Or tears from the eyelids start;\r\n\r\nWho, through long days of labor,\r\n  And nights devoid of ease,\r\nStill heard in his soul the music\r\n  Of wonderful melodies.\r\n\r\nSuch songs have power to quiet\r\n  The restless pulse of care,\r\nAnd come like the benediction\r\n  That follows after prayer.\r\n\r\nThen read from the treasured volume\r\n  The poem of thy choice,\r\nAnd lend to the rhyme of the poet\r\n  The beauty of thy voice.\r\n\r\nAnd the night shall be filled with music\r\n  And the cares, that infest the day,\r\nShall fold their tents, like the Arabs,\r\n  And as silently steal away.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Endymion<\/h2>\r\n
The rising moon has hid the stars;\r\nHer level rays, like golden bars,\r\n   Lie on the landscape green,\r\n   With shadows brown between.\r\n\r\nAnd silver white the river gleams,\r\nAs if Diana, in her dreams,\r\n   Had dropt her silver bow\r\n   Upon the meadows low.\r\n\r\nOn such a tranquil night as this,\r\nShe woke Endymion with a kiss,\r\n   When, sleeping in the grove,\r\n   He dreamed not of her love.\r\n\r\nLike Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,\r\nLove gives itself, but is not bought;\r\n   Nor voice, nor sound betrays\r\n   Its deep, impassioned gaze.\r\n\r\nIt comes,--the beautiful, the free,\r\nThe crown of all humanity,--\r\n   In silence and alone\r\n   To seek the elected one.\r\n\r\nIt lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep\r\nAre Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,\r\n   And kisses the closed eyes\r\n   Of him, who slumbering lies.\r\n\r\nO weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!\r\nO drooping souls, whose destinies\r\n   Are fraught with fear and pain,\r\n   Ye shall be loved again!\r\n\r\nNo one is so accursed by fate,\r\nNo one so utterly desolate,\r\n   But some heart, though unknown,\r\n   Responds unto his own.\r\n\r\nResponds,--as if with unseen wings,\r\nAn angel touched its quivering strings;\r\n   And whispers, in its song,\r\n   \"'Where hast thou stayed so long?\"<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Evening Star<\/h2>\r\n
Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,\r\n  Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,\r\n  Like a fair lady at her casement, shines\r\n  The evening star, the star of love and rest!\r\nAnd then anon she doth herself divest\r\n  Of all her radiant garments, and reclines\r\n  Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,\r\n  With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.\r\nO my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!\r\n  My morning and my evening star of love!\r\n  My best and gentlest lady! even thus,\r\nAs that fair planet in the sky above,\r\n  Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,\r\n  And from thy darkened window fades the light.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Excelsior<\/h2>\r\n
The shades of night were falling fast,\r\nAs through an Alpine village passed\r\nA youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,\r\nA banner with the strange device,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nHis brow was sad; his eye beneath,\r\nFlashed like a falchion from its sheath,\r\nAnd like a silver clarion rung\r\nThe accents of that unknown tongue,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nIn happy homes he saw the light\r\nOf household fires gleam warm and bright;\r\nAbove, the spectral glaciers shone,\r\nAnd from his lips escaped a groan,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\n\"Try not the Pass!\" the old man said:\r\n\"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,\r\nThe roaring torrent is deep and wide!\r\nAnd loud that clarion voice replied,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\n\"Oh stay,\" the maiden said, \"and rest\r\nThy weary head upon this breast!\"\r\nA tear stood in his bright blue eye,\r\nBut still he answered, with a sigh,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\n\"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!\r\nBeware the awful avalanche!\"\r\nThis was the peasant's last Good-night,\r\nA voice replied, far up the height,\r\n        Excelsior!\r\n\r\nAt break of day, as heavenward\r\nThe pious monks of Saint Bernard\r\nUttered the oft-repeated prayer,\r\nA voice cried through the startled air,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nA traveller, by the faithful hound,\r\nHalf-buried in the snow was found,\r\nStill grasping in his hand of ice\r\nThat banner with the strange device,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nThere in the twilight cold and gray,\r\nLifeless, but beautiful, he lay,\r\nAnd from the sky, serene and far,\r\nA voice fell, like a falling star,\r\n       Excelsior!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Flowers<\/h2>\r\n
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,\r\n  One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,\r\nWhen he called the flowers, so blue and golden,\r\n  Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.\r\n\r\nStars they are, wherein we read our history,\r\n  As astrologers and seers of eld;\r\nYet not wrapped about with awful mystery,\r\n  Like the burning stars, which they beheld.\r\n\r\nWondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,\r\n  God hath written in those stars above;\r\nBut not less in the bright flowerets under us\r\n  Stands the revelation of his love.\r\n\r\nBright and glorious is that revelation,\r\n  Written all over this great world of ours;\r\nMaking evident our own creation,\r\n  In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.\r\n\r\nAnd the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,\r\n  Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part\r\nOf the self-same, universal being,\r\n  Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.\r\n\r\nGorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,\r\n  Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,\r\nTremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,\r\n  Buds that open only to decay;\r\n\r\nBrilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,\r\n  Flaunting gayly in the golden light;\r\nLarge desires, with most uncertain issues,\r\n  Tender wishes, blossoming at night!\r\n\r\nThese in flowers and men are more than seeming;\r\n  Workings are they of the self-same powers,\r\nWhich the Poet, in no idle dreaming,\r\n  Seeth in himself and in the flowers.\r\n\r\nEverywhere about us are they glowing,\r\n  Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;\r\nOthers, their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,\r\n  Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;\r\n\r\nNot alone in Spring's armorial bearing,\r\n  And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,\r\nBut in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,\r\n  In the centre of his brazen shield;\r\n\r\nNot alone in meadows and green alleys,\r\n  On the mountain-top, and by the brink\r\nOf sequestered pools in woodland valleys,\r\n  Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;\r\n\r\nNot alone in her vast dome of glory,\r\n  Not on graves of bird and beast alone,\r\nBut in old cathedrals, high and hoary,\r\n  On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;\r\n\r\nIn the cottage of the rudest peasant,\r\n  In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,\r\nSpeaking of the Past unto the Present,\r\n  Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;\r\n\r\nIn all places, then, and in all seasons,\r\n  Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,\r\nTeaching us, by most persuasive reasons,\r\n  How akin they are to human things.\r\n\r\nAnd with childlike, credulous affection\r\n  We behold their tender buds expand;\r\nEmblems of our own great resurrection,\r\n  Emblems of the bright and better land.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Footsteps of Angels<\/h2>\r\n
When the hours of Day are numbered,\r\n  And the voices of the Night\r\nWake the better soul, that slumbered,\r\n  To a holy, calm delight;\r\n\r\nEre the evening lamps are lighted,\r\n  And, like phantoms grim and tall,\r\nShadows from the fitful firelight\r\n  Dance upon the parlor wall;\r\n\r\nThen the forms of the departed\r\n  Enter at the open door;\r\nThe beloved, the true-hearted,\r\n  Come to visit me once more;\r\n\r\nHe, the young and strong, who cherished\r\n  Noble longings for the strife,\r\nBy the roadside fell and perished,\r\n  Weary with the march of life!\r\n\r\nThey, the holy ones and weakly,\r\n  Who the cross of suffering bore,\r\nFolded their pale hands so meekly,\r\n  Spake with us on earth no more!\r\n\r\nAnd with them the Being Beauteous,\r\n  Who unto my youth was given,\r\nMore than all things else to love me,\r\n  And is now a saint in heaven.\r\n\r\nWith a slow and noiseless footstep\r\n  Comes that messenger divine,\r\nTakes the vacant chair beside me,\r\n  Lays her gentle hand in mine.\r\n\r\nAnd she sits and gazes at me\r\n  With those deep and tender eyes,\r\nLike the stars, so still and saint-like,\r\n  Looking downward from the skies.\r\n\r\nUttered not, yet comprehended,\r\n  Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,\r\nSoft rebukes, in blessings ended,\r\n  Breathing from her lips of air.\r\n\r\nOh, though oft depressed and lonely,\r\n  All my fears are laid aside,\r\nIf I but remember only\r\n  Such as these have lived and died!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
A Gleam of Sunshine<\/h2>\r\n
This is the place.  Stand still, my steed,\r\n  Let me review the scene,\r\nAnd summon from the shadowy Past\r\n  The forms that once have been.\r\n\r\nThe Past and Present here unite\r\n  Beneath Time's flowing tide,\r\nLike footprints hidden by a brook,\r\n  But seen on either side.\r\n\r\nHere runs the highway to the town;\r\n  There the green lane descends,\r\nThrough which I walked to church with thee,\r\n  O gentlest of my friends!\r\n\r\nThe shadow of the linden-trees\r\n  Lay moving on the grass;\r\nBetween them and the moving boughs,\r\n  A shadow, thou didst pass.\r\n\r\nThy dress was like the lilies,\r\n  And thy heart as pure as they:\r\nOne of God's holy messengers\r\n  Did walk with me that day.\r\n\r\nI saw the branches of the trees\r\n  Bend down thy touch to meet,\r\nThe clover-blossoms in the grass\r\n  Rise up to kiss thy feet,\r\n\r\n\"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,\r\n  Of earth and folly born!\"\r\nSolemnly sang the village choir\r\n  On that sweet Sabbath morn.\r\n\r\nThrough the closed blinds the golden sun\r\n  Poured in a dusty beam,\r\nLike the celestial ladder seen\r\n  By Jacob in his dream.\r\n\r\nAnd ever and anon, the wind,\r\n  Sweet-scented with the hay,\r\nTurned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves\r\n That on the window lay.\r\n\r\nLong was the good man's sermon,\r\n  Yet it seemed not so to me;\r\nFor he spake of Ruth the beautiful,\r\n  And still I thought of thee.\r\n\r\nLong was the prayer he uttered,\r\n  Yet it seemed not so to me;\r\nFor in my heart I prayed with him,\r\n  And still I thought of thee.\r\n\r\nBut now, alas! the place seems changed;\r\n  Thou art no longer here:\r\nPart of the sunshine of the scene\r\n  With thee did disappear.\r\n\r\nThough thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart,\r\n  Like pine-trees dark and high,\r\nSubdue the light of noon, and breathe\r\n  A low and ceaseless sigh;\r\n\r\nThis memory brightens o'er the past,\r\n  As when the sun, concealed\r\nBehind some cloud that near us hangs\r\n  Shines on a distant field.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Goblet of Life<\/h2>\r\n
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;\r\nAnd though my eyes with tears are dim,\r\nI see its sparkling bubbles swim,\r\nAnd chant a melancholy hymn\r\n   With solemn voice and slow.\r\n\r\nNo purple flowers,--no garlands green,\r\nConceal the goblet's shade or sheen,\r\nNor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,\r\nLike gleams of sunshine, flash between\r\n   Thick leaves of mistletoe.\r\n\r\nThis goblet, wrought with curious art,\r\nIs filled with waters, that upstart,\r\nWhen the deep fountains of the heart,\r\nBy strong convulsions rent apart,\r\n   Are running all to waste.\r\n\r\nAnd as it mantling passes round,\r\nWith fennel is it wreathed and crowned,\r\nWhose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned\r\nAre in its waters steeped and drowned,\r\n   And give a bitter taste.\r\n\r\nAbove the lowly plants it towers,\r\nThe fennel, with its yellow flowers,\r\nAnd in an earlier age than ours\r\nWas gifted with the wondrous powers,\r\n   Lost vision to restore.\r\n\r\nIt gave new strength, and fearless mood;\r\nAnd gladiators, fierce and rude,\r\nMingled it in their daily food;\r\nAnd he who battled and subdued,\r\n   A wreath of fennel wore.\r\n\r\nThen in Life's goblet freely press,\r\nThe leaves that give it bitterness,\r\nNor prize the colored waters less,\r\nFor in thy darkness and distress\r\n   New light and strength they give!\r\n\r\nAnd he who has not learned to know\r\nHow false its sparkling bubbles show,\r\nHow bitter are the drops of woe,\r\nWith which its brim may overflow,\r\n   He has not learned to live.\r\n\r\nThe prayer of Ajax was for light;\r\nThrough all that dark and desperate fight\r\nThe blackness of that noonday night\r\nHe asked but the return of sight,\r\n   To see his foeman's face.\r\n\r\nLet our unceasing, earnest prayer\r\nBe, too, for light,--for strength to bear\r\nOur portion of the weight of care,\r\nThat crushes into dumb despair\r\n   One half the human race.\r\n\r\nO suffering, sad humanity!\r\nO ye afflicted one; who lie\r\nSteeped to the lips in misery,\r\nLonging, and yet afraid to die,\r\n   Patient, though sorely tried!\r\n\r\nI pledge you in this cup of grief,\r\nWhere floats the fennel's bitter leaf!\r\nThe Battle of our Life is brief\r\nThe alarm,--the struggle,--the relief,\r\n   Then sleep we side by side.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
God's-Acre<\/h2>\r\n
I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls\r\n  The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;\r\nIt consecrates each grave within its walls,\r\n  And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.\r\n\r\nGod's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts\r\n  Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown\r\nThe seed that they had garnered in their hearts,\r\n  Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.\r\n\r\nInto its furrows shall we all be cast,\r\n In the sure faith, that we shall rise again\r\nAt the great harvest, when the archangel's blast\r\n  Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.\r\n\r\nThen shall the good stand in immortal bloom,\r\n In the fair gardens of that second birth;\r\nAnd each bright blossom mingle its perfume\r\n With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.\r\n\r\nWith thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,\r\n And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;\r\nThis is the field and Acre of our God,\r\n This is the place where human harvests grow!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Good Part\r\nThat Shall Not Be Taken Away<\/h2>\r\n
She dwells by Great Kenhawa's side,\r\n  In valleys green and cool;\r\nAnd all her hope and all her pride\r\n  Are in the village school.\r\n\r\nHer soul, like the transparent air\r\n  That robes the hills above,\r\nThough not of earth, encircles there\r\n  All things with arms of love.\r\n\r\nAnd thus she walks among her girls\r\n  With praise and mild rebukes;\r\nSubduing e'en rude village churls\r\n  By her angelic looks.\r\n\r\nShe reads to them at eventide\r\n  Of One who came to save;\r\nTo cast the captive's chains aside\r\n  And liberate the slave.\r\n\r\nAnd oft the blessed time foretells\r\n  When all men shall be free;\r\nAnd musical, as silver bells,\r\n  Their falling chains shall be.\r\n\r\nAnd following her beloved Lord,\r\n  In decent poverty,\r\nShe makes her life one sweet record\r\n  And deed of charity.\r\n\r\nFor she was rich, and gave up all\r\n  To break the iron bands\r\nOf those who waited in her hall,\r\n  And labored in her lands.\r\n\r\nLong since beyond the Southern Sea\r\n  Their outbound sails have sped,\r\nWhile she, in meek humility,\r\n  Now earns her daily bread.\r\n\r\nIt is their prayers, which never cease,\r\n  That clothe her with such grace;\r\nTheir blessing is the light of peace\r\n  That shines upon her face.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Hymn to the Night<\/h2>\r\n
I heard the trailing garments of the Night\r\n     Sweep through her marble halls!\r\nI saw her sable skirts all fringed with light\r\n     From the celestial walls!\r\n\r\nI felt her presence, by its spell of might,\r\n     Stoop o'er me from above;\r\nThe calm, majestic presence of the Night,\r\n     As of the one I love.\r\n\r\nI heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,\r\n     The manifold, soft chimes,\r\nThat fill the haunted chambers of the Night\r\n     Like some old poet's rhymes.\r\n\r\nFrom the cool cisterns of the midnight air\r\n     My spirit drank repose;\r\nThe fountain of perpetual peace flows there,--\r\n     From those deep cisterns flows.\r\n\r\nO holy Night! from thee I learn to bear\r\n     What man has borne before!\r\nThou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,\r\n     And they complain no more.\r\n\r\nPeace!  Peace!  Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!\r\n     Descend with broad-winged flight,\r\nThe welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,\r\n     The best-beloved Night!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Drinking Song<\/h2>\r\n
Inscription for an Antique Pitcher<\/h3>\r\n
Come, old friend! sit down and listen!\r\n  From the pitcher, placed between us,\r\nHow the waters laugh and glisten\r\n  In the head of old Silenus!\r\n\r\nOld Silenus, bloated, drunken,\r\n  Led by his inebriate Satyrs;\r\nOn his breast his head is sunken,\r\n  Vacantly he leers and chatters.\r\n\r\nFauns with youthful Bacchus follow;\r\n  Ivy crowns that brow supernal\r\nAs the forehead of Apollo,\r\n  And possessing youth eternal.\r\n\r\nRound about him, fair Bacchantes,\r\n  Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,\r\nWild from Naxian groves, or Zante's\r\n  Vineyards, sing delirious verses.\r\n\r\nThus he won, through all the nations,\r\n  Bloodless victories, and the farmer\r\nBore, as trophies and oblations,\r\n  Vines for banners, ploughs for armor.\r\n\r\nJudged by no o'erzealous rigor,\r\n  Much this mystic throng expresses:\r\nBacchus was the type of vigor,\r\n  And Silenus of excesses.\r\n\r\nThese are ancient ethnic revels,\r\n  Of a faith long since forsaken;\r\nNow the Satyrs, changed to devils,\r\n  Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.\r\n\r\nNow to rivulets from the mountains\r\n  Point the rods of fortune-tellers;\r\nYouth perpetual dwells in fountains,--\r\n  Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.\r\n\r\nClaudius, though he sang of flagons\r\n  And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,\r\nFrom that fiery blood of dragons\r\n  Never would his own replenish.\r\n\r\nEven Redi, though he chaunted\r\n  Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,\r\nNever drank the wine he vaunted\r\n  In his dithyrambic sallies.\r\n\r\nThen with water fill the pitcher\r\n  Wreathed about with classic fables;\r\nNe'er Falernian threw a richer\r\n  Light upon Lucullus' tables.\r\n\r\nCome, old friend, sit down and listen\r\n  As it passes thus between us,\r\nHow its wavelets laugh and glisten\r\n  In the head of old Silenus!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
It Is Not Always May<\/h2>\r\n
No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano.\r\n                Spanish Proverb\r\n\r\nThe sun is bright,--the air is clear,\r\n  The darting swallows soar and sing.\r\nAnd from the stately elms I hear\r\n  The bluebird prophesying Spring.\r\n\r\nSo blue you winding river flows,\r\n  It seems an outlet from the sky,\r\nWhere waiting till the west-wind blows,\r\n  The freighted clouds at anchor lie.\r\n\r\nAll things are new;--the buds, the leaves,\r\n  That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest,\r\n And even the nest beneath the eaves;--\r\n   There are no birds in last year's nest!\r\n\r\nAll things rejoice in youth and love,\r\n   The fulness of their first delight!\r\n And learn from the soft heavens above\r\n   The melting tenderness of night.\r\n\r\nMaiden, that read'st this simple rhyme,\r\n   Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;\r\nEnjoy the fragrance of thy prime,\r\n   For oh, it is not always May!\r\n\r\nEnjoy the Spring of Love and Youth,\r\n   To some good angel leave the rest;\r\nFor Time will teach thee soon the truth,\r\n  There are no birds in last year's nest!\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
L'envoi<\/h2>\r\n
The Poet and His Songs<\/h3>\r\n
As the birds come in the Spring,\r\n  We know not from where;\r\nAs the stars come at evening\r\n  From depths of the air;\r\n\r\nAs the rain comes from the cloud,\r\n  And the brook from the ground;\r\nAs suddenly, low or loud,\r\n  Out of silence a sound;\r\n\r\nAs the grape comes to the vine,\r\n  The fruit to the tree;\r\nAs the wind comes to the pine,\r\n  And the tide to the sea;\r\n\r\nAs come the white sails of ships\r\n  O'er the ocean's verge;\r\nAs comes the smile to the lips,\r\n  The foam to the surge;\r\n\r\nSo come to the Poet his songs,\r\n  All hitherward blown\r\nFrom the misty realm, that belongs\r\n  To the vast unknown.\r\n\r\nHis, and not his, are the lays\r\n  He sings; and their fame\r\nIs his, and not his; and the praise\r\n  And the pride of a name.\r\n\r\nFor voices pursue him by day,\r\n  And haunt him by night,\r\nAnd he listens, and needs must obey,\r\n  When the Angel says: \"Write!\"\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Light of Stars<\/h2>\r\n
The night is come, but not too soon;\r\n  And sinking silently,\r\nAll silently, the little moon\r\n  Drops down behind the sky.\r\n\r\nThere is no light in earth or heaven\r\n  But the cold light of stars;\r\nAnd the first watch of night is given\r\n  To the red planet Mars.\r\n\r\nIs it the tender star of love?\r\n  The star of love and dreams?\r\nO no! from that blue tent above,\r\n  A hero's armor gleams.\r\n\r\nAnd earnest thoughts within me rise,\r\n  When I behold afar,\r\nSuspended in the evening skies,\r\n  The shield of that red star.\r\n\r\nO star of strength! I see thee stand\r\n  And smile upon my pain;\r\nThou beckonest with thy mailed hand,\r\n  And I am strong again.\r\n\r\nWithin my breast there is no light\r\n  But the cold light of stars;\r\nI give the first watch of the night\r\n  To the red planet Mars.\r\n\r\nThe star of the unconquered will,\r\n  He rises in my breast,\r\nSerene, and resolute, and still,\r\n  And calm, and self-possessed.\r\n\r\nAnd thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,\r\n  That readest this brief psalm,\r\nAs one by one thy hopes depart,\r\n  Be resolute and calm.\r\n\r\nO fear not in a world like this,\r\n  And thou shalt know erelong,\r\nKnow how sublime a thing it is\r\n  To suffer and be strong.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Maidenhood<\/h2>\r\n
Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,\r\nIn whose orbs a shadow lies\r\nLike the dusk in evening skies!\r\n\r\nThou whose locks outshine the sun,\r\nGolden tresses, wreathed in one,\r\nAs the braided streamlets run!\r\n\r\nStanding, with reluctant feet,\r\nWhere the brook and river meet,\r\nWomanhood and childhood fleet!\r\n\r\nGazing, with a timid glance,\r\nOn the brooklet's swift advance,\r\nOn the river's broad expanse!\r\n\r\nDeep and still, that gliding stream\r\nBeautiful to thee must seem,\r\nAs the river of a dream.\r\n\r\nThen why pause with indecision,\r\nWhen bright angels in thy vision\r\nBeckon thee to fields Elysian?\r\n\r\nSeest thou shadows sailing by,\r\nAs the dove, with startled eye,\r\nSees the falcon's shadow fly?\r\n\r\nHearest thou voices on the shore,\r\nThat our ears perceive no more,\r\nDeafened by the cataract's roar?\r\n\r\nO, thou child of many prayers!\r\nLife hath quicksands,--Life hath snares\r\nCare and age come unawares!\r\n\r\nLike the swell of some sweet tune,\r\nMorning rises into noon,\r\nMay glides onward into June.\r\n\r\nChildhood is the bough, where slumbered\r\nBirds and blossoms many-numbered;--\r\nAge, that bough with snows encumbered.\r\n\r\nGather, then, each flower that grows,\r\nWhen the young heart overflows,\r\nTo embalm that tent of snows.\r\n\r\nBear a lily in thy hand;\r\nGates of brass cannot withstand\r\nOne touch of that magic wand.\r\n\r\nBear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,\r\nIn thy heart the dew of youth,\r\nOn thy lips the smile of truth!\r\n\r\nO, that dew, like balm, shall steal\r\nInto wounds that cannot heal,\r\nEven as sleep our eyes doth seal;\r\n\r\nAnd that smile, like sunshine, dart\r\nInto many a sunless heart,\r\nFor a smile of God thou art.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Mezzo Cammon<\/h2>\r\n
Half of my life is gone, and I have let\r\n  The years slip from me and have not fulfilled\r\n  The aspiration of my youth, to build\r\n  Some tower of song with lofty parapet.\r\nNot indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret\r\n  Of restless passions chat would not be stilled,\r\n  But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,\r\n  Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;\r\nThough, half way up the hill, I see the Past\r\n  Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--\r\n  A city in the twilight dim and vast,\r\nWith smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.--\r\n  And hear above me on the autumnal blast\r\n  The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Midnight Mass for the Dying<\/h2>\r\n
Yes, the Year is growing old,\r\n  And his eye is pale and bleared!\r\nDeath, with frosty hand and cold,\r\n  Plucks the old man by the beard,\r\n       Sorely, sorely!\r\n\r\nThe leaves are falling, falling,\r\n  Solemnly and slow;\r\nCaw! caw! the rooks are calling,\r\n  It is a sound of woe,\r\n       A sound of woe!\r\n\r\nThrough woods and mountain passes\r\n  The winds, like anthems, roll;\r\nThey are chanting solemn masses,\r\n  Singing, \"Pray for this poor soul,\r\n       Pray, pray!\"\r\n\r\nAnd the hooded clouds, like friars,\r\n  Tell their beads in drops of rain,\r\nAnd patter their doleful prayers;\r\n  But their prayers are all in vain,\r\n       All in vain!\r\n\r\nThere he stands in the foul weather,\r\n  The foolish, fond Old Year,\r\nCrowned with wild flowers and with heather,\r\n    Like weak, despised Lear,\r\n       A king, a king!\r\n\r\nThen comes the summer-like day,\r\n  Bids the old man rejoice!\r\nHis joy! his last!  O, the man gray\r\n  Loveth that ever-soft voice,\r\n       Gentle and low.\r\n\r\nTo the crimson woods he saith,\r\n  To the voice gentle and low\r\nOf the soft air, like a daughter's breath,\r\n  \"Pray do not mock me so!\r\n       Do not laugh at me!\"\r\n\r\nAnd now the sweet day is dead;\r\n  Cold in his arms it lies;\r\nNo stain from its breath is spread\r\n  Over the glassy skies,\r\n       No mist or stain!\r\n\r\nThen, too, the Old Year dieth,\r\n  And the forests utter a moan,\r\nLike the voice of one who crieth\r\n  In the wilderness alone,\r\n       \"Vex not his ghost!\"\r\n\r\nThen comes, with an awful roar,\r\n  Gathering and sounding on,\r\nThe storm-wind from Labrador,\r\n  The wind Euroclydon,\r\n        The storm-wind!\r\n\r\nHowl! howl! and from the forest\r\n  Sweep the red leaves away!\r\nWould, the sins that thou abhorrest,\r\n  O Soul! could thus decay,\r\n       And be swept away!\r\nFor there shall come a mightier blast,\r\n  There shall be a darker day;\r\n\r\nAnd the stars, from heaven down-cast\r\n  Like red leaves be swept away!\r\n       Kyrie, eleyson!\r\n       Christe, eleyson!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Norman Baron<\/h2>\r\n
  Dans les moments de la vie ou la reflexion devient plus calme\r\net plus profonde, ou l'interet et l'avarice parlent moins haut\r\nque la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de\r\nmaladie, et de peril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de\r\nposseder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agreable a Dieu, qui\r\navait cree tous les hommes a son image.--THIERRY, Conquete de\r\nl'Angleterre.\r\n\r\nIn his chamber, weak and dying,\r\nWas the Norman baron lying;\r\nLoud, without, the tempest thundered\r\n      And the castle-turret shook,\r\n\r\nIn this fight was Death the gainer,\r\nSpite of vassal and retainer,\r\nAnd the lands his sires had plundered,\r\n      Written in the Doomsday Book.\r\n\r\nBy his bed a monk was seated,\r\nWho in humble voice repeated\r\nMany a prayer and pater-noster,\r\n      From the missal on his knee;\r\n\r\nAnd, amid the tempest pealing,\r\nSounds of bells came faintly stealing,\r\nBells, that from the neighboring kloster\r\n      Rang for the Nativity.\r\n\r\nIn the hall, the serf and vassal\r\nHeld, that night their Christmas wassail;\r\nMany a carol, old and saintly,\r\n      Sang the minstrels and the waits;\r\n\r\nAnd so loud these Saxon gleemen\r\nSang to slaves the songs of freemen,\r\nThat the storm was heard but faintly,\r\n      Knocking at the castle-gates.\r\n\r\nTill at length the lays they chanted\r\nReached the chamber terror-haunted,\r\nWhere the monk, with accents holy,\r\n      Whispered at the baron's ear.\r\n\r\nTears upon his eyelids glistened,\r\nAs he paused awhile and listened,\r\nAnd the dying baron slowly\r\n      Turned his weary head to hear.\r\n\r\n\"Wassail for the kingly stranger\r\nBorn and cradled in a manger!\r\nKing, like David, priest, like Aaron,\r\n      Christ is born to set us free!\"\r\n\r\nAnd the lightning showed the sainted\r\nFigures on the casement painted,\r\nAnd exclaimed the shuddering baron,\r\n      \"Miserere, Domine!\"\r\n\r\nIn that hour of deep contrition\r\nHe beheld, with clearer vision,\r\nThrough all outward show and fashion,\r\n      Justice, the Avenger, rise.\r\n\r\nAll the pomp of earth had vanished,\r\nFalsehood and deceit were banished,\r\nReason spake more loud than passion,\r\n      And the truth wore no disguise.\r\n\r\nEvery vassal of his banner,\r\nEvery serf born to his manor,\r\nAll those wronged and wretched creatures,\r\n      By his hand were freed again.\r\n\r\nAnd, as on the sacred missal\r\nHe recorded their dismissal,\r\nDeath relaxed his iron features,\r\n      And the monk replied, \"Amen!\"\r\n\r\nMany centuries have been numbered\r\nSince in death the baron slumbered\r\nBy the convent's sculptured portal,\r\n      Mingling with the common dust:\r\n\r\nBut the good deed, through the ages\r\nLiving in historic pages,\r\nBrighter grows and gleams immortal,\r\n      Unconsumed by moth or rust\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Nuremberg<\/h2>\r\n
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands\r\nRise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.\r\n\r\nQuaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,\r\nMemories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:\r\n\r\nMemories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,\r\nHad their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;\r\n\r\nAnd thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,\r\nThat their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.\r\n\r\nIn the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron hand,\r\nStands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;\r\n\r\nOn the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days\r\nSat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.\r\n\r\nEverywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:\r\nFountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;\r\n\r\nAnd above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,\r\nBy a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.\r\n\r\nIn the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,\r\nAnd in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;\r\n\r\nIn the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,\r\nLike the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.\r\n\r\nHere, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,\r\nLived and labored Albrecht Durer, the Evangelist of Art;\r\n\r\nHence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,\r\nLike an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.\r\n\r\nEmigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;\r\nDead he is not, but departed,--for the artist never dies.\r\n\r\nFairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,\r\nThat he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!\r\n\r\nThrough these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,\r\nWalked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains.\r\n\r\nFrom remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,\r\nBuilding nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.\r\n\r\nAs the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,\r\nAnd the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;\r\n\r\nThanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom\r\nIn the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.\r\n\r\nHere Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,\r\nWisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.\r\n\r\nBut his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,\r\nAnd a garland in the window, and his face above the door;\r\n\r\nPainted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,\r\nAs the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.\r\n\r\nAnd at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,\r\nQuaffing ale from pewter tankard; in the master's antique chair.\r\n\r\nVanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye\r\nWave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.\r\n\r\nNot thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;\r\nBut thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.\r\n\r\nThus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,\r\nAs he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:\r\n\r\nGathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,\r\nThe nobility of labor,--the long pedigree of toil.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Occultation of Orion<\/h2>\r\n
I saw, as in a dream sublime,\r\nThe balance in the hand of Time.\r\nO'er East and West its beam impended;\r\nAnd day, with all its hours of light,\r\nWas slowly sinking out of sight,\r\nWhile, opposite, the scale of night\r\nSilently with the stars ascended.\r\n\r\nLike the astrologers of eld,\r\nIn that bright vision I beheld\r\nGreater and deeper mysteries.\r\nI saw, with its celestial keys,\r\nIts chords of air, its frets of fire,\r\nThe Samian's great Aeolian lyre,\r\nRising through all its sevenfold bars,\r\nFrom earth unto the fixed stars.\r\nAnd through the dewy atmosphere,\r\nNot only could I see, but hear,\r\nIts wondrous and harmonious strings,\r\nIn sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,\r\nFrom Dian's circle light and near,\r\nOnward to vaster and wider rings.\r\nWhere, chanting through his beard of snows,\r\nMajestic, mournful, Saturn goes,\r\nAnd down the sunless realms of space\r\nReverberates the thunder of his bass.\r\n\r\nBeneath the sky's triumphal arch\r\nThis music sounded like a march,\r\nAnd with its chorus seemed to be\r\nPreluding some great tragedy.\r\nSirius was rising in the east;\r\nAnd, slow ascending one by one,\r\nThe kindling constellations shone.\r\nBegirt with many a blazing star,\r\nStood the great giant Algebar,\r\nOrion, hunter of the beast!\r\nHis sword hung gleaming by his side,\r\nAnd, on his arm, the lion's hide\r\nScattered across the midnight air\r\nThe golden radiance of its hair.\r\n\r\nThe moon was pallid, but not faint;\r\nAnd beautiful as some fair saint,\r\nSerenely moving on her way\r\nIn hours of trial and dismay.\r\nAs if she heard the voice of God,\r\nUnharmed with naked feet she trod\r\nUpon the hot and burning stars,\r\nAs on the glowing coals and bars,\r\nThat were to prove her strength, and try\r\nHer holiness and her purity.\r\n\r\nThus moving on, with silent pace,\r\nAnd triumph in her sweet, pale face,\r\nShe reached the station of Orion.\r\nAghast he stood in strange alarm!\r\nAnd suddenly from his outstretched arm\r\nDown fell the red skin of the lion\r\nInto the river at his feet.\r\nHis mighty club no longer beat\r\nThe forehead of the bull; but he\r\nReeled as of yore beside the sea,\r\nWhen, blinded by Oenopion,\r\nHe sought the blacksmith at his forge,\r\nAnd, climbing up the mountain gorge,\r\nFixed his blank eyes upon the sun.\r\n\r\nThen, through the silence overhead,\r\nAn angel with a trumpet said,\r\n\"Forevermore, forevermore,\r\nThe reign of violence is o'er!\"\r\nAnd, like an instrument that flings\r\nIts music on another's strings,\r\nThe trumpet of the angel cast\r\nUpon the heavenly lyre its blast,\r\nAnd on from sphere to sphere the words\r\nRe-echoed down the burning chords,--\r\n\"Forevermore, forevermore,\r\nThe reign of violence is o'er!\"<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Old Clock on the Stairs<\/h2>\r\n
L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans\r\ncesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux:\r\n\"Toujours! jamais!  Jamais! toujours!\"--JACQUES BRIDAINE.\r\n\r\nSomewhat back from the village street\r\nStands the old-fashioned country-seat.\r\nAcross its antique portico\r\nTall poplar-trees their shadows throw;\r\nAnd from its station in the hall\r\nAn ancient timepiece says to all,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nHalf-way up the stairs it stands,\r\nAnd points and beckons with its hands\r\nFrom its case of massive oak,\r\nLike a monk, who, under his cloak,\r\nCrosses himself, and sighs, alas!\r\nWith sorrowful voice to all who pass,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nBy day its voice is low and light;\r\nBut in the silent dead of night,\r\nDistinct as a passing footstep's fall,\r\nIt echoes along the vacant hall,\r\nAlong the ceiling, along the floor,\r\nAnd seems to say, at each chamber-door,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nThrough days of sorrow and of mirth,\r\nThrough days of death and days of birth,\r\nThrough every swift vicissitude\r\nOf changeful time, unchanged it has stood,\r\nAnd as if, like God, it all things saw,\r\nIt calmly repeats those words of awe,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nIn that mansion used to be\r\nFree-hearted Hospitality;\r\nHis great fires up the chimney roared;\r\nThe stranger feasted at his board;\r\nBut, like the skeleton at the feast,\r\nThat warning timepiece never ceased,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nThere groups of merry children played,\r\nThere youths and maidens dreaming strayed;\r\nO precious hours! O golden prime,\r\nAnd affluence of love and time!\r\nEven as a Miser counts his gold,\r\nThose hours the ancient timepiece told,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nFrom that chamber, clothed in white,\r\nThe bride came forth on her wedding night;\r\nThere, in that silent room below,\r\nThe dead lay in his shroud of snow;\r\nAnd in the hush that followed the prayer,\r\nWas heard the old clock on the stair,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nAll are scattered now and fled,\r\nSome are married, some are dead;\r\nAnd when I ask, with throbs of pain.\r\n\"Ah! when shall they all meet again?\"\r\nAs in the days long since gone by,\r\nThe ancient timepiece makes reply,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nNever here, forever there,\r\nWhere all parting, pain, and care,\r\nAnd death, and time shall disappear,--\r\nForever there, but never here!\r\nThe horologe of Eternity\r\nSayeth this incessantly,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
A Psalm of Life<\/h2>\r\n
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist<\/h3>\r\n
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,\r\n  Life is but an empty dream!\r\nFor the soul is dead that slumbers,\r\n  And things are not what they seem.\r\n\r\nLife is real!  Life is earnest!\r\n  And the grave is not its goal;\r\nDust thou art, to dust returnest,\r\n  Was not spoken of the soul.\r\n\r\nNot enjoyment, and not sorrow,\r\n  Is our destined end or way;\r\nBut to act, that each to-morrow\r\n  Find us farther than to-day.\r\n\r\nArt is long, and Time is fleeting,\r\n  And our hearts, though stout and brave,\r\nStill, like muffled drums, are beating\r\n  Funeral marches to the grave.\r\n\r\nIn the world's broad field of battle,\r\n  In the bivouac of Life,\r\nBe not like dumb, driven cattle!\r\n  Be a hero in the strife!\r\n\r\nTrust no Future, howe'er pleasant!\r\n  Let the dead Past bury its dead!\r\nAct,--act in the living Present!\r\n  Heart within, and God o'erhead!\r\n\r\nLives of great men all remind us\r\n  We can make our lives sublime,\r\nAnd, departing, leave behind us\r\n  Footprints on the sands of time;--\r\n\r\nFootprints, that perhaps another,\r\n  Sailing o'er life's solemn main,\r\nA forlorn and shipwrecked brother,\r\n  Seeing, shall take heart again.\r\n\r\nLet us, then, be up and doing,\r\n  With a heart for any fate;\r\nStill achieving, still pursuing,\r\n  Learn to labor and to wait.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Quadroon Girl<\/h2>\r\n
The Slaver in the broad lagoon\r\n  Lay moored with idle sail;\r\nHe waited for the rising moon,\r\n  And for the evening gale.\r\n\r\nUnder the shore his boat was tied,\r\n  And all her listless crew\r\nWatched the gray alligator slide\r\n  Into the still bayou.\r\n\r\nOdors of orange-flowers, and spice,\r\n  Reached them from time to time,\r\nLike airs that breathe from Paradise\r\n  Upon a world of crime.\r\n\r\nThe Planter, under his roof of thatch,\r\n  Smoked thoughtfully and slow;\r\nThe Slaver's thumb was on the latch,\r\n  He seemed in haste to go.\r\n\r\nHe said, \"My ship at anchor rides\r\n  In yonder broad lagoon;\r\nI only wait the evening tides,\r\n  And the rising of the moon.\r\n\r\nBefore them, with her face upraised,\r\n  In timid attitude,\r\nLike one half curious, half amazed,\r\n  A Quadroon maiden stood.\r\n\r\nHer eyes were large, and full of light,\r\n  Her arms and neck were bare;\r\nNo garment she wore save a kirtle bright,\r\n  And her own long, raven hair.\r\n\r\nAnd on her lips there played a smile\r\n  As holy, meek, and faint,\r\nAs lights in some cathedral aisle\r\n  The features of a saint.\r\n\r\n\"The soil is barren,--the farm is old\";\r\n  The thoughtful planter said;\r\nThen looked upon the Slaver's gold,\r\n  And then upon the maid.\r\n\r\nHis heart within him was at strife\r\n  With such accursed gains:\r\nFor he knew whose passions gave her life,\r\n  Whose blood ran in her veins.\r\n\r\nBut the voice of nature was too weak;\r\n  He took the glittering gold!\r\nThen pale as death grew the maiden's cheek,\r\n  Her hands as icy cold.\r\n\r\nThe Slaver led her from the door,\r\n  He led her by the hand,\r\nTo be his slave and paramour\r\n  In a strange and distant land!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Rain in Summer<\/h2>\r\n
How beautiful is the rain!\r\nAfter the dust and heat,\r\nIn the broad and fiery street,\r\nIn the narrow lane,\r\nHow beautiful is the rain!\r\n\r\nHow it clatters along the roofs,\r\nLike the tramp of hoofs\r\nHow it gushes and struggles out\r\nFrom the throat of the overflowing spout!\r\n\r\nAcross the window-pane\r\nIt pours and pours;\r\nAnd swift and wide,\r\nWith a muddy tide,\r\nLike a river down the gutter roars\r\nThe rain, the welcome rain!\r\n\r\nThe sick man from his chamber looks\r\nAt the twisted brooks;\r\nHe can feel the cool\r\nBreath of each little pool;\r\nHis fevered brain\r\nGrows calm again,\r\nAnd he breathes a blessing on the rain.\r\n\r\nFrom the neighboring school\r\nCome the boys,\r\nWith more than their wonted noise\r\nAnd commotion;\r\nAnd down the wet streets\r\nSail their mimic fleets,\r\nTill the treacherous pool\r\nIngulfs them in its whirling\r\nAnd turbulent ocean.\r\n\r\nIn the country, on every side,\r\nWhere far and wide,\r\nLike a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,\r\nStretches the plain,\r\nTo the dry grass and the drier grain\r\nHow welcome is the rain!\r\n\r\nIn the furrowed land\r\nThe toilsome and patient oxen stand;\r\nLifting the yoke encumbered head,\r\nWith their dilated nostrils spread,\r\nThey silently inhale\r\nThe clover-scented gale,\r\nAnd the vapors that arise\r\nFrom the well-watered and smoking soil.\r\nFor this rest in the furrow after toil\r\nTheir large and lustrous eyes\r\nSeem to thank the Lord,\r\nMore than man's spoken word.\r\n\r\nNear at hand,\r\nFrom under the sheltering trees,\r\nThe farmer sees\r\nHis pastures, and his fields of grain,\r\nAs they bend their tops\r\nTo the numberless beating drops\r\nOf the incessant rain.\r\nHe counts it as no sin\r\nThat he sees therein\r\nOnly his own thrift and gain.\r\n\r\nThese, and far more than these,\r\nThe Poet sees!\r\nHe can behold\r\nAquarius old\r\nWalking the fenceless fields of air;\r\nAnd from each ample fold\r\nOf the clouds about him rolled\r\nScattering everywhere\r\nThe showery rain,\r\nAs the farmer scatters his grain.\r\n\r\nHe can behold\r\nThings manifold\r\nThat have not yet been wholly told,--\r\nHave not been wholly sung nor said.\r\nFor his thought, that never stops,\r\nFollows the water-drops\r\nDown to the graves of the dead,\r\nDown through chasms and gulfs profound,\r\nTo the dreary fountain-head\r\nOf lakes and rivers under ground;\r\nAnd sees them, when the rain is done,\r\nOn the bridge of colors seven\r\nClimbing up once more to heaven,\r\nOpposite the setting sun.\r\n\r\nThus the Seer,\r\nWith vision clear,\r\nSees forms appear and disappear,\r\nIn the perpetual round of strange,\r\nMysterious change\r\nFrom birth to death, from death to birth,\r\nFrom earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;\r\nTill glimpses more sublime\r\nOf things, unseen before,\r\nUnto his wondering eyes reveal\r\nThe Universe, as an immeasurable wheel\r\nTurning forevermore\r\nIn the rapid and rushing river of Time.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Rainy Day<\/h2>\r\n
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary\r\nIt rains, and the wind is never weary;\r\nThe vine still clings to the mouldering wall,\r\nBut at every gust the dead leaves fall,\r\n    And the day is dark and dreary.\r\n\r\nMy life is cold, and dark, and dreary;\r\nIt rains, and the wind is never weary;\r\nMy thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,\r\nBut the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,\r\n    And the days are dark and dreary.\r\n\r\nBe still, sad heart! and cease repining;\r\nBehind the clouds is the sun still shining;\r\nThy fate is the common fate of all,\r\nInto each life some rain must fall,\r\n    Some days must be dark and dreary.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Reaper and the Flowers<\/h2>\r\n
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,\r\n  And, with his sickle keen,\r\nHe reaps the bearded grain at a breath,\r\n  And the flowers that grow between.\r\n\r\n\"Shall I have naught that is fair?\" saith he;\r\n  \"Have naught but the bearded grain?\r\nThough the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,\r\n  I will give them all back again.\"\r\n\r\nHe gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,\r\n  He kissed their drooping leaves;\r\nIt was for the Lord of Paradise\r\n  He bound them in his sheaves.\r\n\r\n\"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,\"\r\n  The Reaper said, and smiled;\r\n\"Dear tokens of the earth are they,\r\n  Where he was once a child.\r\n\r\n\"They shall all bloom in fields of light,\r\n  Transplanted by my care,\r\nAnd saints, upon their garments white,\r\n  These sacred blossoms wear.\"\r\n\r\nAnd the mother gave, in tears and pain,\r\n  The flowers she most did love;\r\nShe knew she should find them all again\r\n  In the fields of light above.\r\n\r\nO, not in cruelty, not in wrath,\r\n  The Reaper came that day;\r\n'T was an angel visited the green earth,\r\n  And took the flowers away.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Serenade<\/h2>\r\n
Stars of the summer night!\r\n    Far in yon azure deeps,\r\nHide, hide your golden light!\r\n    She sleeps!\r\nMy lady sleeps!\r\n    Sleeps!\r\n\r\nMoon of the summer night!\r\n    Far down yon western steeps,\r\nSink, sink in silver light!\r\n    She sleeps!\r\nMy lady sleeps!\r\n    Sleeps!\r\n\r\nWind of the summer night!\r\n    Where yonder woodbine creeps,\r\nFold, fold thy pinions light!\r\n    She sleeps!\r\nMy lady sleeps!\r\n    Sleeps!\r\n\r\nDreams of the summer night!\r\n    Tell her, her lover keeps\r\nWatch! while in slumbers light\r\n    She sleeps\r\nMy lady sleeps\r\n    Sleeps!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Skeleton in Armor<\/h2>\r\n
\"Speak! speak I thou fearful guest\r\n Who, with thy hollow breast\r\n Still in rude armor drest,\r\n   Comest to daunt me!\r\n Wrapt not in Eastern balms,\r\n Bat with thy fleshless palms\r\n Stretched, as if asking alms,\r\n   Why dost thou haunt me?\"\r\n\r\nThen, from those cavernous eyes\r\nPale flashes seemed to rise,\r\nAs when the Northern skies\r\n   Gleam in December;\r\nAnd, like the water's flow\r\nUnder December's snow,\r\nCame a dull voice of woe\r\n   From the heart's chamber.\r\n\r\n\"I was a Viking old!\r\nMy deeds, though manifold,\r\nNo Skald in song has told,\r\n   No Saga taught thee!\r\nTake heed, that in thy verse\r\nThou dost the tale rehearse,\r\nElse dread a dead man's curse;\r\n   For this I sought thee.\r\n\r\n\"Far in the Northern Land,\r\nBy the wild Baltic's strand,\r\nI, with my childish hand,\r\n   Tamed the gerfalcon;\r\nAnd, with my skates fast-bound,\r\nSkimmed the half-frozen Sound,\r\n   That the poor whimpering hound\r\nTrembled to walk on.\r\n\r\n\"Oft to his frozen lair\r\nTracked I the grisly bear,\r\nWhile from my path the hare\r\n   Fled like a shadow;\r\nOft through the forest dark\r\nFollowed the were-wolf's bark,\r\nUntil the soaring lark\r\n  Sang from the meadow.\r\n\r\n\"But when I older grew,\r\nJoining a corsair's crew,\r\nO'er the dark sea I flew\r\n   With the marauders.\r\nWild was the life we led;\r\nMany the souls that sped,\r\nMany the hearts that bled,\r\n  By our stern orders.\r\n\r\n\"Many a wassail-bout\r\nWore the long Winter out;\r\nOften our midnight shout\r\n  Set the cocks crowing,\r\nAs we the Berserk's tale\r\nMeasured in cups of ale,\r\nDraining the oaken pail,\r\n  Filled to o'erflowing.\r\n\r\n\"Once as I told in glee\r\nTales of the stormy sea,\r\nSoft eyes did gaze on me,\r\n  Burning yet tender;\r\nAnd as the white stars shine\r\nOn the dark Norway pine,\r\nOn that dark heart of mine\r\n  Fell their soft splendor.\r\n\r\n\"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,\r\nYielding, yet half afraid,\r\nAnd in the forest's shade\r\n  Our vows were plighted.\r\nUnder its loosened vest\r\nFluttered her little breast\r\nLike birds within their nest\r\n  By the hawk frighted.\r\n\r\n\"Bright in her father's hall\r\nShields gleamed upon the wall,\r\nLoud sang the minstrels all,\r\n  Chanting his glory;\r\nWhen of old Hildebrand\r\nI asked his daughter's hand,\r\nMute did the minstrels stand\r\n  To hear my story.\r\n\r\n\"While the brown ale he quaffed,\r\nLoud then the champion laughed,\r\nAnd as the wind-gusts waft\r\n  The sea-foam brightly,\r\nSo the loud laugh of scorn,\r\nOut of those lips unshorn,\r\nFrom the deep drinking-horn\r\n  Blew the foam lightly.\r\n\r\n\"She was a Prince's child,\r\nI but a Viking wild,\r\nAnd though she blushed and smiled,\r\n  I was discarded!\r\nShould not the dove so white\r\nFollow the sea-mew's flight,\r\nWhy did they leave that night\r\n  Her nest unguarded?\r\n\r\n\"Scarce had I put to sea,\r\nBearing the maid with me,\r\nFairest of all was she\r\n  Among the Norsemen!\r\nWhen on the white sea-strand,\r\nWaving his armed hand,\r\nSaw we old Hildebrand,\r\n  With twenty horsemen.\r\n\r\n\"Then launched they to the blast,\r\nBent like a reed each mast,\r\nYet we were gaining fast,\r\n  When the wind failed us;\r\nAnd with a sudden flaw\r\nCame round the gusty Skaw,\r\nSo that our foe we saw\r\n  Laugh as he hailed us.\r\n\r\n\"And as to catch the gale\r\nRound veered the flapping sail,\r\nDeath I was the helmsman's hail,\r\n  Death without quarter!\r\nMid-ships with iron keel\r\nStruck we her ribs of steel\r\nDown her black hulk did reel\r\n  Through the black water!\r\n\r\n\"As with his wings aslant,\r\nSails the fierce cormorant,\r\nSeeking some rocky haunt\r\n  With his prey laden,\r\nSo toward the open main,\r\nBeating to sea again,\r\nThrough the wild hurricane,\r\n  Bore I the maiden.\r\n\r\n\"Three weeks we westward bore,\r\nAnd when the storm was o'er,\r\nCloud-like we saw the shore\r\n  Stretching to leeward;\r\nThere for my lady's bower\r\nBuilt I the lofty tower,\r\nWhich, to this very hour,\r\n  Stands looking seaward.\r\n\r\n\"There lived we many years;\r\nTime dried the maiden's tears\r\nShe had forgot her fears,\r\n  She was a mother.\r\nDeath closed her mild blue eyes,\r\nUnder that tower she lies;\r\nNe'er shall the sun arise\r\n  On such another!\r\n\r\n\"Still grew my bosom then.\r\nStill as a stagnant fen!\r\nHateful to me were men,\r\n  The sunlight hateful!\r\nIn the vast forest here,\r\nClad in my warlike gear,\r\nFell I upon my spear,\r\n  O, death was grateful!\r\n\r\n\"Thus, seamed with many scars,\r\nBursting these prison bars,\r\nUp to its native stars\r\n  My soul ascended!\r\nThere from the flowing bowl\r\nDeep drinks the warrior's soul,\r\nSkoal! to the Northland! skoal!\"\r\n  Thus the tale ended.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp<\/h2>\r\n
In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp\r\n  The hunted Negro lay;\r\nHe saw the fire of the midnight camp,\r\nAnd heard at times a horse's tramp\r\n  And a bloodhound's distant bay.\r\n\r\nWhere will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,\r\n  In bulrush and in brake;\r\nWhere waving mosses shroud the pine,\r\nAnd the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine\r\n  Is spotted like the snake;\r\n\r\nWhere hardly a human foot could pass,\r\n  Or a human heart would dare,\r\nOn the quaking turf of the green morass\r\nHe crouched in the rank and tangled grass,\r\n  Like a wild beast in his lair.\r\n\r\nA poor old slave, infirm and lame;\r\n  Great scars deformed his face;\r\nOn his forehead he bore the brand of shame,\r\nAnd the rags, that hid his mangled frame,\r\n  Were the livery of disgrace.\r\n\r\nAll things above were bright and fair,\r\n  All things were glad and free;\r\nLithe squirrels darted here and there,\r\nAnd wild birds filled the echoing air\r\n  With songs of Liberty!\r\n\r\nOn him alone was the doom of pain,\r\n  From the morning of his birth;\r\nOn him alone the curse of Cain\r\nFell, like a flail on the garnered grain,\r\n  And struck him to the earth!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Slave Singing at Midnight<\/h2>\r\n
Loud he sang the psalm of David!\r\nHe, a Negro and enslaved,\r\nSang of Israel's victory,\r\nSang of Zion, bright and free.\r\n\r\nIn that hour, when night is calmest,\r\nSang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,\r\nIn a voice so sweet and clear\r\nThat I could not choose but hear,\r\n\r\nSongs of triumph, and ascriptions,\r\nSuch as reached the swart Egyptians,\r\nWhen upon the Red Sea coast\r\nPerished Pharaoh and his host.\r\n\r\nAnd the voice of his devotion\r\nFilled my soul with strange emotion;\r\nFor its tones by turns were glad,\r\nSweetly solemn, wildly sad.\r\n\r\nPaul and Silas, in their prison,\r\nSang of Christ, the Lord arisen,\r\nAnd an earthquake's arm of might\r\nBroke their dungeon-gates at night.\r\n\r\nBut, alas! what holy angel\r\nBrings the Slave this glad evangel?\r\nAnd what earthquake's arm of might\r\nBreaks his dungeon-gates at night?<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Slave's Dream<\/h2>\r\n
Beside the ungathered rice he lay,\r\n  His sickle in his hand;\r\nHis breast was bare, his matted hair\r\n  Was buried in the sand.\r\nAgain, in the mist and shadow of sleep,\r\n  He saw his Native Land.\r\n\r\nWide through the landscape of his dreams\r\n  The lordly Niger flowed;\r\nBeneath the palm-trees on the plain\r\n  Once more a king he strode;\r\nAnd heard the tinkling caravans\r\n  Descend the mountain-road.\r\n\r\nHe saw once more his dark-eyed queen\r\n  Among her children stand;\r\nThey clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,\r\n  They held him by the hand!--\r\nA tear burst from the sleeper's lids\r\n  And fell into the sand.\r\n\r\nAnd then at furious speed he rode\r\n  Along the Niger's bank;\r\nHis bridle-reins were golden chains,\r\n  And, with a martial clank,\r\nAt each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel\r\n  Smiting his stallion's flank.\r\n\r\nBefore him, like a blood-red flag,\r\n  The bright flamingoes flew;\r\nFrom morn till night he followed their flight,\r\n  O'er plains where the tamarind grew,\r\nTill he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,\r\n  And the ocean rose to view.\r\n\r\nAt night he heard the lion roar,\r\n  And the hyena scream,\r\nAnd the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds\r\n  Beside some hidden stream;\r\nAnd it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,\r\n  Through the triumph of his dream.\r\n\r\nThe forests, with their myriad tongues,\r\n  Shouted of liberty;\r\nAnd the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,\r\n  With a voice so wild and free,\r\nThat he started in his sleep and smiled\r\n  At their tempestuous glee.\r\n\r\nHe did not feel the driver's whip,\r\n  Nor the burning heat of day;\r\nFor Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,\r\n  And his lifeless body lay\r\nA worn-out fetter, that the soul\r\n  Had broken and thrown away!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Spirit of Poetry<\/h2>\r\n
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,\r\nThat dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;\r\nWhere, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,\r\nThe wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,\r\nThe leaves above their sunny palms outspread.\r\nWith what a tender and impassioned voice\r\nIt fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,\r\nWhen the fast ushering star of morning comes\r\nO'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;\r\nOr when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,\r\nIn mourning weeds, from out the western gate,\r\nDeparts with silent pace!  That spirit moves\r\nIn the green valley, where the silver brook,\r\nFrom its full laver, pours the white cascade;\r\nAnd, babbling low amid the tangled woods,\r\nSlips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.\r\nAnd frequent, on the everlasting hills,\r\nIts feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself\r\nIn all the dark embroidery of the storm,\r\nAnd shouts the stern, strong wind.  And here, amid\r\nThe silent majesty of these deep woods,\r\nIts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,\r\nAs to the sunshine and the pure, bright air\r\nTheir tops the green trees lift.  Hence gifted bards\r\nHave ever loved the calm and quiet shades.\r\nFor them there was an eloquent voice in all\r\nThe sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,\r\nThe flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,\r\nBlue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,\r\nThe swelling upland, where the sidelong sun\r\nAslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,\r\nGroves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,\r\nMountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,\r\nThe distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,\r\nIn many a lazy syllable, repeating\r\nTheir old poetic legends to the wind.\r\n\r\n   And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill\r\nThe world; and, in these wayward days of youth,\r\nMy busy fancy oft embodies it,\r\nAs a bright image of the light and beauty\r\nThat dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms\r\nWe worship in our dreams, and the soft hues\r\nThat stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds\r\nWhen the sun sets.  Within her tender eye\r\nThe heaven of April, with its changing light,\r\nAnd when it wears the blue of May, is hung,\r\nAnd on her lip the rich, red rose.  Her hair\r\nIs like the summer tresses of the trees,\r\nWhen twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek\r\nBlushes the richness of an autumn sky,\r\nWith ever-shifting beauty.  Then her breath,\r\nIt is so like the gentle air of Spring,\r\nAs, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes\r\nFull of their fragrance, that it is a joy\r\nTo have it round us, and her silver voice\r\nIs the rich music of a summer bird,\r\nHeard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Sunrise on the Hills<\/h2>\r\n
  I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch\r\nWas glorious with the sun's returning march,\r\nAnd woods were brightened, and soft gales\r\nWent forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.\r\nThe clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,\r\nThey gathered mid-way round the wooded height,\r\nAnd, in their fading glory, shone\r\nLike hosts in battle overthrown.\r\nAs many a pinnacle, with shifting glance.\r\nThrough the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance,\r\nAnd rocking on the cliff was left\r\nThe dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.\r\nThe veil of cloud was lifted, and below\r\nGlowed the rich valley, and the river's flow\r\nWas darkened by the forest's shade,\r\nOr glistened in the white cascade;\r\nWhere upward, in the mellow blush of day,\r\nThe noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.\r\n\r\n  I heard the distant waters dash,\r\nI saw the current whirl and flash,\r\nAnd richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,\r\nThe woods were bending with a silent reach.\r\nThen o'er the vale, with gentle swell,\r\nThe music of the village bell\r\nCame sweetly to the echo-giving hills;\r\nAnd the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,\r\nWas ringing to the merry shout,\r\nThat faint and far the glen sent out,\r\nWhere, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,\r\nThrough thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.\r\n\r\n  If thou art worn and hard beset\r\nWith sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,\r\nIf thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep\r\nThy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,\r\nGo to the woods and hills!  No tears\r\nDim the sweet look that Nature wears.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
To a Child<\/h2>\r\n
Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,\r\nWith merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,\r\nThou gazest at the painted tiles,\r\nWhose figures grace,\r\nWith many a grotesque form and face.\r\nThe ancient chimney of thy nursery!\r\nThe lady with the gay macaw,\r\nThe dancing girl, the grave bashaw\r\nWith bearded lip and chin;\r\nAnd, leaning idly o'er his gate,\r\nBeneath the imperial fan of state,\r\nThe Chinese mandarin.\r\n\r\nWith what a look of proud command\r\nThou shakest in thy little hand\r\nThe coral rattle with its silver bells,\r\nMaking a merry tune!\r\nThousands of years in Indian seas\r\nThat coral grew, by slow degrees,\r\nUntil some deadly and wild monsoon\r\nDashed it on Coromandel's sand!\r\nThose silver bells\r\nReposed of yore,\r\nAs shapeless ore,\r\nFar down in the deep-sunken wells\r\nOf darksome mines,\r\nIn some obscure and sunless place,\r\nBeneath huge Chimborazo's base,\r\nOr Potosi's o'erhanging pines\r\nAnd thus for thee, O little child,\r\nThrough many a danger and escape,\r\nThe tall ships passed the stormy cape;\r\nFor thee in foreign lands remote,\r\nBeneath a burning, tropic clime,\r\nThe Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,\r\nHimself as swift and wild,\r\nIn falling, clutched the frail arbute,\r\nThe fibres of whose shallow root,\r\nUplifted from the soil, betrayed\r\nThe silver veins beneath it laid,\r\nThe buried treasures of the miser, Time.\r\n\r\nBut, lo! thy door is left ajar!\r\nThou hearest footsteps from afar!\r\nAnd, at the sound,\r\nThou turnest round\r\nWith quick and questioning eyes,\r\nLike one, who, in a foreign land,\r\nBeholds on every hand\r\nSome source of wonder and surprise!\r\nAnd, restlessly, impatiently,\r\nThou strivest, strugglest, to be free,\r\nThe four walls of thy nursery\r\nAre now like prison walls to thee.\r\nNo more thy mother's smiles,\r\nNo more the painted tiles,\r\nDelight thee, nor the playthings on the floor,\r\nThat won thy little, beating heart before;\r\nThou strugglest for the open door.\r\n\r\nThrough these once solitary halls\r\nThy pattering footstep falls.\r\nThe sound of thy merry voice\r\nMakes the old walls\r\nJubilant, and they rejoice\r\nWith the joy of thy young heart,\r\nO'er the light of whose gladness\r\nNo shadows of sadness\r\nFrom the sombre background of memory start.\r\n\r\nOnce, ah, once, within these walls,\r\nOne whom memory oft recalls,\r\nThe Father of his Country, dwelt.\r\nAnd yonder meadows broad and damp\r\nThe fires of the besieging camp\r\nEncircled with a burning belt.\r\nUp and down these echoing stairs,\r\nHeavy with the weight of cares,\r\nSounded his majestic tread;\r\nYes, within this very room\r\nSat he in those hours of gloom,\r\nWeary both in heart and head.\r\n\r\nBut what are these grave thoughts to thee?\r\nOut, out! into the open air!\r\nThy only dream is liberty,\r\nThou carest little how or where.\r\nI see thee eager at thy play,\r\nNow shouting to the apples on the tree,\r\nWith cheeks as round and red as they;\r\nAnd now among the yellow stalks,\r\nAmong the flowering shrubs and plants,\r\nAs restless as the bee.\r\nAlong the garden walks,\r\nThe tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace;\r\nAnd see at every turn how they efface\r\nWhole villages of sand-roofed tents,\r\nThat rise like golden domes\r\nAbove the cavernous and secret homes\r\nOf wandering and nomadic tribes of ants.\r\nAh, cruel little Tamerlane,\r\nWho, with thy dreadful reign,\r\nDost persecute and overwhelm\r\nThese hapless Troglodytes of thy realm!\r\nWhat! tired already! with those suppliant looks,\r\nAnd voice more beautiful than a poet's books,\r\nOr murmuring sound of water as it flows.\r\nThou comest back to parley with repose;\r\nThis rustic seat in the old apple-tree,\r\nWith its o'erhanging golden canopy\r\nOf leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,\r\nAnd shining with the argent light of dews,\r\nShall for a season be our place of rest.\r\nBeneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest,\r\nFrom which the laughing birds have taken wing,\r\nBy thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.\r\nDream-like the waters of the river gleam;\r\nA sailless vessel drops adown the stream,\r\nAnd like it, to a sea as wide and deep,\r\nThou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.\r\n\r\nO child! O new-born denizen\r\nOf life's great city! on thy head\r\nThe glory of the morn is shed,\r\nLike a celestial benison!\r\nHere at the portal thou dost stand,\r\nAnd with thy little hand\r\nThou openest the mysterious gate\r\nInto the future's undiscovered land.\r\nI see its valves expand,\r\nAs at the touch of Fate!\r\nInto those realms of love and hate,\r\nInto that darkness blank and drear,\r\nBy some prophetic feeling taught,\r\nI launch the bold, adventurous thought,\r\nFreighted with hope and fear;\r\nAs upon subterranean streams,\r\nIn caverns unexplored and dark,\r\nMen sometimes launch a fragile bark,\r\nLaden with flickering fire,\r\nAnd watch its swift-receding beams,\r\nUntil at length they disappear,\r\nAnd in the distant dark expire.\r\n\r\nBy what astrology of fear or hope\r\nDare I to cast thy horoscope!\r\nLike the new moon thy life appears;\r\nA little strip of silver light,\r\nAnd widening outward into night\r\nThe shadowy disk of future years;\r\nAnd yet upon its outer rim,\r\nA luminous circle, faint and dim,\r\nAnd scarcely visible to us here,\r\nRounds and completes the perfect sphere;\r\nA prophecy and intimation,\r\nA pale and feeble adumbration,\r\nOf the great world of light, that lies\r\nBehind all human destinies.\r\n\r\nAh! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,\r\nShould be to wet the dusty soil\r\nWith the hot tears and sweat of toil,--\r\nTo struggle with imperious thought,\r\nUntil the overburdened brain,\r\nWeary with labor, faint with pain,\r\nLike a jarred pendulum, retain\r\nOnly its motion, not its power,--\r\nRemember, in that perilous hour,\r\nWhen most afflicted and oppressed,\r\nFrom labor there shall come forth rest.\r\n\r\nAnd if a more auspicious fate\r\nOn thy advancing steps await\r\nStill let it ever be thy pride\r\nTo linger by the laborer's side;\r\nWith words of sympathy or song\r\nTo cheer the dreary march along\r\nOf the great army of the poor,\r\nO'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.\r\nNor to thyself the task shall be\r\nWithout reward; for thou shalt learn\r\nThe wisdom early to discern\r\nTrue beauty in utility;\r\nAs great Pythagoras of yore,\r\nStanding beside the blacksmith's door,\r\nAnd hearing the hammers, as they smote\r\nThe anvils with a different note,\r\nStole from the varying tones, that hung\r\nVibrant on every iron tongue,\r\nThe secret of the sounding wire.\r\nAnd formed the seven-chorded lyre.\r\n\r\nEnough! I will not play the Seer;\r\nI will no longer strive to ope\r\nThe mystic volume, where appear\r\nThe herald Hope, forerunning Fear,\r\nAnd Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.\r\nThy destiny remains untold;\r\nFor, like Acestes' shaft of old,\r\nThe swift thought kindles as it flies,\r\nAnd burns to ashes in the skies.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
To an Old Danish Songbook<\/h2>\r\n
Welcome, my old friend,\r\nWelcome to a foreign fireside,\r\nWhile the sullen gales of autumn\r\nShake the windows.\r\n\r\nThe ungrateful world\r\nHas, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,\r\nSince, beneath the skies of Denmark,\r\nFirst I met thee.\r\n\r\nThere are marks of age,\r\nThere are thumb-marks on thy margin,\r\nMade by hands that clasped thee rudely,\r\nAt the alehouse.\r\n\r\nSoiled and dull thou art;\r\nYellow are thy time-worn pages,\r\nAs the russet, rain-molested\r\nLeaves of autumn.\r\n\r\nThou art stained with wine\r\nScattered from hilarious goblets,\r\nAs the leaves with the libations\r\nOf Olympus.\r\n\r\nYet dost thou recall\r\nDays departed, half-forgotten,\r\nWhen in dreamy youth I wandered\r\nBy the Baltic,--\r\n\r\nWhen I paused to hear\r\nThe old ballad of King Christian\r\nShouted from suburban taverns\r\nIn the twilight.\r\n\r\nThou recallest bards,\r\nWho in solitary chambers,\r\nAnd with hearts by passion wasted,\r\nWrote thy pages.\r\n\r\nThou recallest homes\r\nWhere thy songs of love and friendship\r\nMade the gloomy Northern winter\r\nBright as summer.\r\n\r\nOnce some ancient Scald,\r\nIn his bleak, ancestral Iceland,\r\nChanted staves of these old ballads\r\nTo the Vikings.\r\n\r\nOnce in Elsinore,\r\nAt the court of old King Hamlet\r\nYorick and his boon companions\r\nSang these ditties.\r\n\r\nOnce Prince Frederick's Guard\r\nSang them in their smoky barracks;--\r\nSuddenly the English cannon\r\nJoined the chorus!\r\n\r\nPeasants in the field,\r\nSailors on the roaring ocean,\r\nStudents, tradesmen, pale mechanics,\r\nAll have sung them.\r\n\r\nThou hast been their friend;\r\nThey, alas! have left thee friendless!\r\nYet at least by one warm fireside\r\nArt thou welcome.\r\n\r\nAnd, as swallows build\r\nIn these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,\r\nSo thy twittering songs shall nestle\r\nIn my bosom,--\r\n\r\nQuiet, close, and warm,\r\nSheltered from all molestation,\r\nAnd recalling by their voices\r\nYouth and travel.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
To the Driving Cloud<\/h2>\r\n
Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;\r\nGloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!\r\nWrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's\r\nNarrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers\r\nStalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.\r\nWhat, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?\r\n\r\nHow canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies!\r\nHow canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains!\r\nAh! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge\r\nLooks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,\r\nClaiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions\r\nStarve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,\r\nHave been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!\r\n\r\nBack, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash!\r\nThere as a monarch thou reignest.  In autumn the leaves of the maple\r\nPave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer\r\nPine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.\r\nThere thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!\r\nThere thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elkhorn,\r\nOr by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omaha\r\nCalls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the\r\nBlackfeet!\r\n\r\nHark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts?\r\nIs it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,\r\nWho, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,\r\nAnd now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?\r\nFar more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,\r\nFar more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,\r\nLo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's\r\nMerciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires\r\nGleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak\r\nMarks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;\r\nIt is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!\r\nHa! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,\r\nDrifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
To the River Charles<\/h2>\r\n
River! that in silence windest\r\n Through the meadows, bright and free,\r\nTill at length thy rest thou findest\r\n In the bosom of the sea!\r\n\r\nFour long years of mingled feeling,\r\n Half in rest, and half in strife,\r\nI have seen thy waters stealing\r\n Onward, like the stream of life.\r\n\r\nThou hast taught me, Silent River!\r\n  Many a lesson, deep and long;\r\nThou hast been a generous giver;\r\n  I can give thee but a song.\r\n\r\nOft in sadness and in illness,\r\n  I have watched thy current glide,\r\nTill the beauty of its stillness\r\n  Overflowed me, like a tide.\r\n\r\nAnd in better hours and brighter,\r\n  When I saw thy waters gleam,\r\nI have felt my heart beat lighter,\r\n  And leap onward with thy stream.\r\n\r\nNot for this alone I love thee,\r\n  Nor because thy waves of blue\r\nFrom celestial seas above thee\r\n  Take their own celestial hue.\r\n\r\nWhere yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,\r\n  And thy waters disappear,\r\nFriends I love have dwelt beside thee,\r\n  And have made thy margin dear.\r\n\r\nMore than this;--thy name reminds me\r\n  Of three friends, all true and tried;\r\nAnd that name, like magic, binds me\r\n  Closer, closer to thy side.\r\n\r\nFriends my soul with joy remembers!\r\n  How like quivering flames they start,\r\nWhen I fan the living embers\r\n  On the hearth-stone of my heart!\r\n\r\n'T is for this, thou Silent River!\r\n  That my spirit leans to thee;\r\nThou hast been a generous giver,\r\n  Take this idle song from me.\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
To William E. Channing<\/h2>\r\n
The pages of thy book I read,\r\n  And as I closed each one,\r\nMy heart, responding, ever said,\r\n  \"Servant of God! well done!\"\r\n\r\nWell done!  Thy words are great and bold;\r\n  At times they seem to me,\r\nLike Luther's, in the days of old,\r\n  Half-battles for the free.\r\n\r\nGo on, until this land revokes\r\n  The old and chartered Lie,\r\nThe feudal curse, whose whips and yokes\r\n  Insult humanity.\r\n\r\nA voice is ever at thy side\r\n  Speaking in tones of might,\r\nLike the prophetic voice, that cried\r\n  To John in Patmos, \"Write!\"\r\n\r\nWrite! and tell out this bloody tale;\r\n  Record this dire eclipse,\r\nThis Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail,\r\n  This dread Apocalypse!\r\n<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Village Blacksmith<\/h2>\r\n
Under a spreading chestnut-tree\r\n  The village smithy stands;\r\nThe smith, a mighty man is he,\r\n  With large and sinewy hands;\r\nAnd the muscles of his brawny arms\r\n  Are strong as iron bands.\r\n\r\nHis hair is crisp, and black, and long,\r\n  His face is like the tan;\r\nHis brow is wet with honest sweat,\r\n  He earns whate'er he can,\r\nAnd looks the whole world in the face,\r\n  For he owes not any man.\r\n\r\nWeek in, week out, from morn till night,\r\n  You can hear his bellows blow;\r\nYou can hear him swing his heavy sledge,\r\n  With measured beat and slow,\r\nLike a sexton ringing the village bell,\r\n  When the evening sun is low.\r\n\r\nAnd children coming home from school\r\n  Look in at the open door;\r\nThey love to see the flaming forge,\r\n  And bear the bellows roar,\r\nAnd catch the burning sparks that fly\r\n  Like chaff from a threshing-floor.\r\n\r\nHe goes on Sunday to the church,\r\n  And sits among his boys;\r\nHe hears the parson pray and preach,\r\n  He hears his daughter's voice,\r\nSinging in the village choir,\r\n  And it makes his heart rejoice.\r\n\r\nIt sounds to him like her mother's voice,\r\n  Singing in Paradise!\r\nHe needs must think of her once more,\r\n  How in the grave she lies;\r\nAnd with his hard, rough hand he wipes\r\n  A tear out of his eyes.\r\n\r\nToiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,\r\n  Onward through life he goes;\r\nEach morning sees some task begin,\r\n  Each evening sees it close\r\nSomething attempted, something done,\r\n  Has earned a night's repose.\r\n\r\nThanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,\r\nFor the lesson thou hast taught!\r\nThus at the flaming forge of life\r\n  Our fortunes must be wrought;\r\nThus on its sounding anvil shaped\r\n  Each burning deed and thought.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Walter Von Der Vogelweid<\/h2>\r\n
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,\r\n  When he left this world of ours,\r\nLaid his body in the cloister,\r\n  Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.\r\n\r\nAnd he gave the monks his treasures,\r\n  Gave them all with this behest:\r\nThey should feed the birds at noontide\r\n  Daily on his place of rest;\r\n\r\nSaying, \"From these wandering minstrels\r\n  I have learned the art of song;\r\nLet me now repay the lessons\r\n  They have taught so well and long.\"\r\n\r\nThus the bard of love departed;\r\n  And, fulfilling his desire,\r\nOn his tomb the birds were feasted\r\n  By the children of the choir.\r\n\r\nDay by day, o'er tower and turret,\r\n  In foul weather and in fair,\r\nDay by day, in vaster numbers,\r\n  Flocked the poets of the air.\r\n\r\nOn the tree whose heavy branches\r\n  Overshadowed all the place,\r\nOn the pavement, on the tombstone,\r\n  On the poet's sculptured face,\r\n\r\nOn the cross-bars of each window,\r\n  On the lintel of each door,\r\nThey renewed the War of Wartburg,\r\n  Which the bard had fought before.\r\n\r\nThere they sang their merry carols,\r\n  Sang their lauds on every side;\r\nAnd the name their voices uttered\r\n  Was the name of Vogelweid.\r\n\r\nTill at length the portly abbot\r\n  Murmured, \"Why this waste of food?\r\nBe it changed to loaves henceforward\r\n  For our tasting brotherhood.\"\r\n\r\nThen in vain o'er tower and turret,\r\n  From the walls and woodland nests,\r\nWhen the minster bells rang noontide,\r\n  Gathered the unwelcome guests.\r\n\r\nThen in vain, with cries discordant,\r\n  Clamorous round the Gothic spire,\r\nScreamed the feathered Minnesingers\r\n  For the children of the choir.\r\n\r\nTime has long effaced the inscriptions\r\n  On the cloister's funeral stones,\r\nAnd tradition only tells us\r\n  Where repose the poet's bones.\r\n\r\nBut around the vast cathedral,\r\n  By sweet echoes multiplied,\r\nStill the birds repeat the legend,\r\n  And the name of Vogelweid.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Warning<\/h2>\r\n
Beware!  The Israelite of old, who tore\r\n  The lion in his path,--when, poor and blind,\r\nHe saw the blessed light of heaven no more,\r\n  Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind\r\nIn prison, and at last led forth to be\r\nA pander to Philistine revelry,--\r\n\r\nUpon the pillars of the temple laid\r\n  His desperate hands, and in its overthrow\r\nDestroyed himself, and with him those who made\r\n  A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;\r\nThe poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,\r\nExpired, and thousands perished in the fall!\r\n\r\nThere is a poor, blind Samson in this land,\r\n  Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel,\r\nWho may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,\r\n  And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,\r\nTill the vast Temple of our liberties.\r\nA shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Witnesses<\/h2>\r\n
In Ocean's wide domains,\r\n  Half buried in the sands,\r\nLie skeletons in chains,\r\n  With shackled feet and hands.\r\n\r\nBeyond the fall of dews,\r\n  Deeper than plummet lies,\r\nFloat ships, with all their crews,\r\n  No more to sink nor rise.\r\n\r\nThere the black Slave-ship swims,\r\n  Freighted with human forms,\r\nWhose fettered, fleshless limbs\r\n  Are not the sport of storms.\r\n\r\nThese are the bones of Slaves;\r\n  They gleam from the abyss;\r\nThey cry, from yawning waves,\r\n  \"We are the Witnesses!\"\r\n\r\nWithin Earth's wide domains\r\n  Are markets for men's lives;\r\nTheir necks are galled with chains,\r\n  Their wrists are cramped with gyves.\r\n\r\nDead bodies, that the kite\r\n  In deserts makes its prey;\r\nMurders, that with affright\r\n  Scare school-boys from their play!\r\n\r\nAll evil thoughts and deeds;\r\n  Anger, and lust, and pride;\r\nThe foulest, rankest weeds,\r\n  That choke Life's groaning tide!\r\n\r\nThese are the woes of Slaves;\r\n  They glare from the abyss;\r\nThey cry, from unknown graves,\r\n  \"We are the Witnesses!\"<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
Woods in Winter<\/h2>\r\n
When winter winds are piercing chill,\r\n  And through the hawthorn blows the gale,\r\nWith solemn feet I tread the hill,\r\n  That overbrows the lonely vale.\r\n\r\nO'er the bare upland, and away\r\n  Through the long reach of desert woods,\r\nThe embracing sunbeams chastely play,\r\n  And gladden these deep solitudes.\r\n\r\nWhere, twisted round the barren oak,\r\n  The summer vine in beauty clung,\r\nAnd summer winds the stillness broke,\r\n  The crystal icicle is hung.\r\n\r\nWhere, from their frozen urns, mute springs\r\n  Pour out the river's gradual tide,\r\nShrilly the skater's iron rings,\r\n  And voices fill the woodland side.\r\n\r\nAlas! how changed from the fair scene,\r\n  When birds sang out their mellow lay,\r\nAnd winds were soft, and woods were green,\r\n  And the song ceased not with the day!\r\n\r\nBut still wild music is abroad,\r\n  Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;\r\nAnd gathering winds, in hoarse accord,\r\n  Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.\r\n\r\nChill airs and wintry winds! my ear\r\n  Has grown familiar with your song;\r\nI hear it in the opening year,\r\n  I listen, and it cheers me long.<\/pre>\r\n \r\n
The Wreck of the Hesperus<\/h2>\r\n
It was the schooner Hesperus,\r\n   That sailed the wintry sea;\r\nAnd the skipper had taken his little daughter,\r\n   To bear him company.\r\n\r\nBlue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,\r\n   Her cheeks like the dawn of day,\r\nAnd her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,\r\n   That ope in the month of May.\r\n\r\nThe skipper he stood beside the helm,\r\n   His pipe was in his month,\r\nAnd he watched how the veering flaw did blow\r\n   The smoke now West, now South.\r\n\r\nThen up and spake an old Sailor,\r\n   Had sailed to the Spanish Main,\r\n\"I pray thee, put into yonder port,\r\n   For I fear a hurricane.\r\n\r\n\"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,\r\n   And to-night no moon we see!\"\r\nThe skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,\r\n   And a scornful laugh laughed he.\r\n\r\nColder and louder blew the wind,\r\n   A gale from the Northeast.\r\nThe snow fell hissing in the brine,\r\n   And the billows frothed like yeast.\r\n\r\nDown came the storm, and smote amain\r\n   The vessel in its strength;\r\nShe shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,\r\n   Then leaped her cable's length.\r\n\r\n\"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,\r\n   And do not tremble so;\r\nFor  I can weather the roughest gale\r\n   That ever wind did blow.\"\r\n\r\n\r\nHe wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat\r\n   Against the stinging blast;\r\nHe cut a rope from a broken spar,\r\n   And bound her to the mast.\r\n\r\n\"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,\r\n   O say, what may it be?\"\r\n \"'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!\"--\r\n   And he steered for the open sea.\r\n\r\n\"O father! I hear the sound of guns,\r\n   O say, what may it be?\"\r\n\"Some ship in distress, that cannot live\r\n   In such an angry sea!\"\r\n\r\n\"O father! I see a gleaming light\r\n   O say, what may it be?\"\r\nBut the father answered never a word,\r\n   A frozen corpse was he.\r\n\r\nLashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,\r\n   With his face turned to the skies,\r\nThe lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow\r\n   On his fixed and glassy eyes.\r\n\r\nThen the maiden clasped her hands and prayed\r\n   That saved she might be;\r\nAnd she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,\r\n   On the Lake of Galilee.\r\n\r\nAnd fast through the midnight dark and drear,\r\n   Through the whistling sleet and snow,\r\nLike a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept\r\n   Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.\r\n\r\nAnd ever the fitful gusts between\r\n   A sound came from the land;\r\nIt was the sound of the trampling surf\r\n   On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.\r\n\r\nThe breakers were right beneath her bows,\r\n   She drifted a dreary wreck,\r\nAnd a whooping billow swept the crew\r\n   Like icicles from her deck.\r\n\r\nShe struck where the white and fleecy waves\r\n   Looked soft as carded wool,\r\nBut the cruel rocks, they gored her side\r\n   Like the horns of an angry bull.\r\n\r\nHer rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,\r\n   With the masts went by the board;\r\nLike a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,\r\n   Ho! ho! the breakers roared!\r\n\r\nAt daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,\r\n   A fisherman stood aghast,\r\nTo see the form of a maiden fair,\r\n   Lashed close to a drifting mast.\r\n\r\nThe salt sea was frozen on her breast,\r\n   The salt tears in her eyes;\r\nAnd he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,\r\n   On the billows fall and rise.\r\n\r\nSuch was the wreck of the Hesperus,\r\n   In the midnight and the snow!\r\nChrist save us all from a death like this,\r\n   On the reef of Norman's Woe!\r\n<\/pre>","rendered":"
Page Contents<\/h2>\n
An April Day<\/p>\n
The Arrow and the Song<\/p>\n
The Arsenal at Springfield<\/p>\n
Autumn Sunset<\/p>\n
The Beleaguered City<\/p>\n
The Belfry of Bruges, Carillon<\/p>\n
The Bridge<\/p>\n
Burial of the Minnisink<\/p>\n
Dante<\/p>\n
The Day Is Done<\/p>\n
Endymion<\/p>\n
The Evening Star<\/p>\n
Excelsior<\/p>\n
Flowers<\/p>\n
Footsteps of Angels<\/p>\n
A Gleam of Sunshine<\/p>\n
The Goblet of Life<\/p>\n
God’s-Acre<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
<\/h2>\n
An April Day<\/h2>\n
     When the warm sun, that brings\r\n Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,\r\n \u2018T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs\r\n     The first flower of the plain.\r\n \r\n     I love the season well,\r\n When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,\r\n Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell\r\n     The coming-on of storms.\r\n \r\n     From the earth\u2019s loosened mould\r\n The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;\r\n Though stricken to the heart with winter\u2019s cold,\r\n     The drooping tree revives.\r\n \r\n     The softly-warbled song\r\n Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings\r\n Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along\r\n     The forest openings.\r\n \r\n     When the bright sunset fills\r\n The silver woods with light, the green slope throws\r\n Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,\r\n     And wide the upland glows.\r\n \r\n     And when the eve is born,\r\n In the blue lake the sky, o\u2019er-reaching far,\r\n Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,\r\n     And twinkles many a star.\r\n \r\n     Inverted in the tide\r\n Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,\r\n And the fair trees look over, side by side,\r\n     And see themselves below.\r\n \r\n     Sweet April! many a thought\r\n Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;\r\n Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,\r\n     Life\u2019s golden fruit is shed.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Arrow and the Song<\/h2>\n
 I shot an arrow into the air,\r\n It fell to earth, I knew not where;\r\n For, so swiftly it flew, the sight\r\n Could not follow it in its flight.\r\n \r\n I breathed a song into the air,\r\n It fell to earth, I knew not where;\r\n For who has sight so keen and strong,\r\n That it can follow the flight of song?\r\n \r\n Long, long afterward, in an oak\r\n I found the arrow, still unbroke;\r\n And the song, from beginning to end,\r\n I found again in the heart of a friend.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Arsenal at Springfield<\/h2>\n
This is the Arsenal.  From floor to ceiling,\r\n   Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;\r\n But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing\r\n   Startles the villages with strange alarms.\r\n \r\n Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,\r\n   When the death-angel touches those swift keys\r\n What loud lament and dismal Miserere\r\n   Will mingle with their awful symphonies\r\n \r\n I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,\r\n   The cries of agony, the endless groan,\r\n Which, through the ages that have gone before us,\r\n   In long reverberations reach our own.\r\n \r\n On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,\r\n   Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman\u2019s song,\r\n And loud, amid the universal clamor,\r\n O\u2019er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.\r\n \r\n I hear the Florentine, who from his palace\r\n   Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,\r\n And Aztec priests upon their teocallis\r\n   Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent\u2019s skin;\r\n \r\n The tumult of each sacked and burning village;\r\n   The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;\r\n The soldiers\u2019 revels in the midst of pillage;\r\n   The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;\r\n \r\n The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,\r\n   The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;\r\n And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,\r\n   The diapason of the cannonade.\r\n \r\n Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,\r\n   With such accursed instruments as these,\r\n Thou drownest Nature\u2019s sweet and kindly voices,\r\n   And jarrest the celestial harmonies?\r\n \r\n Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,\r\n   Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,\r\n Given to redeem the human mind from error,\r\n   There were no need of arsenals or forts:\r\n \r\n The warrior\u2019s name would be a name abhorred!\r\n   And every nation, that should lift again\r\n Its hand against a brother, on its forehead\r\n   Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!\r\n \r\n Down the dark future, through long generations,\r\n   The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;\r\n And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,\r\n   I hear once more the voice of Christ say, \u201cPeace!\u201d\r\n \r\n Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals\r\n   The blast of War\u2019s great organ shakes the skies!\r\n But beautiful as songs of the immortals,\r\n   The holy melodies of love Thearise.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Autumn Sonnet<\/h2>\n
Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,\r\n   With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,\r\n   Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,\r\n   And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!\r\n Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,\r\n   Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand\r\n   Outstretched with benedictions o\u2019er the land,\r\n   Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!\r\n Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended\r\n   So long beneath the heaven\u2019s o\u2019er-hanging eaves;\r\n   Thy steps are by the farmer\u2019s prayers attended;\r\n Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;\r\n   And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,\r\n   Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Beleaguered City<\/h2>\n
I have read, in some old, marvellous tale,\r\n  Some legend strange and vague,\r\nThat a midnight host of spectres pale\r\n  Beleaguered the walls of Prague.\r\n\r\nBeside the Moldau's rushing stream,\r\n  With the wan moon overhead,\r\nThere stood, as in an awful dream,\r\n  The army of the dead.\r\n\r\nWhite as a sea-fog, landward bound,\r\n  The spectral camp was seen,\r\nAnd, with a sorrowful, deep sound,\r\n  The river flowed between.\r\n\r\nNo other voice nor sound was there,\r\n  No drum, nor sentry's pace;\r\nThe mist-like banners clasped the air,\r\n  As clouds with clouds embrace.\r\n\r\nBut when the old cathedral bell\r\n  Proclaimed the morning prayer,\r\nThe white pavilions rose and fell\r\n  On the alarmed air.\r\n\r\nDown the broad valley fast and far\r\n  The troubled army fled;\r\nUp rose the glorious morning star,\r\n  The ghastly host was dead.\r\n\r\nI have read, in the marvellous heart of man,\r\n  That strange and mystic scroll,\r\nThat an army of phantoms vast and wan\r\n  Beleaguer the human soul.\r\n\r\nEncamped beside Life's rushing stream,\r\n  In Fancy's misty light,\r\nGigantic shapes and shadows gleam\r\n  Portentous through the night.\r\n\r\nUpon its midnight battle-ground\r\n  The spectral camp is seen,\r\nAnd, with a sorrowful, deep sound,\r\n  Flows the River of Life between.\r\n\r\nNo other voice nor sound is there,\r\n  In the army of the grave;\r\nNo other challenge breaks the air,\r\n  But the rushing of Life's wave.\r\n\r\nAnd when the solemn and deep churchbell\r\n  Entreats the soul to pray,\r\nThe midnight phantoms feel the spell,\r\n  The shadows sweep away.\r\n\r\nDown the broad Vale of Tears afar\r\n  The spectral camp is fled;\r\nFaith shineth as a morning star,\r\n  Our ghastly fears are dead.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Belfry of Bruges, Carillon<\/h2>\n
In the ancient town of Bruges,\r\nIn the quaint old Flemish city,\r\nAs the evening shades descended,\r\nLow and loud and sweetly blended,\r\nLow at times and loud at times,\r\nAnd changing like a poet's rhymes,\r\nRang the beautiful wild chimes\r\nFrom the Belfry in the market\r\nOf the ancient town of Bruges.\r\n\r\nThen, with deep sonorous clangor\r\nCalmly answering their sweet anger,\r\nWhen the wrangling bells had ended,\r\nSlowly struck the clock eleven,\r\nAnd, from out the silent heaven,\r\nSilence on the town descended.\r\nSilence, silence everywhere,\r\nOn the earth and in the air,\r\nSave that footsteps here and there\r\nOf some burgher home returning,\r\nBy the street lamps faintly burning,\r\nFor a moment woke the echoes\r\nOf the ancient town of Bruges.\r\n\r\nBut amid my broken slumbers\r\nStill I heard those magic numbers,\r\nAs they loud proclaimed the flight\r\nAnd stolen marches of the night;\r\nTill their chimes in sweet collision\r\nMingled with each wandering vision,\r\nMingled with the fortune-telling\r\nGypsy-bands of dreams and fancies,\r\nWhich amid the waste expanses\r\nOf the silent land of trances\r\nHave their solitary dwelling;\r\nAll else seemed asleep in Bruges,\r\nIn the quaint old Flemish city.\r\n\r\nAnd I thought how like these chimes\r\nAre the poet's airy rhymes,\r\nAll his rhymes and roundelays,\r\nHis conceits, and songs, and ditties,\r\nFrom the belfry of his brain,\r\nScattered downward, though in vain,\r\nOn the roofs and stones of cities!\r\nFor by night the drowsy ear\r\nUnder its curtains cannot hear,\r\nAnd by day men go their ways,\r\nHearing the music as they pass,\r\nBut deeming it no more, alas!\r\nThan the hollow sound of brass.\r\n\r\nYet perchance a sleepless wight,\r\nLodging at some humble inn\r\nIn the narrow lanes of life,\r\nWhen the dusk and hush of night\r\nShut out the incessant din\r\nOf daylight and its toil and strife,\r\nMay listen with a calm delight\r\nTo the poet's melodies,\r\nTill he hears, or dreams he hears,\r\nIntermingled with the song,\r\nThoughts that he has cherished long;\r\nHears amid the chime and singing\r\nThe bells of his own village ringing,\r\nAnd wakes, and finds his slumberous eyes\r\nWet with most delicious tears.\r\n\r\nThus dreamed I, as by night I lay\r\nIn Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble,\r\nListening with a wild delight\r\nTo the chimes that, through the night\r\nBang their changes from the Belfry\r\nOf that quaint old Flemish city.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Bridge<\/h2>\n
I stood on the bridge at midnight,\r\n  As the clocks were striking the hour,\r\nAnd the moon rose o'er the city,\r\n  Behind the dark church-tower.\r\n\r\nI saw her bright reflection\r\n  In the waters under me,\r\nLike a golden goblet falling\r\n  And sinking into the sea.\r\n\r\nAnd far in the hazy distance\r\n  Of that lovely night in June,\r\nThe blaze of the flaming furnace\r\n  Gleamed redder than the moon.\r\n\r\nAmong the long, black rafters\r\n  The wavering shadows lay,\r\nAnd the current that came from the ocean\r\n  Seemed to lift and bear them away;\r\n\r\nAs, sweeping and eddying through them,\r\nRose the belated tide,\r\nAnd, streaming into the moonlight,\r\n  The seaweed floated wide.\r\n\r\nAnd like those waters rushing\r\n  Among the wooden piers,\r\nA flood of thoughts came o'er me\r\n  That filled my eyes with tears.\r\n\r\nHow often, oh, how often,\r\n  In the days that had gone by,\r\nI had stood on that bridge at midnight\r\n  And gazed on that wave and sky!\r\n\r\nHow often, oh, how often,\r\n  I had wished that the ebbing tide\r\nWould bear me away on its bosom\r\n  O'er the ocean wild and wide!\r\n\r\nFor my heart was hot and restless,\r\n  And my life was full of care,\r\nAnd the burden laid upon me\r\n  Seemed greater than I could bear.\r\n\r\nBut now it has fallen from me,\r\n  It is buried in the sea;\r\nAnd only the sorrow of others\r\n  Throws its shadow over me.\r\n\r\nYet whenever I cross the river\r\n  On its bridge with wooden piers,\r\nLike the odor of brine from the ocean\r\n  Comes the thought of other years.\r\n\r\nAnd I think how many thousands\r\n  Of care-encumbered men,\r\nEach bearing his burden of sorrow,\r\n  Have crossed the bridge since then.\r\n\r\nI see the long procession\r\n  Still passing to and fro,\r\nThe young heart hot and restless,\r\n  And the old subdued and slow!\r\n\r\nAnd forever and forever,\r\n  As long as the river flows,\r\nAs long as the heart has passions,\r\n  As long as life has woes;\r\n\r\nThe moon and its broken reflection\r\n  And its shadows shall appear,\r\nAs the symbol of love in heaven,\r\n  And its wavering image here.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Burial of the Minnisink<\/h2>\n
On sunny slope and beechen swell,\r\nThe shadowed light of evening fell;\r\nAnd, where the maple's leaf was brown,\r\nWith soft and silent lapse came down,\r\nThe glory, that the wood receives,\r\nAt sunset, in its golden leaves.\r\n\r\nFar upward in the mellow light\r\nRose the blue hills.  One cloud of white,\r\nAround a far uplifted cone,\r\nIn the warm blush of evening shone;\r\nAn image of the silver lakes,\r\nBy which the Indian's soul awakes.\r\n\r\nBut soon a funeral hymn was heard\r\nWhere the soft breath of evening stirred\r\nThe tall, gray forest; and a band\r\nOf stern in heart, and strong in hand,\r\nCame winding down beside the wave,\r\nTo lay the red chief in his grave.\r\n\r\nThey sang, that by his native bowers\r\nHe stood, in the last moon of flowers,\r\nAnd thirty snows had not yet shed\r\nTheir glory on the warrior's head;\r\nBut, as the summer fruit decays,\r\nSo died he in those naked days.\r\n\r\nA dark cloak of the roebuck's skin\r\nCovered the warrior, and within\r\nIts heavy folds the weapons, made\r\nFor the hard toils of war, were laid;\r\nThe cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,\r\nAnd the broad belt of shells and beads.\r\n\r\nBefore, a dark-haired virgin train\r\nChanted the death dirge of the slain;\r\nBehind, the long procession came\r\nOf hoary men and chiefs of fame,\r\nWith heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,\r\nLeading the war-horse of their chief.\r\n\r\nStripped of his proud and martial dress,\r\nUncurbed, unreined, and riderless,\r\nWith darting eye, and nostril spread,\r\nAnd heavy and impatient tread,\r\nHe came; and oft that eye so proud\r\nAsked for his rider in the crowd.\r\n\r\nThey buried the dark chief; they freed\r\nBeside the grave his battle steed;\r\nAnd swift an arrow cleaved its way\r\nTo his stern heart!  One piercing neigh\r\nArose, and, on the dead man's plain,\r\nThe rider grasps his steed again.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Dante<\/h2>\n
Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,\r\n  With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,\r\n  Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,\r\n  Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.\r\nThy sacred song is like the trump of doom;\r\n  Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,\r\n  What soft compassion glows, as in the skies\r\n  The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!\r\nMethinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,\r\n  By Fra Hilario in his diocese,\r\n  As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,\r\nThe ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;\r\n  And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,\r\n  Thy voice along the cloister whispers, \"Peace!\"<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Day Is Done<\/h2>\n
The day is done, and the darkness\r\n  Falls from the wings of Night,\r\nAs a feather is wafted downward\r\n  From an eagle in his flight.\r\n\r\nI see the lights of the village\r\n  Gleam through the rain and the mist,\r\nAnd a feeling of sadness comes o'er me\r\n  That my soul cannot resist:\r\n\r\nA feeling of sadness and longing,\r\n  That is not akin to pain,\r\nAnd resembles sorrow only\r\n  As the mist resembles the rain.\r\n\r\nCome, read to me some poem,\r\n  Some simple and heartfelt lay,\r\nThat shall soothe this restless feeling,\r\n  And banish the thoughts of day.\r\n\r\nNot from the grand old masters,\r\n  Not from the bards sublime,\r\nWhose distant footsteps echo\r\n  Through the corridors of Time.\r\n\r\nFor, like strains of martial music,\r\n  Their mighty thoughts suggest\r\nLife's endless toil and endeavor;\r\n  And to-night I long for rest.\r\n\r\nRead from some humbler poet,\r\n  Whose songs gushed from his heart,\r\nAs showers from the clouds of summer,\r\n  Or tears from the eyelids start;\r\n\r\nWho, through long days of labor,\r\n  And nights devoid of ease,\r\nStill heard in his soul the music\r\n  Of wonderful melodies.\r\n\r\nSuch songs have power to quiet\r\n  The restless pulse of care,\r\nAnd come like the benediction\r\n  That follows after prayer.\r\n\r\nThen read from the treasured volume\r\n  The poem of thy choice,\r\nAnd lend to the rhyme of the poet\r\n  The beauty of thy voice.\r\n\r\nAnd the night shall be filled with music\r\n  And the cares, that infest the day,\r\nShall fold their tents, like the Arabs,\r\n  And as silently steal away.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Endymion<\/h2>\n
The rising moon has hid the stars;\r\nHer level rays, like golden bars,\r\n   Lie on the landscape green,\r\n   With shadows brown between.\r\n\r\nAnd silver white the river gleams,\r\nAs if Diana, in her dreams,\r\n   Had dropt her silver bow\r\n   Upon the meadows low.\r\n\r\nOn such a tranquil night as this,\r\nShe woke Endymion with a kiss,\r\n   When, sleeping in the grove,\r\n   He dreamed not of her love.\r\n\r\nLike Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,\r\nLove gives itself, but is not bought;\r\n   Nor voice, nor sound betrays\r\n   Its deep, impassioned gaze.\r\n\r\nIt comes,--the beautiful, the free,\r\nThe crown of all humanity,--\r\n   In silence and alone\r\n   To seek the elected one.\r\n\r\nIt lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep\r\nAre Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,\r\n   And kisses the closed eyes\r\n   Of him, who slumbering lies.\r\n\r\nO weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!\r\nO drooping souls, whose destinies\r\n   Are fraught with fear and pain,\r\n   Ye shall be loved again!\r\n\r\nNo one is so accursed by fate,\r\nNo one so utterly desolate,\r\n   But some heart, though unknown,\r\n   Responds unto his own.\r\n\r\nResponds,--as if with unseen wings,\r\nAn angel touched its quivering strings;\r\n   And whispers, in its song,\r\n   \"'Where hast thou stayed so long?\"<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Evening Star<\/h2>\n
Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,\r\n  Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,\r\n  Like a fair lady at her casement, shines\r\n  The evening star, the star of love and rest!\r\nAnd then anon she doth herself divest\r\n  Of all her radiant garments, and reclines\r\n  Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,\r\n  With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.\r\nO my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!\r\n  My morning and my evening star of love!\r\n  My best and gentlest lady! even thus,\r\nAs that fair planet in the sky above,\r\n  Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,\r\n  And from thy darkened window fades the light.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Excelsior<\/h2>\n
The shades of night were falling fast,\r\nAs through an Alpine village passed\r\nA youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,\r\nA banner with the strange device,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nHis brow was sad; his eye beneath,\r\nFlashed like a falchion from its sheath,\r\nAnd like a silver clarion rung\r\nThe accents of that unknown tongue,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nIn happy homes he saw the light\r\nOf household fires gleam warm and bright;\r\nAbove, the spectral glaciers shone,\r\nAnd from his lips escaped a groan,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\n\"Try not the Pass!\" the old man said:\r\n\"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,\r\nThe roaring torrent is deep and wide!\r\nAnd loud that clarion voice replied,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\n\"Oh stay,\" the maiden said, \"and rest\r\nThy weary head upon this breast!\"\r\nA tear stood in his bright blue eye,\r\nBut still he answered, with a sigh,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\n\"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!\r\nBeware the awful avalanche!\"\r\nThis was the peasant's last Good-night,\r\nA voice replied, far up the height,\r\n        Excelsior!\r\n\r\nAt break of day, as heavenward\r\nThe pious monks of Saint Bernard\r\nUttered the oft-repeated prayer,\r\nA voice cried through the startled air,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nA traveller, by the faithful hound,\r\nHalf-buried in the snow was found,\r\nStill grasping in his hand of ice\r\nThat banner with the strange device,\r\n       Excelsior!\r\n\r\nThere in the twilight cold and gray,\r\nLifeless, but beautiful, he lay,\r\nAnd from the sky, serene and far,\r\nA voice fell, like a falling star,\r\n       Excelsior!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Flowers<\/h2>\n
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,\r\n  One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,\r\nWhen he called the flowers, so blue and golden,\r\n  Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.\r\n\r\nStars they are, wherein we read our history,\r\n  As astrologers and seers of eld;\r\nYet not wrapped about with awful mystery,\r\n  Like the burning stars, which they beheld.\r\n\r\nWondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,\r\n  God hath written in those stars above;\r\nBut not less in the bright flowerets under us\r\n  Stands the revelation of his love.\r\n\r\nBright and glorious is that revelation,\r\n  Written all over this great world of ours;\r\nMaking evident our own creation,\r\n  In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.\r\n\r\nAnd the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,\r\n  Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part\r\nOf the self-same, universal being,\r\n  Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.\r\n\r\nGorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,\r\n  Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,\r\nTremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,\r\n  Buds that open only to decay;\r\n\r\nBrilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,\r\n  Flaunting gayly in the golden light;\r\nLarge desires, with most uncertain issues,\r\n  Tender wishes, blossoming at night!\r\n\r\nThese in flowers and men are more than seeming;\r\n  Workings are they of the self-same powers,\r\nWhich the Poet, in no idle dreaming,\r\n  Seeth in himself and in the flowers.\r\n\r\nEverywhere about us are they glowing,\r\n  Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;\r\nOthers, their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,\r\n  Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;\r\n\r\nNot alone in Spring's armorial bearing,\r\n  And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,\r\nBut in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,\r\n  In the centre of his brazen shield;\r\n\r\nNot alone in meadows and green alleys,\r\n  On the mountain-top, and by the brink\r\nOf sequestered pools in woodland valleys,\r\n  Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;\r\n\r\nNot alone in her vast dome of glory,\r\n  Not on graves of bird and beast alone,\r\nBut in old cathedrals, high and hoary,\r\n  On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;\r\n\r\nIn the cottage of the rudest peasant,\r\n  In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,\r\nSpeaking of the Past unto the Present,\r\n  Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;\r\n\r\nIn all places, then, and in all seasons,\r\n  Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,\r\nTeaching us, by most persuasive reasons,\r\n  How akin they are to human things.\r\n\r\nAnd with childlike, credulous affection\r\n  We behold their tender buds expand;\r\nEmblems of our own great resurrection,\r\n  Emblems of the bright and better land.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Footsteps of Angels<\/h2>\n
When the hours of Day are numbered,\r\n  And the voices of the Night\r\nWake the better soul, that slumbered,\r\n  To a holy, calm delight;\r\n\r\nEre the evening lamps are lighted,\r\n  And, like phantoms grim and tall,\r\nShadows from the fitful firelight\r\n  Dance upon the parlor wall;\r\n\r\nThen the forms of the departed\r\n  Enter at the open door;\r\nThe beloved, the true-hearted,\r\n  Come to visit me once more;\r\n\r\nHe, the young and strong, who cherished\r\n  Noble longings for the strife,\r\nBy the roadside fell and perished,\r\n  Weary with the march of life!\r\n\r\nThey, the holy ones and weakly,\r\n  Who the cross of suffering bore,\r\nFolded their pale hands so meekly,\r\n  Spake with us on earth no more!\r\n\r\nAnd with them the Being Beauteous,\r\n  Who unto my youth was given,\r\nMore than all things else to love me,\r\n  And is now a saint in heaven.\r\n\r\nWith a slow and noiseless footstep\r\n  Comes that messenger divine,\r\nTakes the vacant chair beside me,\r\n  Lays her gentle hand in mine.\r\n\r\nAnd she sits and gazes at me\r\n  With those deep and tender eyes,\r\nLike the stars, so still and saint-like,\r\n  Looking downward from the skies.\r\n\r\nUttered not, yet comprehended,\r\n  Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,\r\nSoft rebukes, in blessings ended,\r\n  Breathing from her lips of air.\r\n\r\nOh, though oft depressed and lonely,\r\n  All my fears are laid aside,\r\nIf I but remember only\r\n  Such as these have lived and died!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
A Gleam of Sunshine<\/h2>\n
This is the place.  Stand still, my steed,\r\n  Let me review the scene,\r\nAnd summon from the shadowy Past\r\n  The forms that once have been.\r\n\r\nThe Past and Present here unite\r\n  Beneath Time's flowing tide,\r\nLike footprints hidden by a brook,\r\n  But seen on either side.\r\n\r\nHere runs the highway to the town;\r\n  There the green lane descends,\r\nThrough which I walked to church with thee,\r\n  O gentlest of my friends!\r\n\r\nThe shadow of the linden-trees\r\n  Lay moving on the grass;\r\nBetween them and the moving boughs,\r\n  A shadow, thou didst pass.\r\n\r\nThy dress was like the lilies,\r\n  And thy heart as pure as they:\r\nOne of God's holy messengers\r\n  Did walk with me that day.\r\n\r\nI saw the branches of the trees\r\n  Bend down thy touch to meet,\r\nThe clover-blossoms in the grass\r\n  Rise up to kiss thy feet,\r\n\r\n\"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,\r\n  Of earth and folly born!\"\r\nSolemnly sang the village choir\r\n  On that sweet Sabbath morn.\r\n\r\nThrough the closed blinds the golden sun\r\n  Poured in a dusty beam,\r\nLike the celestial ladder seen\r\n  By Jacob in his dream.\r\n\r\nAnd ever and anon, the wind,\r\n  Sweet-scented with the hay,\r\nTurned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves\r\n That on the window lay.\r\n\r\nLong was the good man's sermon,\r\n  Yet it seemed not so to me;\r\nFor he spake of Ruth the beautiful,\r\n  And still I thought of thee.\r\n\r\nLong was the prayer he uttered,\r\n  Yet it seemed not so to me;\r\nFor in my heart I prayed with him,\r\n  And still I thought of thee.\r\n\r\nBut now, alas! the place seems changed;\r\n  Thou art no longer here:\r\nPart of the sunshine of the scene\r\n  With thee did disappear.\r\n\r\nThough thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart,\r\n  Like pine-trees dark and high,\r\nSubdue the light of noon, and breathe\r\n  A low and ceaseless sigh;\r\n\r\nThis memory brightens o'er the past,\r\n  As when the sun, concealed\r\nBehind some cloud that near us hangs\r\n  Shines on a distant field.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Goblet of Life<\/h2>\n
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;\r\nAnd though my eyes with tears are dim,\r\nI see its sparkling bubbles swim,\r\nAnd chant a melancholy hymn\r\n   With solemn voice and slow.\r\n\r\nNo purple flowers,--no garlands green,\r\nConceal the goblet's shade or sheen,\r\nNor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,\r\nLike gleams of sunshine, flash between\r\n   Thick leaves of mistletoe.\r\n\r\nThis goblet, wrought with curious art,\r\nIs filled with waters, that upstart,\r\nWhen the deep fountains of the heart,\r\nBy strong convulsions rent apart,\r\n   Are running all to waste.\r\n\r\nAnd as it mantling passes round,\r\nWith fennel is it wreathed and crowned,\r\nWhose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned\r\nAre in its waters steeped and drowned,\r\n   And give a bitter taste.\r\n\r\nAbove the lowly plants it towers,\r\nThe fennel, with its yellow flowers,\r\nAnd in an earlier age than ours\r\nWas gifted with the wondrous powers,\r\n   Lost vision to restore.\r\n\r\nIt gave new strength, and fearless mood;\r\nAnd gladiators, fierce and rude,\r\nMingled it in their daily food;\r\nAnd he who battled and subdued,\r\n   A wreath of fennel wore.\r\n\r\nThen in Life's goblet freely press,\r\nThe leaves that give it bitterness,\r\nNor prize the colored waters less,\r\nFor in thy darkness and distress\r\n   New light and strength they give!\r\n\r\nAnd he who has not learned to know\r\nHow false its sparkling bubbles show,\r\nHow bitter are the drops of woe,\r\nWith which its brim may overflow,\r\n   He has not learned to live.\r\n\r\nThe prayer of Ajax was for light;\r\nThrough all that dark and desperate fight\r\nThe blackness of that noonday night\r\nHe asked but the return of sight,\r\n   To see his foeman's face.\r\n\r\nLet our unceasing, earnest prayer\r\nBe, too, for light,--for strength to bear\r\nOur portion of the weight of care,\r\nThat crushes into dumb despair\r\n   One half the human race.\r\n\r\nO suffering, sad humanity!\r\nO ye afflicted one; who lie\r\nSteeped to the lips in misery,\r\nLonging, and yet afraid to die,\r\n   Patient, though sorely tried!\r\n\r\nI pledge you in this cup of grief,\r\nWhere floats the fennel's bitter leaf!\r\nThe Battle of our Life is brief\r\nThe alarm,--the struggle,--the relief,\r\n   Then sleep we side by side.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
God’s-Acre<\/h2>\n
I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls\r\n  The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;\r\nIt consecrates each grave within its walls,\r\n  And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.\r\n\r\nGod's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts\r\n  Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown\r\nThe seed that they had garnered in their hearts,\r\n  Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.\r\n\r\nInto its furrows shall we all be cast,\r\n In the sure faith, that we shall rise again\r\nAt the great harvest, when the archangel's blast\r\n  Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.\r\n\r\nThen shall the good stand in immortal bloom,\r\n In the fair gardens of that second birth;\r\nAnd each bright blossom mingle its perfume\r\n With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.\r\n\r\nWith thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,\r\n And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;\r\nThis is the field and Acre of our God,\r\n This is the place where human harvests grow!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Good Part
\nThat Shall Not Be Taken Away<\/h2>\n
She dwells by Great Kenhawa's side,\r\n  In valleys green and cool;\r\nAnd all her hope and all her pride\r\n  Are in the village school.\r\n\r\nHer soul, like the transparent air\r\n  That robes the hills above,\r\nThough not of earth, encircles there\r\n  All things with arms of love.\r\n\r\nAnd thus she walks among her girls\r\n  With praise and mild rebukes;\r\nSubduing e'en rude village churls\r\n  By her angelic looks.\r\n\r\nShe reads to them at eventide\r\n  Of One who came to save;\r\nTo cast the captive's chains aside\r\n  And liberate the slave.\r\n\r\nAnd oft the blessed time foretells\r\n  When all men shall be free;\r\nAnd musical, as silver bells,\r\n  Their falling chains shall be.\r\n\r\nAnd following her beloved Lord,\r\n  In decent poverty,\r\nShe makes her life one sweet record\r\n  And deed of charity.\r\n\r\nFor she was rich, and gave up all\r\n  To break the iron bands\r\nOf those who waited in her hall,\r\n  And labored in her lands.\r\n\r\nLong since beyond the Southern Sea\r\n  Their outbound sails have sped,\r\nWhile she, in meek humility,\r\n  Now earns her daily bread.\r\n\r\nIt is their prayers, which never cease,\r\n  That clothe her with such grace;\r\nTheir blessing is the light of peace\r\n  That shines upon her face.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Hymn to the Night<\/h2>\n
I heard the trailing garments of the Night\r\n     Sweep through her marble halls!\r\nI saw her sable skirts all fringed with light\r\n     From the celestial walls!\r\n\r\nI felt her presence, by its spell of might,\r\n     Stoop o'er me from above;\r\nThe calm, majestic presence of the Night,\r\n     As of the one I love.\r\n\r\nI heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,\r\n     The manifold, soft chimes,\r\nThat fill the haunted chambers of the Night\r\n     Like some old poet's rhymes.\r\n\r\nFrom the cool cisterns of the midnight air\r\n     My spirit drank repose;\r\nThe fountain of perpetual peace flows there,--\r\n     From those deep cisterns flows.\r\n\r\nO holy Night! from thee I learn to bear\r\n     What man has borne before!\r\nThou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,\r\n     And they complain no more.\r\n\r\nPeace!  Peace!  Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!\r\n     Descend with broad-winged flight,\r\nThe welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,\r\n     The best-beloved Night!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Drinking Song<\/h2>\n
Inscription for an Antique Pitcher<\/h3>\n
Come, old friend! sit down and listen!\r\n  From the pitcher, placed between us,\r\nHow the waters laugh and glisten\r\n  In the head of old Silenus!\r\n\r\nOld Silenus, bloated, drunken,\r\n  Led by his inebriate Satyrs;\r\nOn his breast his head is sunken,\r\n  Vacantly he leers and chatters.\r\n\r\nFauns with youthful Bacchus follow;\r\n  Ivy crowns that brow supernal\r\nAs the forehead of Apollo,\r\n  And possessing youth eternal.\r\n\r\nRound about him, fair Bacchantes,\r\n  Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,\r\nWild from Naxian groves, or Zante's\r\n  Vineyards, sing delirious verses.\r\n\r\nThus he won, through all the nations,\r\n  Bloodless victories, and the farmer\r\nBore, as trophies and oblations,\r\n  Vines for banners, ploughs for armor.\r\n\r\nJudged by no o'erzealous rigor,\r\n  Much this mystic throng expresses:\r\nBacchus was the type of vigor,\r\n  And Silenus of excesses.\r\n\r\nThese are ancient ethnic revels,\r\n  Of a faith long since forsaken;\r\nNow the Satyrs, changed to devils,\r\n  Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.\r\n\r\nNow to rivulets from the mountains\r\n  Point the rods of fortune-tellers;\r\nYouth perpetual dwells in fountains,--\r\n  Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.\r\n\r\nClaudius, though he sang of flagons\r\n  And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,\r\nFrom that fiery blood of dragons\r\n  Never would his own replenish.\r\n\r\nEven Redi, though he chaunted\r\n  Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,\r\nNever drank the wine he vaunted\r\n  In his dithyrambic sallies.\r\n\r\nThen with water fill the pitcher\r\n  Wreathed about with classic fables;\r\nNe'er Falernian threw a richer\r\n  Light upon Lucullus' tables.\r\n\r\nCome, old friend, sit down and listen\r\n  As it passes thus between us,\r\nHow its wavelets laugh and glisten\r\n  In the head of old Silenus!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
It Is Not Always May<\/h2>\n
No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano.\r\n                Spanish Proverb\r\n\r\nThe sun is bright,--the air is clear,\r\n  The darting swallows soar and sing.\r\nAnd from the stately elms I hear\r\n  The bluebird prophesying Spring.\r\n\r\nSo blue you winding river flows,\r\n  It seems an outlet from the sky,\r\nWhere waiting till the west-wind blows,\r\n  The freighted clouds at anchor lie.\r\n\r\nAll things are new;--the buds, the leaves,\r\n  That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest,\r\n And even the nest beneath the eaves;--\r\n   There are no birds in last year's nest!\r\n\r\nAll things rejoice in youth and love,\r\n   The fulness of their first delight!\r\n And learn from the soft heavens above\r\n   The melting tenderness of night.\r\n\r\nMaiden, that read'st this simple rhyme,\r\n   Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;\r\nEnjoy the fragrance of thy prime,\r\n   For oh, it is not always May!\r\n\r\nEnjoy the Spring of Love and Youth,\r\n   To some good angel leave the rest;\r\nFor Time will teach thee soon the truth,\r\n  There are no birds in last year's nest!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
L’envoi<\/h2>\n
The Poet and His Songs<\/h3>\n
As the birds come in the Spring,\r\n  We know not from where;\r\nAs the stars come at evening\r\n  From depths of the air;\r\n\r\nAs the rain comes from the cloud,\r\n  And the brook from the ground;\r\nAs suddenly, low or loud,\r\n  Out of silence a sound;\r\n\r\nAs the grape comes to the vine,\r\n  The fruit to the tree;\r\nAs the wind comes to the pine,\r\n  And the tide to the sea;\r\n\r\nAs come the white sails of ships\r\n  O'er the ocean's verge;\r\nAs comes the smile to the lips,\r\n  The foam to the surge;\r\n\r\nSo come to the Poet his songs,\r\n  All hitherward blown\r\nFrom the misty realm, that belongs\r\n  To the vast unknown.\r\n\r\nHis, and not his, are the lays\r\n  He sings; and their fame\r\nIs his, and not his; and the praise\r\n  And the pride of a name.\r\n\r\nFor voices pursue him by day,\r\n  And haunt him by night,\r\nAnd he listens, and needs must obey,\r\n  When the Angel says: \"Write!\"\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Light of Stars<\/h2>\n
The night is come, but not too soon;\r\n  And sinking silently,\r\nAll silently, the little moon\r\n  Drops down behind the sky.\r\n\r\nThere is no light in earth or heaven\r\n  But the cold light of stars;\r\nAnd the first watch of night is given\r\n  To the red planet Mars.\r\n\r\nIs it the tender star of love?\r\n  The star of love and dreams?\r\nO no! from that blue tent above,\r\n  A hero's armor gleams.\r\n\r\nAnd earnest thoughts within me rise,\r\n  When I behold afar,\r\nSuspended in the evening skies,\r\n  The shield of that red star.\r\n\r\nO star of strength! I see thee stand\r\n  And smile upon my pain;\r\nThou beckonest with thy mailed hand,\r\n  And I am strong again.\r\n\r\nWithin my breast there is no light\r\n  But the cold light of stars;\r\nI give the first watch of the night\r\n  To the red planet Mars.\r\n\r\nThe star of the unconquered will,\r\n  He rises in my breast,\r\nSerene, and resolute, and still,\r\n  And calm, and self-possessed.\r\n\r\nAnd thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,\r\n  That readest this brief psalm,\r\nAs one by one thy hopes depart,\r\n  Be resolute and calm.\r\n\r\nO fear not in a world like this,\r\n  And thou shalt know erelong,\r\nKnow how sublime a thing it is\r\n  To suffer and be strong.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Maidenhood<\/h2>\n
Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,\r\nIn whose orbs a shadow lies\r\nLike the dusk in evening skies!\r\n\r\nThou whose locks outshine the sun,\r\nGolden tresses, wreathed in one,\r\nAs the braided streamlets run!\r\n\r\nStanding, with reluctant feet,\r\nWhere the brook and river meet,\r\nWomanhood and childhood fleet!\r\n\r\nGazing, with a timid glance,\r\nOn the brooklet's swift advance,\r\nOn the river's broad expanse!\r\n\r\nDeep and still, that gliding stream\r\nBeautiful to thee must seem,\r\nAs the river of a dream.\r\n\r\nThen why pause with indecision,\r\nWhen bright angels in thy vision\r\nBeckon thee to fields Elysian?\r\n\r\nSeest thou shadows sailing by,\r\nAs the dove, with startled eye,\r\nSees the falcon's shadow fly?\r\n\r\nHearest thou voices on the shore,\r\nThat our ears perceive no more,\r\nDeafened by the cataract's roar?\r\n\r\nO, thou child of many prayers!\r\nLife hath quicksands,--Life hath snares\r\nCare and age come unawares!\r\n\r\nLike the swell of some sweet tune,\r\nMorning rises into noon,\r\nMay glides onward into June.\r\n\r\nChildhood is the bough, where slumbered\r\nBirds and blossoms many-numbered;--\r\nAge, that bough with snows encumbered.\r\n\r\nGather, then, each flower that grows,\r\nWhen the young heart overflows,\r\nTo embalm that tent of snows.\r\n\r\nBear a lily in thy hand;\r\nGates of brass cannot withstand\r\nOne touch of that magic wand.\r\n\r\nBear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,\r\nIn thy heart the dew of youth,\r\nOn thy lips the smile of truth!\r\n\r\nO, that dew, like balm, shall steal\r\nInto wounds that cannot heal,\r\nEven as sleep our eyes doth seal;\r\n\r\nAnd that smile, like sunshine, dart\r\nInto many a sunless heart,\r\nFor a smile of God thou art.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Mezzo Cammon<\/h2>\n
Half of my life is gone, and I have let\r\n  The years slip from me and have not fulfilled\r\n  The aspiration of my youth, to build\r\n  Some tower of song with lofty parapet.\r\nNot indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret\r\n  Of restless passions chat would not be stilled,\r\n  But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,\r\n  Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;\r\nThough, half way up the hill, I see the Past\r\n  Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--\r\n  A city in the twilight dim and vast,\r\nWith smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.--\r\n  And hear above me on the autumnal blast\r\n  The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Midnight Mass for the Dying<\/h2>\n
Yes, the Year is growing old,\r\n  And his eye is pale and bleared!\r\nDeath, with frosty hand and cold,\r\n  Plucks the old man by the beard,\r\n       Sorely, sorely!\r\n\r\nThe leaves are falling, falling,\r\n  Solemnly and slow;\r\nCaw! caw! the rooks are calling,\r\n  It is a sound of woe,\r\n       A sound of woe!\r\n\r\nThrough woods and mountain passes\r\n  The winds, like anthems, roll;\r\nThey are chanting solemn masses,\r\n  Singing, \"Pray for this poor soul,\r\n       Pray, pray!\"\r\n\r\nAnd the hooded clouds, like friars,\r\n  Tell their beads in drops of rain,\r\nAnd patter their doleful prayers;\r\n  But their prayers are all in vain,\r\n       All in vain!\r\n\r\nThere he stands in the foul weather,\r\n  The foolish, fond Old Year,\r\nCrowned with wild flowers and with heather,\r\n    Like weak, despised Lear,\r\n       A king, a king!\r\n\r\nThen comes the summer-like day,\r\n  Bids the old man rejoice!\r\nHis joy! his last!  O, the man gray\r\n  Loveth that ever-soft voice,\r\n       Gentle and low.\r\n\r\nTo the crimson woods he saith,\r\n  To the voice gentle and low\r\nOf the soft air, like a daughter's breath,\r\n  \"Pray do not mock me so!\r\n       Do not laugh at me!\"\r\n\r\nAnd now the sweet day is dead;\r\n  Cold in his arms it lies;\r\nNo stain from its breath is spread\r\n  Over the glassy skies,\r\n       No mist or stain!\r\n\r\nThen, too, the Old Year dieth,\r\n  And the forests utter a moan,\r\nLike the voice of one who crieth\r\n  In the wilderness alone,\r\n       \"Vex not his ghost!\"\r\n\r\nThen comes, with an awful roar,\r\n  Gathering and sounding on,\r\nThe storm-wind from Labrador,\r\n  The wind Euroclydon,\r\n        The storm-wind!\r\n\r\nHowl! howl! and from the forest\r\n  Sweep the red leaves away!\r\nWould, the sins that thou abhorrest,\r\n  O Soul! could thus decay,\r\n       And be swept away!\r\nFor there shall come a mightier blast,\r\n  There shall be a darker day;\r\n\r\nAnd the stars, from heaven down-cast\r\n  Like red leaves be swept away!\r\n       Kyrie, eleyson!\r\n       Christe, eleyson!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Norman Baron<\/h2>\n
  Dans les moments de la vie ou la reflexion devient plus calme\r\net plus profonde, ou l'interet et l'avarice parlent moins haut\r\nque la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de\r\nmaladie, et de peril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de\r\nposseder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agreable a Dieu, qui\r\navait cree tous les hommes a son image.--THIERRY, Conquete de\r\nl'Angleterre.\r\n\r\nIn his chamber, weak and dying,\r\nWas the Norman baron lying;\r\nLoud, without, the tempest thundered\r\n      And the castle-turret shook,\r\n\r\nIn this fight was Death the gainer,\r\nSpite of vassal and retainer,\r\nAnd the lands his sires had plundered,\r\n      Written in the Doomsday Book.\r\n\r\nBy his bed a monk was seated,\r\nWho in humble voice repeated\r\nMany a prayer and pater-noster,\r\n      From the missal on his knee;\r\n\r\nAnd, amid the tempest pealing,\r\nSounds of bells came faintly stealing,\r\nBells, that from the neighboring kloster\r\n      Rang for the Nativity.\r\n\r\nIn the hall, the serf and vassal\r\nHeld, that night their Christmas wassail;\r\nMany a carol, old and saintly,\r\n      Sang the minstrels and the waits;\r\n\r\nAnd so loud these Saxon gleemen\r\nSang to slaves the songs of freemen,\r\nThat the storm was heard but faintly,\r\n      Knocking at the castle-gates.\r\n\r\nTill at length the lays they chanted\r\nReached the chamber terror-haunted,\r\nWhere the monk, with accents holy,\r\n      Whispered at the baron's ear.\r\n\r\nTears upon his eyelids glistened,\r\nAs he paused awhile and listened,\r\nAnd the dying baron slowly\r\n      Turned his weary head to hear.\r\n\r\n\"Wassail for the kingly stranger\r\nBorn and cradled in a manger!\r\nKing, like David, priest, like Aaron,\r\n      Christ is born to set us free!\"\r\n\r\nAnd the lightning showed the sainted\r\nFigures on the casement painted,\r\nAnd exclaimed the shuddering baron,\r\n      \"Miserere, Domine!\"\r\n\r\nIn that hour of deep contrition\r\nHe beheld, with clearer vision,\r\nThrough all outward show and fashion,\r\n      Justice, the Avenger, rise.\r\n\r\nAll the pomp of earth had vanished,\r\nFalsehood and deceit were banished,\r\nReason spake more loud than passion,\r\n      And the truth wore no disguise.\r\n\r\nEvery vassal of his banner,\r\nEvery serf born to his manor,\r\nAll those wronged and wretched creatures,\r\n      By his hand were freed again.\r\n\r\nAnd, as on the sacred missal\r\nHe recorded their dismissal,\r\nDeath relaxed his iron features,\r\n      And the monk replied, \"Amen!\"\r\n\r\nMany centuries have been numbered\r\nSince in death the baron slumbered\r\nBy the convent's sculptured portal,\r\n      Mingling with the common dust:\r\n\r\nBut the good deed, through the ages\r\nLiving in historic pages,\r\nBrighter grows and gleams immortal,\r\n      Unconsumed by moth or rust\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Nuremberg<\/h2>\n
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands\r\nRise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.\r\n\r\nQuaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,\r\nMemories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:\r\n\r\nMemories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,\r\nHad their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;\r\n\r\nAnd thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,\r\nThat their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.\r\n\r\nIn the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron hand,\r\nStands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;\r\n\r\nOn the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days\r\nSat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.\r\n\r\nEverywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:\r\nFountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;\r\n\r\nAnd above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,\r\nBy a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.\r\n\r\nIn the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,\r\nAnd in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;\r\n\r\nIn the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,\r\nLike the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.\r\n\r\nHere, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,\r\nLived and labored Albrecht Durer, the Evangelist of Art;\r\n\r\nHence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,\r\nLike an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.\r\n\r\nEmigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;\r\nDead he is not, but departed,--for the artist never dies.\r\n\r\nFairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,\r\nThat he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!\r\n\r\nThrough these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,\r\nWalked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains.\r\n\r\nFrom remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,\r\nBuilding nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.\r\n\r\nAs the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,\r\nAnd the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;\r\n\r\nThanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom\r\nIn the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.\r\n\r\nHere Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,\r\nWisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.\r\n\r\nBut his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,\r\nAnd a garland in the window, and his face above the door;\r\n\r\nPainted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,\r\nAs the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.\r\n\r\nAnd at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,\r\nQuaffing ale from pewter tankard; in the master's antique chair.\r\n\r\nVanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye\r\nWave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.\r\n\r\nNot thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;\r\nBut thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.\r\n\r\nThus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,\r\nAs he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:\r\n\r\nGathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,\r\nThe nobility of labor,--the long pedigree of toil.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Occultation of Orion<\/h2>\n
I saw, as in a dream sublime,\r\nThe balance in the hand of Time.\r\nO'er East and West its beam impended;\r\nAnd day, with all its hours of light,\r\nWas slowly sinking out of sight,\r\nWhile, opposite, the scale of night\r\nSilently with the stars ascended.\r\n\r\nLike the astrologers of eld,\r\nIn that bright vision I beheld\r\nGreater and deeper mysteries.\r\nI saw, with its celestial keys,\r\nIts chords of air, its frets of fire,\r\nThe Samian's great Aeolian lyre,\r\nRising through all its sevenfold bars,\r\nFrom earth unto the fixed stars.\r\nAnd through the dewy atmosphere,\r\nNot only could I see, but hear,\r\nIts wondrous and harmonious strings,\r\nIn sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,\r\nFrom Dian's circle light and near,\r\nOnward to vaster and wider rings.\r\nWhere, chanting through his beard of snows,\r\nMajestic, mournful, Saturn goes,\r\nAnd down the sunless realms of space\r\nReverberates the thunder of his bass.\r\n\r\nBeneath the sky's triumphal arch\r\nThis music sounded like a march,\r\nAnd with its chorus seemed to be\r\nPreluding some great tragedy.\r\nSirius was rising in the east;\r\nAnd, slow ascending one by one,\r\nThe kindling constellations shone.\r\nBegirt with many a blazing star,\r\nStood the great giant Algebar,\r\nOrion, hunter of the beast!\r\nHis sword hung gleaming by his side,\r\nAnd, on his arm, the lion's hide\r\nScattered across the midnight air\r\nThe golden radiance of its hair.\r\n\r\nThe moon was pallid, but not faint;\r\nAnd beautiful as some fair saint,\r\nSerenely moving on her way\r\nIn hours of trial and dismay.\r\nAs if she heard the voice of God,\r\nUnharmed with naked feet she trod\r\nUpon the hot and burning stars,\r\nAs on the glowing coals and bars,\r\nThat were to prove her strength, and try\r\nHer holiness and her purity.\r\n\r\nThus moving on, with silent pace,\r\nAnd triumph in her sweet, pale face,\r\nShe reached the station of Orion.\r\nAghast he stood in strange alarm!\r\nAnd suddenly from his outstretched arm\r\nDown fell the red skin of the lion\r\nInto the river at his feet.\r\nHis mighty club no longer beat\r\nThe forehead of the bull; but he\r\nReeled as of yore beside the sea,\r\nWhen, blinded by Oenopion,\r\nHe sought the blacksmith at his forge,\r\nAnd, climbing up the mountain gorge,\r\nFixed his blank eyes upon the sun.\r\n\r\nThen, through the silence overhead,\r\nAn angel with a trumpet said,\r\n\"Forevermore, forevermore,\r\nThe reign of violence is o'er!\"\r\nAnd, like an instrument that flings\r\nIts music on another's strings,\r\nThe trumpet of the angel cast\r\nUpon the heavenly lyre its blast,\r\nAnd on from sphere to sphere the words\r\nRe-echoed down the burning chords,--\r\n\"Forevermore, forevermore,\r\nThe reign of violence is o'er!\"<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Old Clock on the Stairs<\/h2>\n
L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans\r\ncesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux:\r\n\"Toujours! jamais!  Jamais! toujours!\"--JACQUES BRIDAINE.\r\n\r\nSomewhat back from the village street\r\nStands the old-fashioned country-seat.\r\nAcross its antique portico\r\nTall poplar-trees their shadows throw;\r\nAnd from its station in the hall\r\nAn ancient timepiece says to all,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nHalf-way up the stairs it stands,\r\nAnd points and beckons with its hands\r\nFrom its case of massive oak,\r\nLike a monk, who, under his cloak,\r\nCrosses himself, and sighs, alas!\r\nWith sorrowful voice to all who pass,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nBy day its voice is low and light;\r\nBut in the silent dead of night,\r\nDistinct as a passing footstep's fall,\r\nIt echoes along the vacant hall,\r\nAlong the ceiling, along the floor,\r\nAnd seems to say, at each chamber-door,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nThrough days of sorrow and of mirth,\r\nThrough days of death and days of birth,\r\nThrough every swift vicissitude\r\nOf changeful time, unchanged it has stood,\r\nAnd as if, like God, it all things saw,\r\nIt calmly repeats those words of awe,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nIn that mansion used to be\r\nFree-hearted Hospitality;\r\nHis great fires up the chimney roared;\r\nThe stranger feasted at his board;\r\nBut, like the skeleton at the feast,\r\nThat warning timepiece never ceased,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nThere groups of merry children played,\r\nThere youths and maidens dreaming strayed;\r\nO precious hours! O golden prime,\r\nAnd affluence of love and time!\r\nEven as a Miser counts his gold,\r\nThose hours the ancient timepiece told,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nFrom that chamber, clothed in white,\r\nThe bride came forth on her wedding night;\r\nThere, in that silent room below,\r\nThe dead lay in his shroud of snow;\r\nAnd in the hush that followed the prayer,\r\nWas heard the old clock on the stair,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nAll are scattered now and fled,\r\nSome are married, some are dead;\r\nAnd when I ask, with throbs of pain.\r\n\"Ah! when shall they all meet again?\"\r\nAs in the days long since gone by,\r\nThe ancient timepiece makes reply,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"\r\n\r\nNever here, forever there,\r\nWhere all parting, pain, and care,\r\nAnd death, and time shall disappear,--\r\nForever there, but never here!\r\nThe horologe of Eternity\r\nSayeth this incessantly,--\r\n      \"Forever--never!\r\n      Never--forever!\"<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
A Psalm of Life<\/h2>\n
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist<\/h3>\n
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,\r\n  Life is but an empty dream!\r\nFor the soul is dead that slumbers,\r\n  And things are not what they seem.\r\n\r\nLife is real!  Life is earnest!\r\n  And the grave is not its goal;\r\nDust thou art, to dust returnest,\r\n  Was not spoken of the soul.\r\n\r\nNot enjoyment, and not sorrow,\r\n  Is our destined end or way;\r\nBut to act, that each to-morrow\r\n  Find us farther than to-day.\r\n\r\nArt is long, and Time is fleeting,\r\n  And our hearts, though stout and brave,\r\nStill, like muffled drums, are beating\r\n  Funeral marches to the grave.\r\n\r\nIn the world's broad field of battle,\r\n  In the bivouac of Life,\r\nBe not like dumb, driven cattle!\r\n  Be a hero in the strife!\r\n\r\nTrust no Future, howe'er pleasant!\r\n  Let the dead Past bury its dead!\r\nAct,--act in the living Present!\r\n  Heart within, and God o'erhead!\r\n\r\nLives of great men all remind us\r\n  We can make our lives sublime,\r\nAnd, departing, leave behind us\r\n  Footprints on the sands of time;--\r\n\r\nFootprints, that perhaps another,\r\n  Sailing o'er life's solemn main,\r\nA forlorn and shipwrecked brother,\r\n  Seeing, shall take heart again.\r\n\r\nLet us, then, be up and doing,\r\n  With a heart for any fate;\r\nStill achieving, still pursuing,\r\n  Learn to labor and to wait.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Quadroon Girl<\/h2>\n
The Slaver in the broad lagoon\r\n  Lay moored with idle sail;\r\nHe waited for the rising moon,\r\n  And for the evening gale.\r\n\r\nUnder the shore his boat was tied,\r\n  And all her listless crew\r\nWatched the gray alligator slide\r\n  Into the still bayou.\r\n\r\nOdors of orange-flowers, and spice,\r\n  Reached them from time to time,\r\nLike airs that breathe from Paradise\r\n  Upon a world of crime.\r\n\r\nThe Planter, under his roof of thatch,\r\n  Smoked thoughtfully and slow;\r\nThe Slaver's thumb was on the latch,\r\n  He seemed in haste to go.\r\n\r\nHe said, \"My ship at anchor rides\r\n  In yonder broad lagoon;\r\nI only wait the evening tides,\r\n  And the rising of the moon.\r\n\r\nBefore them, with her face upraised,\r\n  In timid attitude,\r\nLike one half curious, half amazed,\r\n  A Quadroon maiden stood.\r\n\r\nHer eyes were large, and full of light,\r\n  Her arms and neck were bare;\r\nNo garment she wore save a kirtle bright,\r\n  And her own long, raven hair.\r\n\r\nAnd on her lips there played a smile\r\n  As holy, meek, and faint,\r\nAs lights in some cathedral aisle\r\n  The features of a saint.\r\n\r\n\"The soil is barren,--the farm is old\";\r\n  The thoughtful planter said;\r\nThen looked upon the Slaver's gold,\r\n  And then upon the maid.\r\n\r\nHis heart within him was at strife\r\n  With such accursed gains:\r\nFor he knew whose passions gave her life,\r\n  Whose blood ran in her veins.\r\n\r\nBut the voice of nature was too weak;\r\n  He took the glittering gold!\r\nThen pale as death grew the maiden's cheek,\r\n  Her hands as icy cold.\r\n\r\nThe Slaver led her from the door,\r\n  He led her by the hand,\r\nTo be his slave and paramour\r\n  In a strange and distant land!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Rain in Summer<\/h2>\n
How beautiful is the rain!\r\nAfter the dust and heat,\r\nIn the broad and fiery street,\r\nIn the narrow lane,\r\nHow beautiful is the rain!\r\n\r\nHow it clatters along the roofs,\r\nLike the tramp of hoofs\r\nHow it gushes and struggles out\r\nFrom the throat of the overflowing spout!\r\n\r\nAcross the window-pane\r\nIt pours and pours;\r\nAnd swift and wide,\r\nWith a muddy tide,\r\nLike a river down the gutter roars\r\nThe rain, the welcome rain!\r\n\r\nThe sick man from his chamber looks\r\nAt the twisted brooks;\r\nHe can feel the cool\r\nBreath of each little pool;\r\nHis fevered brain\r\nGrows calm again,\r\nAnd he breathes a blessing on the rain.\r\n\r\nFrom the neighboring school\r\nCome the boys,\r\nWith more than their wonted noise\r\nAnd commotion;\r\nAnd down the wet streets\r\nSail their mimic fleets,\r\nTill the treacherous pool\r\nIngulfs them in its whirling\r\nAnd turbulent ocean.\r\n\r\nIn the country, on every side,\r\nWhere far and wide,\r\nLike a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,\r\nStretches the plain,\r\nTo the dry grass and the drier grain\r\nHow welcome is the rain!\r\n\r\nIn the furrowed land\r\nThe toilsome and patient oxen stand;\r\nLifting the yoke encumbered head,\r\nWith their dilated nostrils spread,\r\nThey silently inhale\r\nThe clover-scented gale,\r\nAnd the vapors that arise\r\nFrom the well-watered and smoking soil.\r\nFor this rest in the furrow after toil\r\nTheir large and lustrous eyes\r\nSeem to thank the Lord,\r\nMore than man's spoken word.\r\n\r\nNear at hand,\r\nFrom under the sheltering trees,\r\nThe farmer sees\r\nHis pastures, and his fields of grain,\r\nAs they bend their tops\r\nTo the numberless beating drops\r\nOf the incessant rain.\r\nHe counts it as no sin\r\nThat he sees therein\r\nOnly his own thrift and gain.\r\n\r\nThese, and far more than these,\r\nThe Poet sees!\r\nHe can behold\r\nAquarius old\r\nWalking the fenceless fields of air;\r\nAnd from each ample fold\r\nOf the clouds about him rolled\r\nScattering everywhere\r\nThe showery rain,\r\nAs the farmer scatters his grain.\r\n\r\nHe can behold\r\nThings manifold\r\nThat have not yet been wholly told,--\r\nHave not been wholly sung nor said.\r\nFor his thought, that never stops,\r\nFollows the water-drops\r\nDown to the graves of the dead,\r\nDown through chasms and gulfs profound,\r\nTo the dreary fountain-head\r\nOf lakes and rivers under ground;\r\nAnd sees them, when the rain is done,\r\nOn the bridge of colors seven\r\nClimbing up once more to heaven,\r\nOpposite the setting sun.\r\n\r\nThus the Seer,\r\nWith vision clear,\r\nSees forms appear and disappear,\r\nIn the perpetual round of strange,\r\nMysterious change\r\nFrom birth to death, from death to birth,\r\nFrom earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;\r\nTill glimpses more sublime\r\nOf things, unseen before,\r\nUnto his wondering eyes reveal\r\nThe Universe, as an immeasurable wheel\r\nTurning forevermore\r\nIn the rapid and rushing river of Time.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Rainy Day<\/h2>\n
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary\r\nIt rains, and the wind is never weary;\r\nThe vine still clings to the mouldering wall,\r\nBut at every gust the dead leaves fall,\r\n    And the day is dark and dreary.\r\n\r\nMy life is cold, and dark, and dreary;\r\nIt rains, and the wind is never weary;\r\nMy thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,\r\nBut the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,\r\n    And the days are dark and dreary.\r\n\r\nBe still, sad heart! and cease repining;\r\nBehind the clouds is the sun still shining;\r\nThy fate is the common fate of all,\r\nInto each life some rain must fall,\r\n    Some days must be dark and dreary.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Reaper and the Flowers<\/h2>\n
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,\r\n  And, with his sickle keen,\r\nHe reaps the bearded grain at a breath,\r\n  And the flowers that grow between.\r\n\r\n\"Shall I have naught that is fair?\" saith he;\r\n  \"Have naught but the bearded grain?\r\nThough the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,\r\n  I will give them all back again.\"\r\n\r\nHe gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,\r\n  He kissed their drooping leaves;\r\nIt was for the Lord of Paradise\r\n  He bound them in his sheaves.\r\n\r\n\"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,\"\r\n  The Reaper said, and smiled;\r\n\"Dear tokens of the earth are they,\r\n  Where he was once a child.\r\n\r\n\"They shall all bloom in fields of light,\r\n  Transplanted by my care,\r\nAnd saints, upon their garments white,\r\n  These sacred blossoms wear.\"\r\n\r\nAnd the mother gave, in tears and pain,\r\n  The flowers she most did love;\r\nShe knew she should find them all again\r\n  In the fields of light above.\r\n\r\nO, not in cruelty, not in wrath,\r\n  The Reaper came that day;\r\n'T was an angel visited the green earth,\r\n  And took the flowers away.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Serenade<\/h2>\n
Stars of the summer night!\r\n    Far in yon azure deeps,\r\nHide, hide your golden light!\r\n    She sleeps!\r\nMy lady sleeps!\r\n    Sleeps!\r\n\r\nMoon of the summer night!\r\n    Far down yon western steeps,\r\nSink, sink in silver light!\r\n    She sleeps!\r\nMy lady sleeps!\r\n    Sleeps!\r\n\r\nWind of the summer night!\r\n    Where yonder woodbine creeps,\r\nFold, fold thy pinions light!\r\n    She sleeps!\r\nMy lady sleeps!\r\n    Sleeps!\r\n\r\nDreams of the summer night!\r\n    Tell her, her lover keeps\r\nWatch! while in slumbers light\r\n    She sleeps\r\nMy lady sleeps\r\n    Sleeps!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Skeleton in Armor<\/h2>\n
\"Speak! speak I thou fearful guest\r\n Who, with thy hollow breast\r\n Still in rude armor drest,\r\n   Comest to daunt me!\r\n Wrapt not in Eastern balms,\r\n Bat with thy fleshless palms\r\n Stretched, as if asking alms,\r\n   Why dost thou haunt me?\"\r\n\r\nThen, from those cavernous eyes\r\nPale flashes seemed to rise,\r\nAs when the Northern skies\r\n   Gleam in December;\r\nAnd, like the water's flow\r\nUnder December's snow,\r\nCame a dull voice of woe\r\n   From the heart's chamber.\r\n\r\n\"I was a Viking old!\r\nMy deeds, though manifold,\r\nNo Skald in song has told,\r\n   No Saga taught thee!\r\nTake heed, that in thy verse\r\nThou dost the tale rehearse,\r\nElse dread a dead man's curse;\r\n   For this I sought thee.\r\n\r\n\"Far in the Northern Land,\r\nBy the wild Baltic's strand,\r\nI, with my childish hand,\r\n   Tamed the gerfalcon;\r\nAnd, with my skates fast-bound,\r\nSkimmed the half-frozen Sound,\r\n   That the poor whimpering hound\r\nTrembled to walk on.\r\n\r\n\"Oft to his frozen lair\r\nTracked I the grisly bear,\r\nWhile from my path the hare\r\n   Fled like a shadow;\r\nOft through the forest dark\r\nFollowed the were-wolf's bark,\r\nUntil the soaring lark\r\n  Sang from the meadow.\r\n\r\n\"But when I older grew,\r\nJoining a corsair's crew,\r\nO'er the dark sea I flew\r\n   With the marauders.\r\nWild was the life we led;\r\nMany the souls that sped,\r\nMany the hearts that bled,\r\n  By our stern orders.\r\n\r\n\"Many a wassail-bout\r\nWore the long Winter out;\r\nOften our midnight shout\r\n  Set the cocks crowing,\r\nAs we the Berserk's tale\r\nMeasured in cups of ale,\r\nDraining the oaken pail,\r\n  Filled to o'erflowing.\r\n\r\n\"Once as I told in glee\r\nTales of the stormy sea,\r\nSoft eyes did gaze on me,\r\n  Burning yet tender;\r\nAnd as the white stars shine\r\nOn the dark Norway pine,\r\nOn that dark heart of mine\r\n  Fell their soft splendor.\r\n\r\n\"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,\r\nYielding, yet half afraid,\r\nAnd in the forest's shade\r\n  Our vows were plighted.\r\nUnder its loosened vest\r\nFluttered her little breast\r\nLike birds within their nest\r\n  By the hawk frighted.\r\n\r\n\"Bright in her father's hall\r\nShields gleamed upon the wall,\r\nLoud sang the minstrels all,\r\n  Chanting his glory;\r\nWhen of old Hildebrand\r\nI asked his daughter's hand,\r\nMute did the minstrels stand\r\n  To hear my story.\r\n\r\n\"While the brown ale he quaffed,\r\nLoud then the champion laughed,\r\nAnd as the wind-gusts waft\r\n  The sea-foam brightly,\r\nSo the loud laugh of scorn,\r\nOut of those lips unshorn,\r\nFrom the deep drinking-horn\r\n  Blew the foam lightly.\r\n\r\n\"She was a Prince's child,\r\nI but a Viking wild,\r\nAnd though she blushed and smiled,\r\n  I was discarded!\r\nShould not the dove so white\r\nFollow the sea-mew's flight,\r\nWhy did they leave that night\r\n  Her nest unguarded?\r\n\r\n\"Scarce had I put to sea,\r\nBearing the maid with me,\r\nFairest of all was she\r\n  Among the Norsemen!\r\nWhen on the white sea-strand,\r\nWaving his armed hand,\r\nSaw we old Hildebrand,\r\n  With twenty horsemen.\r\n\r\n\"Then launched they to the blast,\r\nBent like a reed each mast,\r\nYet we were gaining fast,\r\n  When the wind failed us;\r\nAnd with a sudden flaw\r\nCame round the gusty Skaw,\r\nSo that our foe we saw\r\n  Laugh as he hailed us.\r\n\r\n\"And as to catch the gale\r\nRound veered the flapping sail,\r\nDeath I was the helmsman's hail,\r\n  Death without quarter!\r\nMid-ships with iron keel\r\nStruck we her ribs of steel\r\nDown her black hulk did reel\r\n  Through the black water!\r\n\r\n\"As with his wings aslant,\r\nSails the fierce cormorant,\r\nSeeking some rocky haunt\r\n  With his prey laden,\r\nSo toward the open main,\r\nBeating to sea again,\r\nThrough the wild hurricane,\r\n  Bore I the maiden.\r\n\r\n\"Three weeks we westward bore,\r\nAnd when the storm was o'er,\r\nCloud-like we saw the shore\r\n  Stretching to leeward;\r\nThere for my lady's bower\r\nBuilt I the lofty tower,\r\nWhich, to this very hour,\r\n  Stands looking seaward.\r\n\r\n\"There lived we many years;\r\nTime dried the maiden's tears\r\nShe had forgot her fears,\r\n  She was a mother.\r\nDeath closed her mild blue eyes,\r\nUnder that tower she lies;\r\nNe'er shall the sun arise\r\n  On such another!\r\n\r\n\"Still grew my bosom then.\r\nStill as a stagnant fen!\r\nHateful to me were men,\r\n  The sunlight hateful!\r\nIn the vast forest here,\r\nClad in my warlike gear,\r\nFell I upon my spear,\r\n  O, death was grateful!\r\n\r\n\"Thus, seamed with many scars,\r\nBursting these prison bars,\r\nUp to its native stars\r\n  My soul ascended!\r\nThere from the flowing bowl\r\nDeep drinks the warrior's soul,\r\nSkoal! to the Northland! skoal!\"\r\n  Thus the tale ended.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp<\/h2>\n
In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp\r\n  The hunted Negro lay;\r\nHe saw the fire of the midnight camp,\r\nAnd heard at times a horse's tramp\r\n  And a bloodhound's distant bay.\r\n\r\nWhere will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,\r\n  In bulrush and in brake;\r\nWhere waving mosses shroud the pine,\r\nAnd the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine\r\n  Is spotted like the snake;\r\n\r\nWhere hardly a human foot could pass,\r\n  Or a human heart would dare,\r\nOn the quaking turf of the green morass\r\nHe crouched in the rank and tangled grass,\r\n  Like a wild beast in his lair.\r\n\r\nA poor old slave, infirm and lame;\r\n  Great scars deformed his face;\r\nOn his forehead he bore the brand of shame,\r\nAnd the rags, that hid his mangled frame,\r\n  Were the livery of disgrace.\r\n\r\nAll things above were bright and fair,\r\n  All things were glad and free;\r\nLithe squirrels darted here and there,\r\nAnd wild birds filled the echoing air\r\n  With songs of Liberty!\r\n\r\nOn him alone was the doom of pain,\r\n  From the morning of his birth;\r\nOn him alone the curse of Cain\r\nFell, like a flail on the garnered grain,\r\n  And struck him to the earth!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Slave Singing at Midnight<\/h2>\n
Loud he sang the psalm of David!\r\nHe, a Negro and enslaved,\r\nSang of Israel's victory,\r\nSang of Zion, bright and free.\r\n\r\nIn that hour, when night is calmest,\r\nSang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,\r\nIn a voice so sweet and clear\r\nThat I could not choose but hear,\r\n\r\nSongs of triumph, and ascriptions,\r\nSuch as reached the swart Egyptians,\r\nWhen upon the Red Sea coast\r\nPerished Pharaoh and his host.\r\n\r\nAnd the voice of his devotion\r\nFilled my soul with strange emotion;\r\nFor its tones by turns were glad,\r\nSweetly solemn, wildly sad.\r\n\r\nPaul and Silas, in their prison,\r\nSang of Christ, the Lord arisen,\r\nAnd an earthquake's arm of might\r\nBroke their dungeon-gates at night.\r\n\r\nBut, alas! what holy angel\r\nBrings the Slave this glad evangel?\r\nAnd what earthquake's arm of might\r\nBreaks his dungeon-gates at night?<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Slave’s Dream<\/h2>\n
Beside the ungathered rice he lay,\r\n  His sickle in his hand;\r\nHis breast was bare, his matted hair\r\n  Was buried in the sand.\r\nAgain, in the mist and shadow of sleep,\r\n  He saw his Native Land.\r\n\r\nWide through the landscape of his dreams\r\n  The lordly Niger flowed;\r\nBeneath the palm-trees on the plain\r\n  Once more a king he strode;\r\nAnd heard the tinkling caravans\r\n  Descend the mountain-road.\r\n\r\nHe saw once more his dark-eyed queen\r\n  Among her children stand;\r\nThey clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,\r\n  They held him by the hand!--\r\nA tear burst from the sleeper's lids\r\n  And fell into the sand.\r\n\r\nAnd then at furious speed he rode\r\n  Along the Niger's bank;\r\nHis bridle-reins were golden chains,\r\n  And, with a martial clank,\r\nAt each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel\r\n  Smiting his stallion's flank.\r\n\r\nBefore him, like a blood-red flag,\r\n  The bright flamingoes flew;\r\nFrom morn till night he followed their flight,\r\n  O'er plains where the tamarind grew,\r\nTill he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,\r\n  And the ocean rose to view.\r\n\r\nAt night he heard the lion roar,\r\n  And the hyena scream,\r\nAnd the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds\r\n  Beside some hidden stream;\r\nAnd it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,\r\n  Through the triumph of his dream.\r\n\r\nThe forests, with their myriad tongues,\r\n  Shouted of liberty;\r\nAnd the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,\r\n  With a voice so wild and free,\r\nThat he started in his sleep and smiled\r\n  At their tempestuous glee.\r\n\r\nHe did not feel the driver's whip,\r\n  Nor the burning heat of day;\r\nFor Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,\r\n  And his lifeless body lay\r\nA worn-out fetter, that the soul\r\n  Had broken and thrown away!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Spirit of Poetry<\/h2>\n
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,\r\nThat dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;\r\nWhere, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,\r\nThe wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,\r\nThe leaves above their sunny palms outspread.\r\nWith what a tender and impassioned voice\r\nIt fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,\r\nWhen the fast ushering star of morning comes\r\nO'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;\r\nOr when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,\r\nIn mourning weeds, from out the western gate,\r\nDeparts with silent pace!  That spirit moves\r\nIn the green valley, where the silver brook,\r\nFrom its full laver, pours the white cascade;\r\nAnd, babbling low amid the tangled woods,\r\nSlips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.\r\nAnd frequent, on the everlasting hills,\r\nIts feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself\r\nIn all the dark embroidery of the storm,\r\nAnd shouts the stern, strong wind.  And here, amid\r\nThe silent majesty of these deep woods,\r\nIts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,\r\nAs to the sunshine and the pure, bright air\r\nTheir tops the green trees lift.  Hence gifted bards\r\nHave ever loved the calm and quiet shades.\r\nFor them there was an eloquent voice in all\r\nThe sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,\r\nThe flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,\r\nBlue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,\r\nThe swelling upland, where the sidelong sun\r\nAslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,\r\nGroves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,\r\nMountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,\r\nThe distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,\r\nIn many a lazy syllable, repeating\r\nTheir old poetic legends to the wind.\r\n\r\n   And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill\r\nThe world; and, in these wayward days of youth,\r\nMy busy fancy oft embodies it,\r\nAs a bright image of the light and beauty\r\nThat dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms\r\nWe worship in our dreams, and the soft hues\r\nThat stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds\r\nWhen the sun sets.  Within her tender eye\r\nThe heaven of April, with its changing light,\r\nAnd when it wears the blue of May, is hung,\r\nAnd on her lip the rich, red rose.  Her hair\r\nIs like the summer tresses of the trees,\r\nWhen twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek\r\nBlushes the richness of an autumn sky,\r\nWith ever-shifting beauty.  Then her breath,\r\nIt is so like the gentle air of Spring,\r\nAs, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes\r\nFull of their fragrance, that it is a joy\r\nTo have it round us, and her silver voice\r\nIs the rich music of a summer bird,\r\nHeard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Sunrise on the Hills<\/h2>\n
  I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch\r\nWas glorious with the sun's returning march,\r\nAnd woods were brightened, and soft gales\r\nWent forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.\r\nThe clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,\r\nThey gathered mid-way round the wooded height,\r\nAnd, in their fading glory, shone\r\nLike hosts in battle overthrown.\r\nAs many a pinnacle, with shifting glance.\r\nThrough the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance,\r\nAnd rocking on the cliff was left\r\nThe dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.\r\nThe veil of cloud was lifted, and below\r\nGlowed the rich valley, and the river's flow\r\nWas darkened by the forest's shade,\r\nOr glistened in the white cascade;\r\nWhere upward, in the mellow blush of day,\r\nThe noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.\r\n\r\n  I heard the distant waters dash,\r\nI saw the current whirl and flash,\r\nAnd richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,\r\nThe woods were bending with a silent reach.\r\nThen o'er the vale, with gentle swell,\r\nThe music of the village bell\r\nCame sweetly to the echo-giving hills;\r\nAnd the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,\r\nWas ringing to the merry shout,\r\nThat faint and far the glen sent out,\r\nWhere, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,\r\nThrough thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.\r\n\r\n  If thou art worn and hard beset\r\nWith sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,\r\nIf thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep\r\nThy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,\r\nGo to the woods and hills!  No tears\r\nDim the sweet look that Nature wears.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
To a Child<\/h2>\n
Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,\r\nWith merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,\r\nThou gazest at the painted tiles,\r\nWhose figures grace,\r\nWith many a grotesque form and face.\r\nThe ancient chimney of thy nursery!\r\nThe lady with the gay macaw,\r\nThe dancing girl, the grave bashaw\r\nWith bearded lip and chin;\r\nAnd, leaning idly o'er his gate,\r\nBeneath the imperial fan of state,\r\nThe Chinese mandarin.\r\n\r\nWith what a look of proud command\r\nThou shakest in thy little hand\r\nThe coral rattle with its silver bells,\r\nMaking a merry tune!\r\nThousands of years in Indian seas\r\nThat coral grew, by slow degrees,\r\nUntil some deadly and wild monsoon\r\nDashed it on Coromandel's sand!\r\nThose silver bells\r\nReposed of yore,\r\nAs shapeless ore,\r\nFar down in the deep-sunken wells\r\nOf darksome mines,\r\nIn some obscure and sunless place,\r\nBeneath huge Chimborazo's base,\r\nOr Potosi's o'erhanging pines\r\nAnd thus for thee, O little child,\r\nThrough many a danger and escape,\r\nThe tall ships passed the stormy cape;\r\nFor thee in foreign lands remote,\r\nBeneath a burning, tropic clime,\r\nThe Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,\r\nHimself as swift and wild,\r\nIn falling, clutched the frail arbute,\r\nThe fibres of whose shallow root,\r\nUplifted from the soil, betrayed\r\nThe silver veins beneath it laid,\r\nThe buried treasures of the miser, Time.\r\n\r\nBut, lo! thy door is left ajar!\r\nThou hearest footsteps from afar!\r\nAnd, at the sound,\r\nThou turnest round\r\nWith quick and questioning eyes,\r\nLike one, who, in a foreign land,\r\nBeholds on every hand\r\nSome source of wonder and surprise!\r\nAnd, restlessly, impatiently,\r\nThou strivest, strugglest, to be free,\r\nThe four walls of thy nursery\r\nAre now like prison walls to thee.\r\nNo more thy mother's smiles,\r\nNo more the painted tiles,\r\nDelight thee, nor the playthings on the floor,\r\nThat won thy little, beating heart before;\r\nThou strugglest for the open door.\r\n\r\nThrough these once solitary halls\r\nThy pattering footstep falls.\r\nThe sound of thy merry voice\r\nMakes the old walls\r\nJubilant, and they rejoice\r\nWith the joy of thy young heart,\r\nO'er the light of whose gladness\r\nNo shadows of sadness\r\nFrom the sombre background of memory start.\r\n\r\nOnce, ah, once, within these walls,\r\nOne whom memory oft recalls,\r\nThe Father of his Country, dwelt.\r\nAnd yonder meadows broad and damp\r\nThe fires of the besieging camp\r\nEncircled with a burning belt.\r\nUp and down these echoing stairs,\r\nHeavy with the weight of cares,\r\nSounded his majestic tread;\r\nYes, within this very room\r\nSat he in those hours of gloom,\r\nWeary both in heart and head.\r\n\r\nBut what are these grave thoughts to thee?\r\nOut, out! into the open air!\r\nThy only dream is liberty,\r\nThou carest little how or where.\r\nI see thee eager at thy play,\r\nNow shouting to the apples on the tree,\r\nWith cheeks as round and red as they;\r\nAnd now among the yellow stalks,\r\nAmong the flowering shrubs and plants,\r\nAs restless as the bee.\r\nAlong the garden walks,\r\nThe tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace;\r\nAnd see at every turn how they efface\r\nWhole villages of sand-roofed tents,\r\nThat rise like golden domes\r\nAbove the cavernous and secret homes\r\nOf wandering and nomadic tribes of ants.\r\nAh, cruel little Tamerlane,\r\nWho, with thy dreadful reign,\r\nDost persecute and overwhelm\r\nThese hapless Troglodytes of thy realm!\r\nWhat! tired already! with those suppliant looks,\r\nAnd voice more beautiful than a poet's books,\r\nOr murmuring sound of water as it flows.\r\nThou comest back to parley with repose;\r\nThis rustic seat in the old apple-tree,\r\nWith its o'erhanging golden canopy\r\nOf leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,\r\nAnd shining with the argent light of dews,\r\nShall for a season be our place of rest.\r\nBeneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest,\r\nFrom which the laughing birds have taken wing,\r\nBy thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.\r\nDream-like the waters of the river gleam;\r\nA sailless vessel drops adown the stream,\r\nAnd like it, to a sea as wide and deep,\r\nThou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.\r\n\r\nO child! O new-born denizen\r\nOf life's great city! on thy head\r\nThe glory of the morn is shed,\r\nLike a celestial benison!\r\nHere at the portal thou dost stand,\r\nAnd with thy little hand\r\nThou openest the mysterious gate\r\nInto the future's undiscovered land.\r\nI see its valves expand,\r\nAs at the touch of Fate!\r\nInto those realms of love and hate,\r\nInto that darkness blank and drear,\r\nBy some prophetic feeling taught,\r\nI launch the bold, adventurous thought,\r\nFreighted with hope and fear;\r\nAs upon subterranean streams,\r\nIn caverns unexplored and dark,\r\nMen sometimes launch a fragile bark,\r\nLaden with flickering fire,\r\nAnd watch its swift-receding beams,\r\nUntil at length they disappear,\r\nAnd in the distant dark expire.\r\n\r\nBy what astrology of fear or hope\r\nDare I to cast thy horoscope!\r\nLike the new moon thy life appears;\r\nA little strip of silver light,\r\nAnd widening outward into night\r\nThe shadowy disk of future years;\r\nAnd yet upon its outer rim,\r\nA luminous circle, faint and dim,\r\nAnd scarcely visible to us here,\r\nRounds and completes the perfect sphere;\r\nA prophecy and intimation,\r\nA pale and feeble adumbration,\r\nOf the great world of light, that lies\r\nBehind all human destinies.\r\n\r\nAh! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,\r\nShould be to wet the dusty soil\r\nWith the hot tears and sweat of toil,--\r\nTo struggle with imperious thought,\r\nUntil the overburdened brain,\r\nWeary with labor, faint with pain,\r\nLike a jarred pendulum, retain\r\nOnly its motion, not its power,--\r\nRemember, in that perilous hour,\r\nWhen most afflicted and oppressed,\r\nFrom labor there shall come forth rest.\r\n\r\nAnd if a more auspicious fate\r\nOn thy advancing steps await\r\nStill let it ever be thy pride\r\nTo linger by the laborer's side;\r\nWith words of sympathy or song\r\nTo cheer the dreary march along\r\nOf the great army of the poor,\r\nO'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.\r\nNor to thyself the task shall be\r\nWithout reward; for thou shalt learn\r\nThe wisdom early to discern\r\nTrue beauty in utility;\r\nAs great Pythagoras of yore,\r\nStanding beside the blacksmith's door,\r\nAnd hearing the hammers, as they smote\r\nThe anvils with a different note,\r\nStole from the varying tones, that hung\r\nVibrant on every iron tongue,\r\nThe secret of the sounding wire.\r\nAnd formed the seven-chorded lyre.\r\n\r\nEnough! I will not play the Seer;\r\nI will no longer strive to ope\r\nThe mystic volume, where appear\r\nThe herald Hope, forerunning Fear,\r\nAnd Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.\r\nThy destiny remains untold;\r\nFor, like Acestes' shaft of old,\r\nThe swift thought kindles as it flies,\r\nAnd burns to ashes in the skies.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
To an Old Danish Songbook<\/h2>\n
Welcome, my old friend,\r\nWelcome to a foreign fireside,\r\nWhile the sullen gales of autumn\r\nShake the windows.\r\n\r\nThe ungrateful world\r\nHas, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,\r\nSince, beneath the skies of Denmark,\r\nFirst I met thee.\r\n\r\nThere are marks of age,\r\nThere are thumb-marks on thy margin,\r\nMade by hands that clasped thee rudely,\r\nAt the alehouse.\r\n\r\nSoiled and dull thou art;\r\nYellow are thy time-worn pages,\r\nAs the russet, rain-molested\r\nLeaves of autumn.\r\n\r\nThou art stained with wine\r\nScattered from hilarious goblets,\r\nAs the leaves with the libations\r\nOf Olympus.\r\n\r\nYet dost thou recall\r\nDays departed, half-forgotten,\r\nWhen in dreamy youth I wandered\r\nBy the Baltic,--\r\n\r\nWhen I paused to hear\r\nThe old ballad of King Christian\r\nShouted from suburban taverns\r\nIn the twilight.\r\n\r\nThou recallest bards,\r\nWho in solitary chambers,\r\nAnd with hearts by passion wasted,\r\nWrote thy pages.\r\n\r\nThou recallest homes\r\nWhere thy songs of love and friendship\r\nMade the gloomy Northern winter\r\nBright as summer.\r\n\r\nOnce some ancient Scald,\r\nIn his bleak, ancestral Iceland,\r\nChanted staves of these old ballads\r\nTo the Vikings.\r\n\r\nOnce in Elsinore,\r\nAt the court of old King Hamlet\r\nYorick and his boon companions\r\nSang these ditties.\r\n\r\nOnce Prince Frederick's Guard\r\nSang them in their smoky barracks;--\r\nSuddenly the English cannon\r\nJoined the chorus!\r\n\r\nPeasants in the field,\r\nSailors on the roaring ocean,\r\nStudents, tradesmen, pale mechanics,\r\nAll have sung them.\r\n\r\nThou hast been their friend;\r\nThey, alas! have left thee friendless!\r\nYet at least by one warm fireside\r\nArt thou welcome.\r\n\r\nAnd, as swallows build\r\nIn these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,\r\nSo thy twittering songs shall nestle\r\nIn my bosom,--\r\n\r\nQuiet, close, and warm,\r\nSheltered from all molestation,\r\nAnd recalling by their voices\r\nYouth and travel.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
To the Driving Cloud<\/h2>\n
Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;\r\nGloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!\r\nWrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's\r\nNarrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers\r\nStalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.\r\nWhat, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?\r\n\r\nHow canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies!\r\nHow canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains!\r\nAh! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge\r\nLooks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,\r\nClaiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions\r\nStarve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,\r\nHave been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!\r\n\r\nBack, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash!\r\nThere as a monarch thou reignest.  In autumn the leaves of the maple\r\nPave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer\r\nPine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.\r\nThere thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!\r\nThere thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elkhorn,\r\nOr by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omaha\r\nCalls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the\r\nBlackfeet!\r\n\r\nHark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts?\r\nIs it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,\r\nWho, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,\r\nAnd now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?\r\nFar more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,\r\nFar more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,\r\nLo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's\r\nMerciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires\r\nGleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak\r\nMarks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;\r\nIt is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!\r\nHa! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,\r\nDrifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
To the River Charles<\/h2>\n
River! that in silence windest\r\n Through the meadows, bright and free,\r\nTill at length thy rest thou findest\r\n In the bosom of the sea!\r\n\r\nFour long years of mingled feeling,\r\n Half in rest, and half in strife,\r\nI have seen thy waters stealing\r\n Onward, like the stream of life.\r\n\r\nThou hast taught me, Silent River!\r\n  Many a lesson, deep and long;\r\nThou hast been a generous giver;\r\n  I can give thee but a song.\r\n\r\nOft in sadness and in illness,\r\n  I have watched thy current glide,\r\nTill the beauty of its stillness\r\n  Overflowed me, like a tide.\r\n\r\nAnd in better hours and brighter,\r\n  When I saw thy waters gleam,\r\nI have felt my heart beat lighter,\r\n  And leap onward with thy stream.\r\n\r\nNot for this alone I love thee,\r\n  Nor because thy waves of blue\r\nFrom celestial seas above thee\r\n  Take their own celestial hue.\r\n\r\nWhere yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,\r\n  And thy waters disappear,\r\nFriends I love have dwelt beside thee,\r\n  And have made thy margin dear.\r\n\r\nMore than this;--thy name reminds me\r\n  Of three friends, all true and tried;\r\nAnd that name, like magic, binds me\r\n  Closer, closer to thy side.\r\n\r\nFriends my soul with joy remembers!\r\n  How like quivering flames they start,\r\nWhen I fan the living embers\r\n  On the hearth-stone of my heart!\r\n\r\n'T is for this, thou Silent River!\r\n  That my spirit leans to thee;\r\nThou hast been a generous giver,\r\n  Take this idle song from me.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
To William E. Channing<\/h2>\n
The pages of thy book I read,\r\n  And as I closed each one,\r\nMy heart, responding, ever said,\r\n  \"Servant of God! well done!\"\r\n\r\nWell done!  Thy words are great and bold;\r\n  At times they seem to me,\r\nLike Luther's, in the days of old,\r\n  Half-battles for the free.\r\n\r\nGo on, until this land revokes\r\n  The old and chartered Lie,\r\nThe feudal curse, whose whips and yokes\r\n  Insult humanity.\r\n\r\nA voice is ever at thy side\r\n  Speaking in tones of might,\r\nLike the prophetic voice, that cried\r\n  To John in Patmos, \"Write!\"\r\n\r\nWrite! and tell out this bloody tale;\r\n  Record this dire eclipse,\r\nThis Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail,\r\n  This dread Apocalypse!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Village Blacksmith<\/h2>\n
Under a spreading chestnut-tree\r\n  The village smithy stands;\r\nThe smith, a mighty man is he,\r\n  With large and sinewy hands;\r\nAnd the muscles of his brawny arms\r\n  Are strong as iron bands.\r\n\r\nHis hair is crisp, and black, and long,\r\n  His face is like the tan;\r\nHis brow is wet with honest sweat,\r\n  He earns whate'er he can,\r\nAnd looks the whole world in the face,\r\n  For he owes not any man.\r\n\r\nWeek in, week out, from morn till night,\r\n  You can hear his bellows blow;\r\nYou can hear him swing his heavy sledge,\r\n  With measured beat and slow,\r\nLike a sexton ringing the village bell,\r\n  When the evening sun is low.\r\n\r\nAnd children coming home from school\r\n  Look in at the open door;\r\nThey love to see the flaming forge,\r\n  And bear the bellows roar,\r\nAnd catch the burning sparks that fly\r\n  Like chaff from a threshing-floor.\r\n\r\nHe goes on Sunday to the church,\r\n  And sits among his boys;\r\nHe hears the parson pray and preach,\r\n  He hears his daughter's voice,\r\nSinging in the village choir,\r\n  And it makes his heart rejoice.\r\n\r\nIt sounds to him like her mother's voice,\r\n  Singing in Paradise!\r\nHe needs must think of her once more,\r\n  How in the grave she lies;\r\nAnd with his hard, rough hand he wipes\r\n  A tear out of his eyes.\r\n\r\nToiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,\r\n  Onward through life he goes;\r\nEach morning sees some task begin,\r\n  Each evening sees it close\r\nSomething attempted, something done,\r\n  Has earned a night's repose.\r\n\r\nThanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,\r\nFor the lesson thou hast taught!\r\nThus at the flaming forge of life\r\n  Our fortunes must be wrought;\r\nThus on its sounding anvil shaped\r\n  Each burning deed and thought.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Walter Von Der Vogelweid<\/h2>\n
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,\r\n  When he left this world of ours,\r\nLaid his body in the cloister,\r\n  Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.\r\n\r\nAnd he gave the monks his treasures,\r\n  Gave them all with this behest:\r\nThey should feed the birds at noontide\r\n  Daily on his place of rest;\r\n\r\nSaying, \"From these wandering minstrels\r\n  I have learned the art of song;\r\nLet me now repay the lessons\r\n  They have taught so well and long.\"\r\n\r\nThus the bard of love departed;\r\n  And, fulfilling his desire,\r\nOn his tomb the birds were feasted\r\n  By the children of the choir.\r\n\r\nDay by day, o'er tower and turret,\r\n  In foul weather and in fair,\r\nDay by day, in vaster numbers,\r\n  Flocked the poets of the air.\r\n\r\nOn the tree whose heavy branches\r\n  Overshadowed all the place,\r\nOn the pavement, on the tombstone,\r\n  On the poet's sculptured face,\r\n\r\nOn the cross-bars of each window,\r\n  On the lintel of each door,\r\nThey renewed the War of Wartburg,\r\n  Which the bard had fought before.\r\n\r\nThere they sang their merry carols,\r\n  Sang their lauds on every side;\r\nAnd the name their voices uttered\r\n  Was the name of Vogelweid.\r\n\r\nTill at length the portly abbot\r\n  Murmured, \"Why this waste of food?\r\nBe it changed to loaves henceforward\r\n  For our tasting brotherhood.\"\r\n\r\nThen in vain o'er tower and turret,\r\n  From the walls and woodland nests,\r\nWhen the minster bells rang noontide,\r\n  Gathered the unwelcome guests.\r\n\r\nThen in vain, with cries discordant,\r\n  Clamorous round the Gothic spire,\r\nScreamed the feathered Minnesingers\r\n  For the children of the choir.\r\n\r\nTime has long effaced the inscriptions\r\n  On the cloister's funeral stones,\r\nAnd tradition only tells us\r\n  Where repose the poet's bones.\r\n\r\nBut around the vast cathedral,\r\n  By sweet echoes multiplied,\r\nStill the birds repeat the legend,\r\n  And the name of Vogelweid.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Warning<\/h2>\n
Beware!  The Israelite of old, who tore\r\n  The lion in his path,--when, poor and blind,\r\nHe saw the blessed light of heaven no more,\r\n  Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind\r\nIn prison, and at last led forth to be\r\nA pander to Philistine revelry,--\r\n\r\nUpon the pillars of the temple laid\r\n  His desperate hands, and in its overthrow\r\nDestroyed himself, and with him those who made\r\n  A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;\r\nThe poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,\r\nExpired, and thousands perished in the fall!\r\n\r\nThere is a poor, blind Samson in this land,\r\n  Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel,\r\nWho may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,\r\n  And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,\r\nTill the vast Temple of our liberties.\r\nA shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Witnesses<\/h2>\n
In Ocean's wide domains,\r\n  Half buried in the sands,\r\nLie skeletons in chains,\r\n  With shackled feet and hands.\r\n\r\nBeyond the fall of dews,\r\n  Deeper than plummet lies,\r\nFloat ships, with all their crews,\r\n  No more to sink nor rise.\r\n\r\nThere the black Slave-ship swims,\r\n  Freighted with human forms,\r\nWhose fettered, fleshless limbs\r\n  Are not the sport of storms.\r\n\r\nThese are the bones of Slaves;\r\n  They gleam from the abyss;\r\nThey cry, from yawning waves,\r\n  \"We are the Witnesses!\"\r\n\r\nWithin Earth's wide domains\r\n  Are markets for men's lives;\r\nTheir necks are galled with chains,\r\n  Their wrists are cramped with gyves.\r\n\r\nDead bodies, that the kite\r\n  In deserts makes its prey;\r\nMurders, that with affright\r\n  Scare school-boys from their play!\r\n\r\nAll evil thoughts and deeds;\r\n  Anger, and lust, and pride;\r\nThe foulest, rankest weeds,\r\n  That choke Life's groaning tide!\r\n\r\nThese are the woes of Slaves;\r\n  They glare from the abyss;\r\nThey cry, from unknown graves,\r\n  \"We are the Witnesses!\"<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Woods in Winter<\/h2>\n
When winter winds are piercing chill,\r\n  And through the hawthorn blows the gale,\r\nWith solemn feet I tread the hill,\r\n  That overbrows the lonely vale.\r\n\r\nO'er the bare upland, and away\r\n  Through the long reach of desert woods,\r\nThe embracing sunbeams chastely play,\r\n  And gladden these deep solitudes.\r\n\r\nWhere, twisted round the barren oak,\r\n  The summer vine in beauty clung,\r\nAnd summer winds the stillness broke,\r\n  The crystal icicle is hung.\r\n\r\nWhere, from their frozen urns, mute springs\r\n  Pour out the river's gradual tide,\r\nShrilly the skater's iron rings,\r\n  And voices fill the woodland side.\r\n\r\nAlas! how changed from the fair scene,\r\n  When birds sang out their mellow lay,\r\nAnd winds were soft, and woods were green,\r\n  And the song ceased not with the day!\r\n\r\nBut still wild music is abroad,\r\n  Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;\r\nAnd gathering winds, in hoarse accord,\r\n  Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.\r\n\r\nChill airs and wintry winds! my ear\r\n  Has grown familiar with your song;\r\nI hear it in the opening year,\r\n  I listen, and it cheers me long.<\/pre>\n
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The Wreck of the Hesperus<\/h2>\n
It was the schooner Hesperus,\r\n   That sailed the wintry sea;\r\nAnd the skipper had taken his little daughter,\r\n   To bear him company.\r\n\r\nBlue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,\r\n   Her cheeks like the dawn of day,\r\nAnd her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,\r\n   That ope in the month of May.\r\n\r\nThe skipper he stood beside the helm,\r\n   His pipe was in his month,\r\nAnd he watched how the veering flaw did blow\r\n   The smoke now West, now South.\r\n\r\nThen up and spake an old Sailor,\r\n   Had sailed to the Spanish Main,\r\n\"I pray thee, put into yonder port,\r\n   For I fear a hurricane.\r\n\r\n\"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,\r\n   And to-night no moon we see!\"\r\nThe skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,\r\n   And a scornful laugh laughed he.\r\n\r\nColder and louder blew the wind,\r\n   A gale from the Northeast.\r\nThe snow fell hissing in the brine,\r\n   And the billows frothed like yeast.\r\n\r\nDown came the storm, and smote amain\r\n   The vessel in its strength;\r\nShe shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,\r\n   Then leaped her cable's length.\r\n\r\n\"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,\r\n   And do not tremble so;\r\nFor  I can weather the roughest gale\r\n   That ever wind did blow.\"\r\n\r\n\r\nHe wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat\r\n   Against the stinging blast;\r\nHe cut a rope from a broken spar,\r\n   And bound her to the mast.\r\n\r\n\"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,\r\n   O say, what may it be?\"\r\n \"'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!\"--\r\n   And he steered for the open sea.\r\n\r\n\"O father! I hear the sound of guns,\r\n   O say, what may it be?\"\r\n\"Some ship in distress, that cannot live\r\n   In such an angry sea!\"\r\n\r\n\"O father! I see a gleaming light\r\n   O say, what may it be?\"\r\nBut the father answered never a word,\r\n   A frozen corpse was he.\r\n\r\nLashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,\r\n   With his face turned to the skies,\r\nThe lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow\r\n   On his fixed and glassy eyes.\r\n\r\nThen the maiden clasped her hands and prayed\r\n   That saved she might be;\r\nAnd she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,\r\n   On the Lake of Galilee.\r\n\r\nAnd fast through the midnight dark and drear,\r\n   Through the whistling sleet and snow,\r\nLike a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept\r\n   Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.\r\n\r\nAnd ever the fitful gusts between\r\n   A sound came from the land;\r\nIt was the sound of the trampling surf\r\n   On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.\r\n\r\nThe breakers were right beneath her bows,\r\n   She drifted a dreary wreck,\r\nAnd a whooping billow swept the crew\r\n   Like icicles from her deck.\r\n\r\nShe struck where the white and fleecy waves\r\n   Looked soft as carded wool,\r\nBut the cruel rocks, they gored her side\r\n   Like the horns of an angry bull.\r\n\r\nHer rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,\r\n   With the masts went by the board;\r\nLike a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,\r\n   Ho! ho! the breakers roared!\r\n\r\nAt daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,\r\n   A fisherman stood aghast,\r\nTo see the form of a maiden fair,\r\n   Lashed close to a drifting mast.\r\n\r\nThe salt sea was frozen on her breast,\r\n   The salt tears in her eyes;\r\nAnd he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,\r\n   On the billows fall and rise.\r\n\r\nSuch was the wreck of the Hesperus,\r\n   In the midnight and the snow!\r\nChrist save us all from a death like this,\r\n   On the reef of Norman's Woe!\r\n<\/pre>\n\n\t\t\t 
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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t 
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Public domain content<\/div>