Longfellow after his establishment at Cambridge.
SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history, 5
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.
Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above; 10
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.
Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation, 15
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being,
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. 20
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay;
Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, 25
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!
These in flowers and men are more than seeming,
Workings are they of the self-same powers, 30
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.
Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o’erflowing, 35
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;
Not alone in Spring’s armorial bearing,
And in Summer’s green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn’s wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield; 40
Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;
Not alone in her vast dome of glory, 45
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;
In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, 50
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, 55
How akin they are to human things.
And with childlike, credulous affection,
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land. 60
The Beleaguered City
Mr. Samuel Longfellow states that the suggestion of the poem came from a note in one of the volumes of Scott’s Border Minstrelsy: “Similar to this was the Nacht Lager, or midnight camp, which seemed nightly to beleaguer the walls of Prague, but which disappeared upon the recitation of [certain] magical words.” The title of the poem served also as that of a remarkable prose sketch by Mrs. Oliphant.
I HAVE read, in some old, marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau’s rushing stream, 5
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.
White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen, 10
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry’s pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air 15
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmèd air. 20
Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read, in the marvellous heart of man, 25
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life’s rushing stream,
In Fancy’s misty light, 30
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound, 35
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life’s wave. 40
And when the solemn and deep church-bell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
Down the broad Vale of Tears afar 45
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
Midnight Mass for the Dying Year
Published in the Knickerbocker as The Fifth Psalm the author also calls it in his diary An Autumnal Chant.
YES, the Year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard,
Sorely, sorely! 5
The leaves are falling, falling,
Solemnly and slow;
Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,
It is a sound of woe,
A sound of woe! 10
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll;
They are chanting solemn masses,
Singing, “Pray for this poor soul,
Pray, pray!” 15
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers;
But their prayers are all in vain,
All in vain! 20
There he stands in the foul weather,
The foolish, fond Old Year,
Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,
Like weak, despisèd Lear,
A king, a king! 25
Then comes the summer-like day,
Bids the old man rejoice!
His joy! his last! Oh, the old man gray
Loveth that ever-soft voice,
Gentle and low. 30
To the crimson woods he saith,
To the voice gentle and low
Of the soft air, like a daughter’s breath,
“Pray do not mock me so!
Do not laugh at me!” 35
And now the sweet day is dead;
Cold in his arms it lies;
No stain from its breath is spread
Over the glassy skies,
No mist or stain! 40
Then, too, the Old Year dieth,
And the forests utter a moan,
Like the voice of one who crieth
In the wilderness alone,
“Vex not his ghost!” 45
Then comes, with an awful roar,
Gathering and sounding on,
The storm-wind from Labrador,
The wind Euroclydon,
The storm-wind! 50
Howl! howl! and from the forest
Sweep the red leaves away!
Would the sins that thou abhorrest,
O soul! could thus decay,
And be swept away! 55
For there shall come a mightier blast,
There shall be a darker day;
And the stars, from heaven down-cast
Like red leaves be swept away!
Kyrie, eleyson! 60
Christe, eleyson!
CONTENTS
JUVENILE POEMS
The Battle of Lovell’s Pond
To Ianthe
Thanksgiving
Autumnal Nightfall
Italian Scenery
The Lunatic Girl
The Venetian Gondolier
The Angler’s Song
Lover’s Rock
Dirge over a Nameless Grave
A Song of Savoy
The Indian Hunter
Ode written for the Commemoration at Fryeburg, Maine, of Lovewell’s Fight
Jeckoyva
The Sea-Diver
Musings
Song
Song of the Birds
EARLIER POEMS
An April Day
Autumn
Woods in Winter
Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem
Sunrise on the Hills
The Spirit of Poetry
Burial of the Minnisink
L’Envoi
JUVENILE POEMS
The Battle of Lovell’s Pond
WHEN Mr. Longfellow made his first collection of poems in Voices of the Night, he included a group of Earlier Poems, but printed only seven out of a number which bore his initials or are directly traceable to him. He chose these, doubtless, not as specimens of his youthful work, but because, of all that he had written ten years or more before, they only appeared to him to have poetic qualities which he could regard with any complacency. It is not likely that any readers will be found to contravene his judgment in the omission of the other verses, but since this edition is intended for the student as well as for the general reader, it has been thought best to print here those poetical exercises which curious investigators have recovered from the obscurity in which Mr. Longfellow was entirely willing to leave them. They are printed in as nearly chronological order as may be.
These are Mr. Longfellow’s first verses, so far as known, printed in the Portland Gazette, November 17, 1820.
COLD, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast
That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast,
As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear,
Sighs a requiem sad o’er the warrior’s bier.
The war-whoop is still, and the savage’s yell 5
Has sunk into silence along the wild dell;
The din of the battle, the tumult, is o’er,
And the war-clarion’s voice is now heard no more.
The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed; 10
No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.
They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,
And Victory’s loud trump their death did proclaim;
They are dead; but they live in each Patriot’s breast, 15
And their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest.
HENRY.
To Ianthe
WHEN upon the western cloud
Hang day’s fading roses,
When the linnet sings aloud
And the twilight closes, —
As I mark the moss-grown spring 5
By the twisted holly,
Pensive thoughts of thee shall bring
Love’s own melancholy.
Lo, the crescent moon on high
Lights the half-choked fountain; 10
Wandering winds steal sadly by
From the hazy mountain.
Yet that moon shall wax and wane,
Summer winds pass over, —
Ne’er the heart shall love again 15
Of the slighted lover!
When the russet autumn brings
Blighting to the forest,
Twisted close the ivy clings
To the oak that’s hoarest; 20
So the love of other days
Cheers the broken-hearted;
But if once our love decays
‘T is for aye departed.
When the hoar-frost nips the leaf, 25
Pale and sear it lingers,
Wasted in its beauty brief
By decay’s cold fingers;
Yet unchanged it ne’er again
Shall its bloom recover; — 30
Thus the heart shall aye remain
Of the slighted lover.
Love is like the songs we hear
O’er the moonlit ocean;
Youth, the spring-time of a year 35
Passed in Love’s devotion!
Roses of their bloom bereft
Breathe a fragrance sweeter;
Beauty has no fragrance left
Though its bloom is fleeter. 40
Then when tranquil evening throws
Twilight shades above thee,
And when early morning glows, —
Think on those that love thee!
For an interval of years 45
We ere long must sever,
But the hearts that love endears
Shall be parted never.
Thanksgiving
WHEN first ancient time, from Jubal’s tongue
The tuneful anthem filled the morning air,
To sacred hymnings and elysian song
His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke.
Devotion breathed aloud from every chord: 5
The voice of praise was heard in every tone,
And prayer and thanks to Him, the Eternal One,
To Him, that with bright inspiration touched
The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song,
And warmed the soul with new vitality. 10
A stirring energy through Nature breathed:
The voice of adoration from her broke,
Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard
Long in the sullen waterfall, what time
Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth 15
Its bloom or blighting; when the summer smiled;
Or Winter o’er the year’s sepulchre mourned.
The Deity was there; a nameless spirit
Moved in the breasts of men to do him homage;
And when the morning smiled, or evening pale 20
Hung weeping o’er the melancholy urn,
They came beneath the broad, o’erarching trees,
And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft,
Where pale the vine clung round their simple altars,
And gray moss mantling hung. Above was heard 25
The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees
Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty;
And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,
The bright and widely wandering rivulet
Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots 30
That choked its reedy fountain, and dark rocks
Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there
The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice
Where reeds grew rank on the rushy-fringed brink,
And the green sedge bent to the wandering wind, 35
Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.
Men felt the heavenly influence; and it stole
Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace:
And even the air they breathed, the light they saw,
Became religion; for the ethereal spirit 40
That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,
And mellows everything to beauty, moved
With cheering energy within their breasts
And made all holy there, for all was love.
The morning stars, that sweetly sang together; 45
The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky;
Dayspring and eventide; and all the fair
And beautiful forms of nature, had a voice
Of eloquent worship. Ocean, with its tides
Swelling and deep, where low the infant storm 50
Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat
The pulses of the sea, sent forth a voice
Of awful adoration to the spirit
That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.
And when the bow of evening arched the east, 55
Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling wave
Kissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach,
And soft the song of winds came o’er the waters,
The mingled melody of wind and wave
Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear; 60
For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.
And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earth
No pure reflections caught from heavenly light?
Have our mute lips no hymn, our souls no song?
Let him that in the summer-day of youth 65
Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,
And him that in the nightfall of his years
Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace
His dim, pale eyes on life’s short wayfaring,
Praise Him that rules the destiny of man. 70
Autumnal Nightfall
ROUND Autumn’s mouldering urn
Loud mourns the chill and cheerless gale,
When nightfall shades the quiet vale
And stars in beauty burn.
‘T is the year’s eventide. 5
The wind, like one that sighs in pain
O’er joys that ne’er will bloom again
Mourns on the far hillside.
And yet my pensive eye
Rests on the faint blue mountain long; 10
And for the fairy-land of song,
That lies beyond, I sigh.
The moon unveils her brow;
In the mid-sky her urn glows bright,
And in her sad and mellowing light 15
The valley sleeps below.
Upon the hazel gray
The lyre of Autumn hangs unstrung
And o’er its tremulous chords are flung
The fringes of decay. 20
I stand deep musing here,
Beneath the dark and motionless beech,
Whilst wandering winds of nightfall reach
My melancholy ear.
The air breathes chill and free: 25
A spirit in soft music calls
From Autumn’s gray and moss-grown halls,
And round her withered tree.
The hoar and mantled oak,
With moss and twisted ivy brown, 30
Bends in its lifeless beauty down
Where weeds the fountain choke.
That fountain’s hollow voice
Echoes the sound of precious things;
Of early feeling’s tuneful springs 35
Choked with our blighted joys.
Leaves, that the night-wind bears
To earth’s cold bosom with a sigh,
Are types of our mortality,
And of our fading years. 40
The tree that shades the plain,
Wasting and hoar as time decays,
Spring shall renew with cheerful days, —
But not my joys again.
Italian Scenery
NIGHT rests in beauty on Mont Alto.
Beneath its shade the beauteous Arno sleeps
In Vallombrosa’s bosom, and dark trees
Bend with a calm and quiet shadow down
Upon the beauty of that silent river. 5
Still the west a melancholy smile
Mantles the lips of day, and twilight pale
Moves like a spectre in the dusky sky,
While eve’s sweet star on the fast-fading year
Smiles calmly. Music steals at intervals 10
Across the water, with a tremulous swell,
From out the upland dingle of tall firs;
And a faint footfall sounds, where, dim and dark,
Hangs the gray willow from the river’s brink,
O’ershadowing its current. Slowly there 15
The lover’s gondola drops down the stream,
Silent, save when its dipping oar is heard,
Or in its eddy sighs the rippling wave.
Mouldering and moss-grown through the lapse of years
In motionless beauty stands the giant oak; 20
Whilst those that saw its green and flourishing youth
Are gone and are forgotten. Soft the fount,
Whose secret springs the star-light pale discloses,
Gushes in hollow music; and beyond
The broader river sweeps its silent way, 25
Mingling a silver current with that sea,
Whose waters have not tides, coming nor going.
On noiseless wing along that fair blue sea
The halcyon flits; and, where the wearied storm
Left a loud moaning, all is peace again. 30
A calm is on the deep. The winds that came
O’er the dark sea-surge with a tremulous breathing,
And mourned on the dark cliff where weeds grew rank,
And to the autumnal death-dirge the deep sea
Heaved its long billows, with a cheerless song 35
Have passed away to the cold earth again,
Like a wayfaring mourner. Silently
Up from the calm sea’s dim and distant verge,
Full and unveiled, the moon’s broad disk emerges.
On Tivoli, and where the fairy hues 40
Of autumn glow upon Abruzzi’s woods,
The silver light is spreading. Far above,
Encompassed with their thin, cold atmosphere,
The Apennines uplift their snowy brows,
Glowing with colder beauty, where unheard 45
The eagle screams in the fathomless ether,
And stays his wearied wing. Here let us pause.
The spirit of these solitudes — the soul
That dwells within these steep and difficult places —
Speaks a mysterious language to mine own, 50
And brings unutterable musings. Earth
Sleeps in the shades of nightfall, and the sea
Spreads like a thin blue haze beneath my feet;
Whilst the gray columns and the mouldering tombs
Of the Imperial City, hidden deep 55
Beneath the mantle of their shadows, rest.
My spirit looks on earth. A heavenly voice
Comes silently: “Dreamer, is earth thy dwelling?
Lo! nursed within that fair and fruitful bosom,
Which has sustained thy being, and within 60
The colder breast of Ocean, lie the germs
Of thine own dissolution! E’en the air,
That fans the clear blue sky, and gives thee strength,
Up from the sullen lake of mouldering reeds,
And the wide waste of forest, where the osier 65
Thrives in the damp and motionless atmosphere,
Shall bring the dire and wasting pestilence,
And blight thy cheek. Dream thou of higher things:
This world is not thy home!” And yet my eye
Rests upon earth again. How beautiful, 70
Where wild Velino heaves its sullen waves
Down the high cliff of gray and shapeless granite,
Hung on the curling mist, the moonlight bow
Arches the perilous river! A soft light
Silvers the Albanian mountains, and the haze 75
That rests upon their summits mellows down
The austerer features of their beauty. Faint
And dim-discovered glow the Sabine hills;
And, listening to the sea’s monotonous shell,
High on the cliffs of Terracina stands 80
The castle of the royal Goth in ruins.
But night is in her wane: day’s early flush
Glows like a hectic on her fading cheek,
Wasting its beauty. And the opening dawn
With cheerful lustre lights the royal city, 85
Where, with its proud tiara of dark towers,
It sleeps upon its own romantic bay.
The Lunatic Girl
MOST beautiful, most gentle! Yet how lost
To all that gladdens the fair earth; the eye
That watched her being; the maternal care
That kept and nourished her; and the calm light
That steals from our own thoughts, and softly rests 5
On youth’s green valleys and smooth-sliding waters.
Alas! few suns of life, and fewer winds,
Had withered or had wasted the fresh rose
That bloomed upon her cheek: but one chill frost
Came in that early autumn, when ripe thought 10
Is rich and beautiful, and blighted it;
And the fair stalk grew languid day by day,
And drooped — and drooped, and shed its many leaves,
‘T is said that some have died of love; and some,
That once from beauty’s high romance had caught 15
Love’s passionate feelings and heart-wasting cares,
Have spurned life’s threshold with a desperate foot;
And others have gone mad, — and she was one!
Her lover died at sea; and they had felt
A coldness for each other when they parted, 20
But love returned again: and to her ear
Came tidings that the ship which bore her lover
Had sullenly gone down at sea, and all were lost.
I saw her in her native vale, when high
The aspiring lark up from the reedy river 25
Mounted on cheerful pinion; and she sat
Casting smooth pebbles into a clear fountain,
And marking how they sunk; and oft she sighed
For him that perished thus in the vast deep.
She had a sea-shell, that her lover brought 30
From the far-distant ocean; and she pressed
Its smooth, cold lips unto her ear, and thought
It whispered tidings of the dark blue sea;
And sad, she cried, “The tides are out! — and now
I see his corse upon the stormy beach!” 35
Around her neck a string of rose-lipped shells,
And coral, and white pearl, was loosely hung;
And close beside her lay a delicate fan,
Made of the halcyon’s blue wing; and when
She looked upon it, it would calm her thoughts 40
As that bird calms the ocean, — for it gave
Mournful, yet pleasant, memory. Once I marked,
When through the mountain hollows and green woods
That bent beneath its footsteps, the loud wind
Came with a voice as of the restless deep, 45
She raised her head, and on her pale, cold cheek
A beauty of diviner seeming came;
And then she spread her hands, and smiled, as if
She welcomed a long-absent friend, — and then
Shrunk timorously back again, and wept. 50
I turned away: a multitude of thoughts,
Mournful and dark, were crowding on my mind;
And as I left that lost and ruined one, —
A living monument that still on earth
There is warm love and deep sincerity, — 55
She gazed upon the west, where the blue sky
Held, like an ocean, in its wide embrace
Those fairy islands of bright cloud, that lay
So calm and quietly in the thin ether.
And then she pointed where, alone and high, 60
One little cloud sailed onward, like a lost
And wandering bark, and fainter grew, and fainter,
And soon was swallowed up in the blue depths;
And, when it sunk away, she turned again
With sad despondency and tears to earth. 65
Three long and weary months — yet not a whisper
Of stern reproach for that cold parting! Then
She sat no longer by her favorite fountain:
She was at rest forever.
The Venetian Gondolier
HERE rest the weary oar! — soft airs
Breathe out in the o’erarching sky;
And Night-sweet Night — serenely wears
A smile of peace: her noon is nigh.
Where the tall fir in quiet stands, 5
And waves, embracing the chaste shores,
Move over sea-shells and bright sands,
Is heard the sound of dipping oars.
Swift o’er the wave the light bark springs,
Love’s midnight hour draws lingering near; 10
And list! — his tuneful viol strings
The young Venetian Gondolier.
Lo! on the silver-mirrored deep,
On earth, and her embosomed lakes,
And where the silent rivers sweep, 15
From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks
Soft music breathes around, and dies
On the calm bosom of the sea;
Whilst in her cell the novice sighs
Her vespers to her rosary. 20
At their dim altars bow fair forms,
In tender charity for those,
That, helpless left to life’s rude storms,
Have never found this calm repose.
The bell swings to its midnight chime, 25
Relieved against the deep blue sky.
Haste! — dip the oar again— ‘t is time
To seek Genevra’s balcony.
The Angler’s Song
FROM the river’s plashy bank,
Where the sedge grows green and rank,
And the twisted woodbine springs,
Upward speeds the morning lark
To its silver cloud-and hark! 5
On his way the woodman sings.
On the dim and misty lakes
Gloriously the morning breaks,
And the eagle’s on his cloud: —
Whilst the wind, with sighing, wooes 10
To its arms the chaste cold ooze,
And the rustling reeds pipe loud.
Where the embracing ivy holds
Close the hoar elm in its folds,
In the meadow’s fenny land, 15
And the winding river sweeps
Through its shallows and still deeps, —
Silent with my rod I stand.
But when sultry suns are high
Underneath the oak I lie 20
As it shades the water’s edge,
And I mark my line, away
In the wheeling eddy, play,
Tangling with the river sedge.
When the eye of evening looks 25
On green woods and winding brooks,
And the wind sighs o’er the lea, —
Woods and streams, — I leave you then,
While the shadow in the glen
Lengthens by the greenwood tree. 30
Lover’s Rock
They showed us, near the outlet of Sebago, the Lover’s Rock, from which an Indian maid threw herself down into the lake, when the guests were coming together to the marriage festival of her false-hearted lover.” — Leaf from a Traveller’s Journal.
THERE is a love that cannot die! —
And some their doom have met
Heart-broken — and gone as stars go by,
That rise, and burn, and set.
Their days were in Spring’s fallen leaf — 5
Tender — and young — and bright — and brief.
There is a love that cannot die! —
Aye — it survives the grave;
When life goes out with many a sigh,
And earth takes what it gave, 10
Its light is on the home of those
That heed not when the cold wind blows.
With us there are sad records left
Of life’s declining day:
How true hearts here were broken and cleft, 15
And how they passed away.
And yon dark rock that swells above
Its blue lake — has a tale of love.
‘T is of an Indian maid, whose fate
Was saddened by the burst 20
Of passion, that made desolate
The heart it filled at first.
Her lover was false-hearted, — yet
Her love she never could forget.
It was a summer-day, and bright 25
The sun was going down:
The wave lay blushing in rich light
Beneath the dark rock’s frown,
And under the green maple’s shade
Her lover’s bridal feast was made. 30
She stood upon the rocky steep,
Grief had her heart unstrung,
And far across the lake’s blue sweep
Was heard the dirge she sung.
It ceased — and in the deep cold wave 35
The Indian Girl has made her grave.
Dirge over a Nameless Grave
BY yon still river, where the wave
Is winding slow at evening’s close,
The beech, upon a nameless grave.
its sadly-moving shadow throws.
O’er the fair woods the sun looks down 5
Upon the many-twinkling leaves,
And twilight’s mellow shades are brown,
Where darkly the green turf upheaves.
The river glides in silence there,
And hardly waves the sapling tree: 10
Sweet flowers are springing, and the air
Is full of balm — but where is she!
They bade her wed a son of pride,
And leave the hope she cherished long:
She loved but one-and would not hide 15
A love which knew a wrong.
And months went sadly on-and years:
And she was wasting day by day:
At length she died — and many tears
Were shed, that she should pass away. 20
Then came a gray old man, and knelt
With bitter weeping by her tomb:
And others mourned for him, who felt
That he had sealed a daughter’s doom.
The funeral train has long past on, 25
And time wiped dry the father’s tear!
Farewell — lost maiden! — there is one
That mourns thee yet — and he is here.
A Song of Savoy
As the dim twilight shrouds
The mountain’s purple crest,
And Summer’s white and folded clouds
Are glowing in the west,
Loud shouts come up the rocky dell, 5
And voices hail the evening-bell.
Faint is the goatherd’s song,
And sighing comes the breeze;
The silent river sweeps along
Amid its bending trees — 10
And the full moon shines faintly there,
And music fills the evening air.
Beneath the waving firs
The tinkling cymbals sound;
And as the wind the foliage stirs, 15
I see the dancers bound
Where the green branches, arched above,
Bend over this fair scene of love.
And he is there, that sought
My young heart long ago! 20
But he has left me — though I thought
He ne’er could leave me so.
Ah! lover’s vows — how frail are they!
And his — were made but yesterday.
Why comes he not? I call 25
In tears upon him yet;
‘T were better ne’er to love at all,
Than love, and then forget!
Why comes he not? Alas! I should
Reclaim him still, if weeping could. 30
But see — he leaves the glade,
And beckons me away:
He comes to seek his mountain maid!
I cannot chide his stay.
Glad sounds along the valley swell, 35
And voices hail the evening-bell.
The Indian Hunter
WHEN the summer harvest was gathered in,
And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin,
And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,
Where the stubble land had been lately cleft,
An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow, 5
Looked down where the valley lay stretched below.
He was a stranger there, and all that day
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way,
But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,
And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter’s feet. 10
And bitter feelings passed o’er him then,
As he stood by the populous haunts of men.
The winds of autumn came over the woods
As the sun stole out from their solitudes;
The moss was white on the maple’s trunk, 15
And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk.
And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red
Were the tree’s withered leaves round it shed.
The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn
And the sickle cut down the yellow corn — 20
The mower sung loud by the meadow-side,
Where the mists of evening were spreading wide,
And the voice of the herdsmen came up the lea,
And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.
Then the hunter turned away from that scene, 25
Where the home of his fathers once had been,
And heard by the distant and measured stroke,
That the woodman hewed down the giant oak,
And burning thoughts flashed over his mind
Of the white man’s faith, and love unkind. 30
The moon of the harvest grew high and bright,
As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white —
A footstep was heard in the rustling brake,
Where the beech overshadowed the misty lake,
And a mourning voice, and a plunge from shore, — 35
And the hunter was seen on the hills no more.
When years had passed on, by that still lakeside
The fisher looked down through the silver tide,
And there, on the smooth yellow sand displayed,
A skeleton wasted and white was laid, 40
And ‘t was seen, as the waters moved deep and slow,
That the hand was still grasping a hunter’s bow.
Ode written for the Commemoration at Fryeburg, Maine, of Lovewell’s Fight
Air — Bruce’s Address.
I
MANY a day and wasted year
Bright has left its footsteps here,
Since was broke the warrior’s spear,
And our fathers bled.
Still the tall trees, arching, shake 5
Where the fleet deer by the lake,
As he dash’d through birch and brake.
From the hunter fled.
II
In these ancient woods so bright,
That are full of life and light, 10
Many a dark, mysterious rite
The stern warriors kept.
But their altars are bereft,
Fall’n to earth, and strewn and cleft,
And a holier faith is left 15
Where their fathers slept.
III
From their ancient sepulchres,
Where amid the giant firs,
Moaning loud, the high wind stirs,
Have the red men gone. 20
Tow’rd the setting sun that makes
Bright our western hills and lakes,
Faint and few, the remnant takes
Its sad journey on.
IV
Where the Indian hamlet stood, 25
In the interminable wood,
Battle broke the solitude,
And the war-cry rose;
Sudden came the straggling shot
Where the sun looked on the spot 30
That the trace of war would blot
Ere the day’s faint close.
V
Low the smoke of battle hung;
Heavy down the lake it swung,
Till the death wail loud was sung 35
When the night shades fell;
And the green pine, waving dark,
Held within its shattered bark
Many a lasting scathe and mark,
That a tale could tell. 40
VI
And the story of that day
Shall not pass from earth away,
Nor the blighting of decay
Waste our liberty;
But within the river’s sweep 45
Long in peace our vale shall sleep
And free hearts the record keep
Of this jubilee.
Jeckoyva
The Indian chief, Jeckoyva, as tradition says, perished alone on the mountain which now bears his name. Night overtook him whilst hunting among the cliffs, and he was not heard of till after a long time, when his half-decayed corpse was found at the foot of a high rock, over which he must have fallen. Mount Jeckoyva is near the White Hills. H. W.
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