In Italian, one may say Filomela or Filomena.” The reference is to Miss Florence Nightingale, who rendered great service in the hospitals during the Crimean War.
WHENE’ER a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls 5
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.
Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs, 10
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!
Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp, 15
The starved and frozen camp, —
The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors. 20
Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss, 25
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly, 30
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.
On England’s annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast 35
From portals of the past.
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood. 40
Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.
The Discoverer of the North Cape
A Leaf from King Alfred’s Orosius
OTHERE, the old sea-captain,
Who dwelt in Helgoland,
To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth,
Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,
Which he held in his brown right hand. 5
His figure was tall and stately,
Like a boy’s his eye appeared;
His hair was yellow as hay,
But threads of a silvery gray
Gleamed in his tawny beard. 10
Hearty and hale was Othere,
His cheek had the color of oak;
With a kind of a laugh in his speech,
Like the sea-tide on a beach,
As unto the King he spoke. 15
And Alfred, King of the Saxons,
Had a book upon his knees,
And wrote down the wondrous tale
Of him who was first to sail
Into the Arctic seas. 20
“So far I live to the northward,
No man lives north of me;
To the east are wild mountain-chains,
And beyond them meres and plains;
To the westward all is sea. 25
“So far I live to the northward,
From the harbor of Skeringes-hale,
If you only sailed by day,
With a fair wind all the way,
More than a month would you sail. 30
“I own six hundred reindeer,
With sheep and swine beside;
I have tribute from the Finns,
Whalebone and reindeer-skins,
And ropes of walrus-hide. 35
“I ploughed the land with horses,
But my heart was ill at ease,
For the old seafaring men
Came to me now and then,
With their sagas of the seas; — 40
“Of Iceland and of Greenland,
And the stormy Hebrides,
And the undiscovered deep; —
Oh I could not eat nor sleep
For thinking of those seas. 45
“To the northward stretched the desert,
How far I fain would know;
So at last I sallied forth,
And three days sailed due north,
As far as the whale-ships go. 50
“To the west of me was the ocean,
To the right the desolate shore,
But I did not slacken sail
For the walrus or the whale,
Till after three days more. 55
“The days grew longer and longer,
Till they became as one,
And northward through the haze
I saw the sullen blaze
Of the red midnight sun. 60
“And then uprose before me,
Upon the water’s edge,
The huge and haggard shape
Of that unknown North Cape,
Whose form is like a wedge. 65
“The sea was rough and stormy,
The tempest howled and wailed,
And the sea-fog, like a ghost,
Haunted that dreary coast,
But onward still I sailed. 70
“Four days I steered to eastward,
Four days without a night:
Round in a fiery ring
Went the great sun, O King,
With red and lurid light.” 75
Here Alfred, King of the Saxons,
Ceased writing for a while;
And raised his eyes from his book,
With a strange and puzzled look,
And an incredulous smile. 80
But Othere, the old sea-captain,
He neither paused nor stirred,
Till the King listened, and then
Once more took up his pen,
And wrote down every word. 85
“And now the land,” said Othere,
“Bent southward suddenly,
And I followed the curving shore
And ever southward bore
Into a nameless sea. 90
“And there we hunted the walrus,
The narwhale, and the seal;
Ha! ‘t was a noble game!
And like the lightning’s flame
Flew our harpoons of steel. 95
“There were six of us all together,
Norsemen of Helgoland;
In two days and no more
We killed of them threescore,
And dragged them to the strand!” 100
Here Alfred the Truth-teller
Suddenly closed his book,
And lifted his blue eyes,
With doubt and strange surmise
Depicted in their look. 105
And Othere the old sea-captain
Stared at him wild and weird,
Then smiled, till his shining teeth
Gleamed white from underneath
His tawny, quivering beard. 110
And to the King of the Saxons,
In witness of the truth,
Raising his noble head,
He stretched his brown hand, and said,
“Behold this walrus-tooth!” 115
Daybreak
A WIND came up out of the sea,
And said, “O mists, make room for me.”
It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone.”
And hurried landward far away, 5
Crying, “Awake! it is the day.”
It said unto the forest, “Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!”
It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,
And said, “O bird, awake and sing.” 10
And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near.”
It whispered to the fields of corn,
“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.”
It shouted through the belfry-tower, 15
“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.”
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, “Not yet! in quiet lie.”
The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz
May 28, 1857
Read by Mr. Longfellow at a dinner, at which he presided, given to Agassiz on the occasion.
IT was fifty years ago
In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,
A child in its cradle lay.
And Nature, the old nurse, took 5
The child upon her knee,
Saying: “Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee.”
“Come, wander with me,” she said,
“Into regions yet untrod; 10
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.”
And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day 15
The rhymes of the universe.
And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale. 20
So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,
Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;
Though at times he hears in his dreams 25
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;
And the mother at home says, “Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn; 30
It is growing late and dark,
And my boy does not return!”
Children
COME to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.
Ye open the eastern windows, 5
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklet’s flow, 10
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
And the first fall of the snow.
Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us 15
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood, — 20
That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children! 25
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books, 30
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems, 35
And all the rest are dead.
Sandalphon
HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it, — the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory, 5
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,
With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered, 10
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?
The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire
With the song’s irresistible stress; 15
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song, 20
With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below; —
From the spirits on earth that adore, 25
From the souls that entreat and implore
In the fervor and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear. 30
And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal 35
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.
It is but a legend, I know, —
A fable, a phantom, a show,
Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old mediæval tradition, 40
The beautiful, strange superstition,
But haunts me and holds me the more.
When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars, 45
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.
And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart, 50
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.
FLIGHT THE SECOND
The Children’s Hour
Included in the volume which contained the first series of Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1863.
BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me 5
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair, 10
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together 15
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall! 20
They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses, 25
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall, 30
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon 35
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away! 40
Enceladus
Written February 3, 1859. “I have written,” says Mr. Longfellow in a letter to Mr. Sumner, “a lyric on Italy, entitled Enceladus, from which title your imagination can construct the poem. It is not a war-song, but a kind of lament for the woes of the country.” Mr. Longfellow used the money paid him for the poem, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, August, 1859, in aid of the Italian widows and the soldiers wounded in the war then going on for the deliverance of Italy from Austrian rule.
UNDER Mount Etna he lies,
It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise,
And above him the lurid skies
Are hot with his fiery breath. 5
The crags are piled on his breast,
The earth is heaped on his head;
But the groans of his wild unrest,
Though smothered and half suppressed,
Are heard, and he is not dead. 10
And the nations far away
Are watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say,
“To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
Enceladus will arise!” 15
And the old gods, the austere
Oppressors in their strength,
Stand aghast and white with fear
At the ominous sounds they hear,
And tremble, and mutter, “At length!” 20
Ah me! for the land that is sown
With the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air; 25
Where ashes are heaped in drifts
Over vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts
His head through the blackened rifts
Of the crags that keep him down. 30
See, see! the red light shines!
‘T is the glare of his awful eyes!
And the storm-wind shouts through the pines
Of Alps and of Apennines,
“Enceladus, arise!” 35
The Cumberland
AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarum of drums swept past,
Or a bugle blast 5
From the camp on the shore.
Then far away to the south uprose
A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
Was steadily steering its course 10
To try the force
Of our ribs of oak.
Down upon us heavily runs,
Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, 15
And leaps the terrible death,
With fiery breath,
From each open port.
We are not idle, but send her straight
Defiance back in a full broadside! 20
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
Rebounds our heavier hail
From each iron scale
Of the monster’s hide.
“Strike your flag!” the rebel cries, 25
In his arrogant old plantation strain.
“Never!” our gallant Morris replies;
“It is better to sink than to yield!”
And the whole air pealed
With the cheers of our men. 30
Then, like a kraken huge and black,
She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,
With a sudden shudder of death,
And the cannon’s breath 35
For her dying gasp.
Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,
Still floated our flag at the mainmast head.
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day!
Every waft of the air 40
Was a whisper of prayer,
Or a dirge for the dead.
Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream;
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these, 45
Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
Shall be one again,
And without a seam!
Snow-Flakes
OUT of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow 5
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession, 10
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair, 15
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
A Day of Sunshine
O GIFT of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!
Through every fibre of my brain, 5
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies; 10
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun 15
Sails like a golden galleon,
Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts. 20
Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!
O Life and Love! O happy throng 25
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?
Something Left Undone
LABOR with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.
By the bedside, on the stair, 5
At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a mendicant it waits;
Waits, and will not go away;
Waits, and will not be gainsaid; 10
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is heavier made;
Till at length the burden seems
Greater than our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams, 15
Pressing on us everywhere.
And we stand from day to day,
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky. 20
Weariness
O LITTLE feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin, 5
Am weary, thinking of your road!
O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask;
I, who so much with book and pen 10
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
Am weary, thinking of your task.
O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires; 15
Mine, that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned,
Now covers and conceals its fires.
O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light 20
Direct from heaven, their source divine;
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,
How lurid looks this soul of mine!
CONTENTS
The Day is done
Afternoon in February
To an Old Danish Song Book
Walter von der Vogelweid
Drinking Song
The Old Clock on the Stairs
The Arrow and the Song
Mezzo Cammin
The Evening Star
Autumn
Dante
Curfew
The Day is done
Written in the fall of 1844 as proem to The Waif, a small volume of poems selected by Mr. Longfellow and published at Christmas of that year.
THE DAY is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village 5
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain, 10
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling, 15
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time. 20
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet, 25
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease, 30
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction 35
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice. 40
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
Afternoon in February
THE DAY is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.
Through clouds like ashes 5
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.
The snow recommences;
The buried fences 10
Mark no longer
The road o’er the plain;
While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes 15
A funeral train.
The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell; 20
Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.
To an Old Danish Song Book
Mr. Longfellow upon Andersen’s Story of my Life, notes in his diary: “Autumn always brings back very freshly my autumnal sojourn in Copenhagen, delightfully mingled with bracing air and yellow falling leaves. I have tried to record the impression in the song To an Old Danish Song Book.”
WELCOME, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.
The ungrateful world 5
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,
Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met thee.
There are marks of age,
There are thumb-marks on thy margin, 10
Made by hands that clasped thee rudely
At the alehouse.
Soiled and dull thou art;
Yellow are thy time-worn pages,
As the russet, rain-molested 15
Leaves of autumn.
Thou art stained with wine
Scattered from hilarious goblets,
As the leaves with the libations
Of Olympus. 20
Yet dost thou recall
Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic, —
When I paused to hear 25
The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban taverns
In the twilight.
Thou recallest bards,
Who, in solitary chambers, 30
And with hearts by passion wasted,
Wrote thy pages.
Thou recallest homes
Where thy songs of love and friendship
Made the gloomy Northern winter 35
Bright as summer.
Once some ancient Scald,
In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,
Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings. 40
Once in Elsinore,
At the court of old King Hamlet,
Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these ditties.
Once Prince Frederick’s Guard 45
Sang them in their smoky barracks; —
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!
Peasants in the field,
Sailors on the roaring ocean, 50
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,
All have sung them.
Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside 55
Art thou welcome.
And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering song shall nestle
In my bosom, — 60
Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel.
Walter von der Vogelweid
VOGELWEID the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Würtzburg’s minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures, 5
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, “From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song; 10
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long.”
Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted 15
By the children of the choir.
Day by day, o’er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air. 20
On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,
On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet’s sculptured face,
On the cross-bars of each window, 25
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.
There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side; 30
And the name their voices uttered
Was the name of Vogelweid.
Till at length the portly abbot
Murmured, “Why this waste of food?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward 35
For our fasting brotherhood.”
Then in vain o’er tower and turret,
From the walls and woodland nests,
When the minster bells rang noontide,
Gathered the unwelcome guests. 40
Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.
Time has long effaced the inscriptions 45
On the cloister’s funeral stones,
And tradition only tells us
Where repose the poet’s bones.
But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes multiplied, 50
Still the birds repeat the legend,
And the name of Vogelweid.
Drinking Song
Inscription for an Antique Pitcher
COME, old friend! sit down and listen!
From the pitcher, placed between us,
How the waters laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!
Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, 5
Led by his inebriate Satyrs;
On his breast his head is sunken,
Vacantly he leers and chatters.
Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal 10
As the forehead of Apollo,
And possessing youth eternal.
Round about him, fair Bacchantes,
Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,
Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante’s 15
Vineyards, sing delirious verses.
Thus he won, through all the nations,
Bloodless victories, and the farmer
Bore, as trophies and oblations,
Vines for banners, ploughs for armor. 20
Judged by no o’erzealous rigor,
Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigor,
And Silenus of excesses.
These are ancient ethnic revels, 25
Of a faith long since forsaken;
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o’ertaken.
Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers; 30
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains, —
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons 35
Never would his own replenish.
Even Redi, though he chaunted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies. 40
Then with water fill the pitcher
Wreathed about with classic fables;
Ne’er Falernian threw a richer
Light upon Lucullus’ tables.
Come, old friend, sit down and listen! 45
As it passes thus between us,
How its wavelets laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!
The Old Clock on the Stairs
The house commemorated in the poem is the Gold house, now known as the Plunkett mansion, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the homestead of Mrs. Longfellow’s maternal grandfather, whither Mr. Longfellow went after his marriage in the summer of 1843. The poem was not written, however, till November, 1845, when, under date of the 12th of the month, he wrote in his diary: “Began a poem on a clock, with the words ‘Forever, never,’ as the burden; suggested by the words of Bridaine, the old French missionary, who said of eternity, C’est une pendule dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux, — Toujours, jamais! Jamais, toujours! Et pendant ces effrayables révolutions, un réprouvé s’ écrie, ‘Quelle heure est-il?’ et la voix d’un autre misérable lui répond, ‘L’Eternité.’”
SOMEWHAT back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall 5
An ancient timepiece says to all, —
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!”
Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands 10
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass, —
“Forever — never! 15
Never — forever!”
By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep’s fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall, 20
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say, at each chamber-door, —
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!”
Through days of sorrow and of mirth, 25
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe, — 30
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!”
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared; 35
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased, —
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!” 40
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold, 45
Those hours the ancient timepiece told, —
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!”
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night; 50
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair, —
“Forever — never! 55
Never — forever!”
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
“Ah! when shall they all meet again?” 60
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply, —
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!”
Never here, forever there, 65
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear, —
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly, — 70
“Forever — never!
Never — forever!”
The Arrow and the Song
“October 16, 1845. Before church, wrote The Arrow and the Song, which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and glanced on to the paper with arrow’s speed. Literally an improvisation.”
I SHOT an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air, 5
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke; 10
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Mezzo Cammin
Written at Boppard on the Rhine, August 25, 1842, just before leaving for home.
HALF of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret 5
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, — 10
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights, —
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
The Evening Star
“October 30, 1845. The Indian summer still in its glory. Wrote the sonnet Hesperus in the rustic seat of the old apple-tree.” This sonnet, addressed to his wife, and afterward given its present title, “is noticeable,” says his biographer, “as being the only love-poem among Mr. Longfellow’s verses.”
LO! in the painted oriel of the West,
Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The evening star, the star of love and rest!
And then anon she doth herself divest 5
Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
My morning and my evening star of love! 10
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
As that fair planet in the sky above,
Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,
And from thy darkened window fades the light.
Autumn
THOU comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, 5
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven’s o’erhanging eaves; 10
Thy steps are by the farmer’s prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!
Dante
TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,
With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.
Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom; 5
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand with pallid cheeks
By Fra Hilario in his diocese, 10
As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day’s decrease;
And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
Thy voice along the cloister whispers “Peace!”
Curfew
I
SOLEMNLY, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
Is beginning to toll.
Cover the embers, 5
And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.
Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire; 10
Sound fades into silence, —
All footsteps retire.
No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion 15
Reign over all!
II
The book is completed,
And closed, like the day;
And the hand that has written it
Lays it away. 20
Dim grow its fancies;
Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,
They darken and die.
Song sinks into silence, 25
The story is told,
The windows are darkened,
The hearth-stone is cold.
Darker and darker
The black shadows fall; 30
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all.
A POETIC DRAMA
The first form of this comedy was serial publication in Graham’s Magazine, September, October, and November, 1842. It was afterward carefully revised and published in book form in 1843, with the following preface: —
“The subject of the following play is taken in part from the beautiful tale of Cervantes, La Gitanilla. To this source, however, I am indebted for the main incident only, the love of a Spanish student for a Gypsy Girl, and the name of the heroine, Preciosa. I have not followed the story in any of its details.
“In Spain this subject has been twice handled dramatically; first by Juan Perez de Montalvan, in La Gitanilla, and afterwards by Antonio de Solis y Rivadeneira in La Gitanilla de Madrid.
“The same subject has also been made use of by Thomas Middleton, an English dramatist of the seventeenth century. His play is called The Spanish Gypsy. The main plot is the same as in the Spanish pieces; but there runs through it a tragic underplot of the loves of Rodrigo and Doña Clara, which is taken from another tale of Cervantes, La Fuerza de la Sangre.
“The reader who is acquainted with La Gitanilla of Cervantes, and the plays of Montalvan, Solis, and Middleton will perceive that my treatment of the subject differs entirely from theirs.”
The book bore upon its title-page a motto from Burns: —
“What ‘s done we partly may compute,
But know not what ‘s resisted.”
It had been the poet’s intention at first to have the drama put on the stage, but this plan was abandoned. A German version was performed at the Ducal Court Theatre in Dessau, January 28, 1855.
CONTENTS
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
VICTORIAN, HYPOLITO, Students of Alcalá.
THE COUNT OF LARA,
DON CARLOS, Gentlemen of Madrid.
THE ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO.
A CARDINAL.
BELTRAN CRUZADO, Count of the Gypsies.
BARTOLOMÉ ROMÁN, A young Gypsy.
THE PADRE CURA OF GUADARRAMA.
PEDRO CRESPO, Alcalde.
PANCHO, Alguacil.
FRANCISCO, Lara’s Servant.
CHISPA, Victorian’s Servant.
BALTASAR, Innkeeper.
PRECIOSA, A Gypsy Girl.
ANGELICA, A poor Girl.
MARTINA, The Padre Cura’s Niece.
DOLORES, Preciosa’s Maid.
Gypsies, Musicians, etc.
ACT I
SCENE I. — The COUNT OF LARA’S chambers. Night. The COUNT in his dressing-gown, smoking and conversing with DON CARLOS.
Lara. You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos;
How happened it?
Don C. I had engagements elsewhere. Pray who was there?
Lara. Why, all the town and court.
The house was crowded; and the busy fans
Among the gayly dressed and perfumed ladies
Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers. 5
There was the Countess of Medina Celi;
The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover,
Her Lindo Don Diego; Doña Sol,
And Doña Serafina, and her cousins.
Don C. What was the play?
Lara. It was a dull affair; 10
One of those comedies in which you see,
As Lope says, the history of the world
Brought down from Genesis to the day of Judgment.
There were three duels fought in the first act,
Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds, 15
Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying,
“Oh, I am dead!” a lover in a closet,
An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,
A Doña Inez with a black mantilla,
Followed at twilight by an unknown lover, 20
Who looks intently where he knows she is not!
Don C. Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night?
Lara. And never better. Every footstep fell
As lightly as a sunbeam on the water.
I think the girl extremely beautiful. 25
Don C. Almost beyond the privilege of woman!
I saw her in the Prado yesterday.
Her step was royal, — queen-like, — and her face
As beautiful as a saint’s in Paradise.
Lara. May not a saint fall from her Paradise, 30
And be no more a saint?
Don C. Why do you ask?
Lara. Because I have heard it said this angel fell,
And though she is a virgin outwardly,
Within she is a sinner; like those panels
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks 35
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary
On the outside, and on the inside Venus!
Don C. You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong!
She is as virtuous as she is fair.
Lara. How credulous you are! Why, look you, friend, 40
There ‘s not a virtuous woman in Madrid,
In this whole city! And would you persuade me
That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself,
Nightly, half naked, on the stage, for money,
And with voluptuous motions fires the blood 45
Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held
A model for her virtue?
Don C. You forget
She is a Gypsy girl.
Lara. And therefore won
The easier.
Don C. Nay, not to be won at all!
The only virtue that a Gypsy prizes 50
Is chastity. That is her only virtue.
Dearer than life she holds it. I remember
A Gypsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,
Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;
And yet this woman was above all bribes. 55
And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,
The wild and wizard beauty of her race,
Offered her gold to be what she made others,
She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,
And smote him in the face!
Lara. And does that prove 60
That Preciosa is above suspicion?
Don C. It proves a nobleman may be repulsed
When he thinks conquest easy. I believe
That woman, in her deepest degradation,
Holds something sacred, something undefiled, 65
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light!
Lara. Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold.
Don C. (rising). I do not think so.
Lara. I am sure of it. 70
But why this haste? Stay yet a little longer,
And fight the battles of your Dulcinea.
Don C. ‘T is late.
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