My Complete Poetical Works E-Book

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1645

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This is the extended edition including an extensive primer on the author's life and works. This edition contains the complete poetical works of one of the most important American poets. There are hundreds and hundreds of lyrical writings included, among them: Voices Of The Night Earlier Poems Ballads And Other Poems Poems On Slavery. The Spanish Student Evangeline - A Tale Of Acadie The Seaside And The Fireside The Song Of Hiawatha The Courtship Of Miles Standish Birds Of Passage. Tales Of A Wayside Inn Flower-De-Luce The Masque Of Pandora The Hanging Of The Crane Morituri Salutamus A Book Of Sonnets Keramos Ultima Thule ... and much more ...

Leseprobe

My Complete Poetical Works

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Contents:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – A Primer

Voices Of The Night

Prelude.

Hymn To The Night.

A Psalm Of Life. What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

The Reaper And The Flowers.

The Light Of Stars.

Footsteps Of Angels.

Flowers.

The Beleaguered City.

Midnight Mass For The Dying Year

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

Ballads And Other Poems

The Skeleton In Armor

The Wreck Of The Hesperus

The Village Blacksmith

Endymion

It Is Not Always May

The Rainy Day

God's-Acre.

To The River Charles.

Blind Bartimeus

The Goblet Of Life

Maidenhood

Excelsior

Poems On Slavery.

To William E. Channing

The Slave's Dream

The Good Part

The Slave In The Dismal Swamp

The Slave Singing At Midnight

The Witnesses

The Quadroon Girl

The Warning

The Spanish Student

Dramatis Personae

Act I.

Act Ii.

Act Iii.

The Belfry Of Bruges And Other Poems

The Belfry Of Bruges Carillon

The Belfry Of Bruges

A Gleam Of Sunshine

The Arsenal At Springfield

Nuremberg

Rain In Summer

To A Child

The Occultation Of Orion

The Bridge

To The Driving Cloud

Songs

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

Sonnets

The Evening Star

Autumn

Dante

Curfew

Evangeline - A Tale Of Acadie

Part The First

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Part The Second

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

The Seaside And The Fireside

Dedication

By The Seaside

The Building Of The Ship

Seaweed

Chrysaor

The Secret Of The Sea

Twilight

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

The Lighthouse

The Fire Of Drift-Wood

By The Fireside

Resignation

The Builders

Sand Of The Desert In An Hour-Glass

The Open Window

King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn

Gaspar Becerra

Pegasus In Pound

Tegner's Drapa

Sonnet On Mrs. Kemble's Readings From Shakespeare

The Singers

Suspiria

Hymn

The Song Of Hiawatha

Introduction

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

Ix

X

Xi

Xii

Xiii

Xiv

Xv

Xvi

Xvii

Xviii

Ix

Xx

Xxi

Xxii

The Courtship Of Miles Standish

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

Ix

Birds Of Passage.

Flight The First

Birds Of Passage

Prometheus. Or The Poet's Forethought

Epimetheus, Or The Poet's Afterthought

The Ladder Of St. Augustine

The Phantom Ship

The Warden Of The Cinque Ports

Haunted Houses

In The Churchyard At Cambridge

The Emperor's Bird's-Nest

The Two Angels

Daylight And Moonlight

The Jewish Cemetery At Newport

Oliver Basselin

Victor Galbraith

My Lost Youth

The Ropewalk

The Golden Mile-Stone

Catawba Wine

Santa Filomena

The Discoverer Of The North Cape

Daybreak

The Fiftieth Birthday Of Agassiz

Children

Sandalphon

Flight The Second

The Children's Hour

Enceladus

The Cumberland

Snow-Flakes

A Day Of Sunshine

Something Left Undone

Weariness

Tales Of A Wayside Inn

Part First

Prelude - The Wayside Inn

The Landlord's Tale - Paul Revere's Ride.

Interlude.

The Student's Tale - The Falcon Of Ser Federigo

Interlude

The Spanish Jew's Tale - The Legend Of Rabbi Ben Levi

Interlude

The Sicilian's Tale - King Robert Of Sicily

Interlude

The Musician's Tale - The Saga Of King Olaf

Interlude

The Theologian's Tale - Torquemada

Interlude

The Poet's Tale - The Birds Of Killingworth

Finale

Part Second

Prelude

The Sicilian's Tale - The Bell Of Atri

Interlude

The Spanish Jew's Tale - Kambalu

Interlude

The Student's Tale - The Cobbler Of Hagenau

Interlude

The Musician's Tale - The Ballad Of Carmilhan

Interlude

The Poet's Tale - Lady Wentworth.

Interlude.

The Theologian's Tale - The Legend Beautiful

Interlude.

The Student's Second Tale - The Baron Of St. Castine

Finale

Part Third

Prelude

The Spanish Jew's Tale - Azrael

Interlude.

The Poet's Tale - Charlemagne

Interlude

The Student's Tale - Emma And Eginhard

Interlude

The Theologian's Tale - Elizabeth

Interlude

The Sicilian's Tale - The Monk Of Casal-Maggiore

Interlude

The Spanish Jew's Second Tale - Scanderbeg

Interlude

The Musician's Tale - The Mother's Ghost

Interlude

The Landlord's Tale - The Rhyme Of Sir Christopher

Finale

Flower-De-Luce

Flower-De-Luce

Palingenesis

The Bridge Of Cloud

Hawthorne

Christmas Bells

The Wind Over The Chimney

The Bells Of Lynn

Killed At The Ford.

Giotto's Tower

To-Morrow

Divina Commedia

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Noel.

Birds Of Passage - Flight The Third

Fata Morgana

The Haunted Chamber

The Meeting

Vox Populi

The Castle-Builder

Changed

The Challenge

The Brook And The Wave

Aftermath

The Masque Of Pandora

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

The Hanging Of The Crane

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Morituri Salutamus

A Book Of Sonnets

Three Friends Of Mine

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Chaucer

Shakespeare

Milton

Keats

The Galaxy

The Sound Of The Sea

A Summer Day By The Sea

The Tides

A Shadow

A Nameless Grave

Sleep

The Old Bridge At Florence

Il Ponte Vecchio Di Firenze

Nature

In The Churchyard At Tarrytown

Eliot's Oak

The Descent Of The Muses

Venice

The Poets

Parker Cleaveland

The Harvest Moon

To The River Rhone

The Three Silences Of Molinos

The Two Rivers

Boston

St. John's, Cambridge

Moods

Woodstock Park

The Four Princesses At Wilna

Holidays

Wapentake

The Cross Of Snow

Birds Of Passage - Flight The Fourth

Charles Sumner

Travels By The Fireside

Cadenabbia

Monte Cassino

Amalfi

The Sermon Of St. Francis

Belisarius

Songo River

Keramos

Birds Of Passage - Flight The Fifth

The Herons Of Elmwood

A Dutch Picture

Castles In Spain

Vittoria Colonna.

The Revenge Of Rain-In-The-Face

To The River Yvette

The Emperor's Glove

A Ballad Of The French Fleet

The Leap Of Roushan Beg

Haroun Al Raschid

King Trisanku

A Wraith In The Mist

The Three Kings

Song

The White Czar

Delia

Ultima Thule

Dedication

Poems

Bayard Taylor

The Chamber Over The Gate

From My Arm-Chair

Jugurtha

The Iron Pen

Robert Burns

Helen Of Tyre

Elegiac

Old St. David's At Radnor

Folk Songs

The Sifting Of Peter

Maiden And Weathercock

The Windmill

The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

Sonnets

My Cathedral

The Burial Of The Poet

Night

L'envoi

The Poet And His Songs

In The Harbor

Becalmed

The Poet's Calendar

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Autumn Within

The Four Lakes Of Madison

Victor And Vanquished

Moonlight

The Children's Crusade

I

Ii

Iii

Sundown

Chimes

Four By The Clock.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Elegiac Verse

The City And The Sea

Memories

Hermes Trismegistus

To The Avon

President Garfield

My Books

Mad River

Possibilities

Decoration Day

A Fragment

Inscription On The Shanklin Fountain

The Bells Of San Blas

Fragments

Christus: A Mystery

Introitus

Part One - The Divine Tragedy

The First Passover

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

Ix

X

The Second Passover.

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

Ix

X

Xi

The Third Passover

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

Ix

X

Xi

Xii

Epilogue

First Interlude

Part Two - The Golden Legend

Prologue - The Spire Of Strasburg Cathedral

I

Ii

Iii

The Nativity

Iv

V.

Vi

Epilogue

Second Interlude

Part Three - The New England Tragedies

John Endicott

Giles Corey Of The Salem Farms

Judas Maccabaeus.

Act I.

Act Ii.

Act Iii.

Act Iv.

Act V.

Michael Angelo

Dedication.

Part First.

I.

Monologue: The Last Judgment

Ii.

Iii.

Iv.

V.

Part Second

I

Ii

Iii

Iv.

V

Vi

Part Third

I

Ii

Iii

Iv

V

Vi

Vii

Viii

Translations

Prelude

From The Spanish

Coplas De Manrique.

Sonnets

Ancient Spanish Ballads.

Vida De San Millan

San Miguel, The Convent

From The Cancioneros

From The Swedish And Danish

Passages From Frithiof's Saga

The Children Of The Lord's Supper

King Christian

The Elected Knight

Childhood

From The German

The Happiest Land

The Wave

The Dead

The Bird And The Ship

Whither?

Beware!

Song Of The Bell

The Castle By The Sea

The Black Knight

Song Of The Silent Land

The Luck Of Edenhall

The Two Locks Of Hair

The Hemlock Tree.

Annie Of Tharaw

The Statue Over The Cathedral Door

The Legend Of The Crossbill

The Sea Hath Its Pearls

Poetic Aphorisms

Blessed Are The Dead

Wanderer's Night-Songs

Remorse

Forsaken.

Allah

From The Anglo-Saxon

The Grave

Beowulf's Expedition To Heort.

The Soul's Complaint Against The Body

From The French

Song

Song

The Return Of Spring

Spring

The Child Asleep

Death Of Archbishop Turpin

The Blind Girl Of Castel Cuille

A Christmas Carol

To Cardinal Richelieu

The Angel And The Child

On The Terrace Of The Aigalades

To My Brooklet

Barreges

Will Ever The Dear Days Come Back Again?

At La Chaudeau

A Quiet Life.

The Wine Of Jurancon

Friar Lubin

Rondel

My Secret

From The Italian

The Celestial Pilot

The Terrestrial Paradise

Beatrice.

To Italy

The Nature Of Love

From The Portuguese

From Eastern Sources

The Siege Of Kazan

The Boy And The Brook

To The Stork

From The Latin

Virgil's First Eclogue

Ovid In Exile

My Complete Poetical Works, H. W.Longfellow

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

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ISBN: 9783849623586

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow– A Primer

By Thomas Davidson

H. W. Longfellow was an American poet, born on the 27th of February 1807, at Portland, Maine. His ancestor, William Longfellow, had immigrated to Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1676, from Yorkshire, England. His father was Stephen Longfellow, a lawyer and United States congressman, and his mother, Zilpha Wadsworth, a descendant of John Alden and of “Priscilla, the Puritan maiden.”

Longfellow's external life presents little that is of stirring interest. It is the life of a modest, deep-hearted gentleman, whose highest ambition was to be a perfect man, and, through sympathy and love, to help others to be the same. His boyhood was spent mostly in his native town, which he never ceased to love, and whose beautiful surroundings and quiet, pure life he has described in his poem “My Lost Youth.” Here he grew up in the midst of majestic peace, which was but once broken, and that by an event which made a deep impression on him — the War of 1812. He never forgot

“the sea-fight far away,

How it thundered o'er the tide,

And the dead captains as they lay

In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay,

Where they in battle died.”

The “tranquil bay” is Casco Bay, one of the most beautiful in the world, studded with bold, green islands, well fitted to be the Hesperides of a poet's boyish dreams. At the age of fifteen Longfellow entered Bowdoin College at Brunswick, a town situated near the romantic falls of the Androscoggin river, about 25 m. from Portland, and in a region full of Indian scenery and legend. Here he had among his classfellows Nathaniel Hawthorne, George B. Cheever and J. S. C. Abbott. During the latter years of his college life he contributed to the United States Literary Gazette some half-dozen poems, which are interesting for two reasons — (1) as showing the poet's early, book-mediated sympathy with nature and legendary heroisms, and (2) as being almost entirely free from that supernatural view of nature which his subsequent residence in Europe imparted to him. He graduated in 1825, at the age of eighteen, with honours, among others that of writing the “class poem” — taking the fourth place in a class of thirty-eight. He then entered his father's law office, without intending, however, it would appear, to devote himself to the study of the law. For this profession he was, both by capacity and tastes, utterly unfitted, and it was fortunate that, shortly after his graduation, he received an offer of a professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin College. In order the better to qualify himself for this appointment, he went to Europe (May 15th, 1826) and spent three years and a half travelling in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and England, learning languages, for which he had unusual talent, and drinking in the spirit of the history and life of these countries. The effect of Longfellow's visit was twofold. On the one hand, it widened his sympathies, gave him confidence in himself and supplied him with many poetical themes; on the other, it traditionalized his mind, coloured for him the pure light of nature and rendered him in some measure unfit to feel or express the spirit of American nature and life. His sojourn in Europe fell exactly in the time when, in England, the reaction against the sentimental atheism of Shelley, the pagan sensitivity of Keats, and the sublime, Satanic outcastness of Byron was at its height; when, in the Catholic countries, the negative exaggerations of the French Revolution were inducing a counter current of positive faith, which threw men into the arms of a half-sentimental, half-aesthetic medievalism; and when, in Germany, the aristocratic paganism of Goethe was being swept aside by that tide of dutiful, romantic patriotism which flooded the country, as soon as it began to feel that it still existed after being run over by Napoleon's war-chariot. He returned to America in 1829, and remained six years at Bowdoin College (1829-1835), during which he published various text-books for the study of modern languages. In his twenty-fourth year (1831) he married Miss Mary Story Potter, one of his “early loves.” In 1833 he made a series of translations from the Spanish, with an essay on the moral and devotional poetry of Spain, and these were incorporated in 1835 in Outre-mer: a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea.

In 1835 Longfellow was chosen to succeed George Ticknor as professor of modern languages and belles-lettres in Harvard. On receiving this appointment, he paid a second visit of some fifteen months to Europe, this time devoting special attention to the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. During this visit he lost his wife, who died at Rotterdam, on the 29th of November 1835.

On his return to America in December 1836, Longfellow took up his residence in Cambridge, and began to lecture at Harvard and to write. In his new home he found himself amid surroundings entirely congenial to him. Its spaciousness and free rural aspect, its old graveyards and towering elms, its great university, its cultivated society and its vicinity to humane, substantial, busy Boston, were all attractions for such a man. In 1837-1838 several essays of Longfellow's appeared in the North American Review, and in 1839 he published Hyperion: a Romance, and his first volume of original poetry, entitled Voices of the Night. Hyperion, a poetical account of his travels, had, at the time of its publication, an immense popularity, due mainly to its sentimental romanticism. At present few persons beyond their teens would care to read it through, so unnatural and stilted is its language, so thin its material and so consciously mediated its sentiment. Nevertheless it has a certain historical importance, for two reasons — (1) because it marks that period in Longfellow's career when, though he had left nature, he had not yet found art, and (2) because it opened the sluices through which the flood of German sentimental poetry flowed into the United States. The Voices of the Night contains some of his best minor poems, e.g. “The Psalm of Life” and “Footsteps of Angels.” In 1842 Longfellow published a small volume of Ballads and other Poems, containing some of his most popular pieces, e.g. “The Skeleton in Armour,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” “The Village Blacksmith,” “To a Child,” “The Bridge,” “Excelsior.” In the same year he paid a third brief visit to Europe, spending the summer on the Rhine. During his return-passage across the Atlantic he wrote his Poems on Slavery (1842), with a dedication to Channing. These poems went far to wake in the youth of New England a sense of the great national wrong, and to prepare them for that bitter struggle in which it was wiped out at the expense of the lives of so many of them. In 1843 he married again, his wife being Miss Frances Elizabeth Appleton of Boston, a daughter of Hon. Nathan Appleton, one of the founders of Lowell, and a sister of Thomas G. Appleton, himself no mean poet.

About the same time he bought, and fixed his residence in, the Craigie House, where he had formerly only been a lodger, an old “revolutionary house,” built about the beginning of the 18th century, and occupied by General Washington in 1776. This quaint old wooden house, in the midst of a large garden full of splendid elms, continued to be his chief residence till the day of his death. Of the lectures on Dante which he delivered about this time, James Russell Lowell says: “These lectures, illustrated by admirable translations, are remembered with grateful pleasure by many who were thus led to learn the full significance of the great Christian poet.” Indeed, as a professor, Longfellow was eminently successful. Shortly after the Poems on Slavery, there appeared in 1843 a more ambitious work, The Spanish Student, a Play in Three Acts, a kind of sentimental “Morality,” without any special merit but good intention. If published nowadays it would hardly attract notice; but in those gushing, emotion-craving times it had considerable popularity, and helped to increase the poet's now rapidly widening fame. A huge collection of translations of foreign poetry edited by him, and entitled The Poets and Poetry of Europe, appeared in 1845, and, in 1846, a few minor poems — songs and sonnets — under the title The Belfry of Bruges. In 1847 he published at Boston the greatest of all his works, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. It was, in some degree, an imitation of Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, and its plot, which was derived from Hawthorne's American Note-Books, is even simpler than that of the German poem, not to say much more touching. At the violent removal by the British government of a colony of French settlers from Acadie (Nova Scotia) in 1755, a young couple, on the very day of their wedding, were separated and carried in different directions, so that they lost all trace of each other. The poem describes the wanderings of the bride in search of her lover, and her final discovery of him as an old man on his death-bed, in a public hospital which she had entered as a nurse. Slight as the story is, it is worked out into one of the most affecting poems in the language, and gives to literature one of its most perfect types of womanhood and of “affection that hopes and endures and is patient.” Though written in a metre deemed foreign to English ears, the poem immediately attained a wide popularity, which it has never lost, and secured to the dactylic hexameter a recognized place among English metres.

In 1849 Longfellow published a novel of no great merit, Kavanagh, and also a volume of poems entitled The Seaside and the Fireside, a title which has reference to his two homes, the seaside one on the charming peninsula of Nahant, the fireside one in Cambridge. One of the poems in this collection, “Resignation,” has taken a permanent place in literature; another, “Hymn for my Brother's Ordination,” shows plainly the nature of the poet's Christianity. His brother, the Rev. Samuel Longfellow, was a minister of the Unitarian Church.

Longfellow's genius, in its choice of subjects, always oscillated between America and Europe, between the colonial period of American history and the Middle and Romantic Ages of European feeling. When tired of the broad daylight of American activity, he sought refuge and rest in the dim twilight of medieval legend and German sentiment. In 1851 appeared The Golden Legend, a long lyric drama based upon Hartmann von Aue's beautiful story of self-sacrifice, Der arme Heinrich. Next to Evangeline, this is at once the best and the most popular of the poet's longer works, and contains many passages of great beauty. Bringing his imagination back to America, he next applied himself to the elaboration of an Indian legend. In 1854 he resigned his professorship. In the following year he gave to the world the Indian Edda, The Song of Hiawatha, a conscious imitation, both in subject and metre, of the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, with which he had become acquainted during his second visit to Europe. The metre is monotonous and easily ridiculed, but it suits the subject, and the poem is very popular. In 1858 appeared The Courtship of Miles Standish, based on a charming incident in the early history of the Plymouth colony, and, along with it, a number of minor poems, included under the modest title, Birds of Passage. One of these is “My Lost Youth.”

Two events now occurred which served to cast a gloom over the poet's life and to interrupt his activity, — the outbreak of the Civil War, and the tragic fate of his wife, who, having accidentally allowed her dress to catch fire, was burnt to death in her own house in 1861. It was long before he recovered from the shock caused by this terrible event, and in his subsequent published poems he never ventured even to allude to it. When he did in some measure find himself again, he gave to the world his charming Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), and in 1865 his Household Poems. Among the latter is a poem entitled “The Children's Hour,” which affords a glance into the home life of the widowed poet, who had been left with five children two sons, Ernest and Charles, and three daughters,

“Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.”

A small volume entitled Flower de Luce (1867) contains, among other fine things, the beautiful “threnos” on the burial of Hawthorne, and “The Bells of Lynn.” Once more the poet sought refuge in medieval life by completing his translation of the Divina Commedia, parts of which he had rendered into English as much as thirty years before. This work appeared in 1867, and gave a great impulse to the study of Dante in America. It is a masterpiece of literal translation. Next came the New England Tragedies (1868) and The Divine Tragedy (1871), which found no large public. In 1868-1869 the poet visited Europe, and was everywhere received with the greatest honour. In 1872 appeared Three Books of Song, containing translated as well as original pieces, in 1873 Aftermath and in 1875 The Mask of Pandora, and other Poems. Among these “other poems” were “The Hanging of the Crane,” “Morituri Salutamus” and “A Book of Sonnets.” The Mask of Pandora is a proof of that growing appreciation of pagan naturalism which marked the poet's later years. Though not a great poem, it is full of beautiful passages, many of which point to the riddle of life as yet unsolved, a conviction which grew ever more and more upon the poet, as the ebulliency of romanticism gave way to the calm of classic feeling. In the “Book of Sonnets” are some of the finest things he ever wrote, especially the five sonnets entitled “Three Friends of Mine.” These “three friends” were Cornelius Felton, Louis Agassiz and Charles Sumner, whom he calls

“The noble three,

Who half my life were more than friends to me.”

The loss of Agassiz was a blow from which he never entirely recovered; and, when Sumner also left him, he wrote: —

“Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed;

I stay a little longer, as one stays

To cover up the embers that still burn.”

He did stay a little longer; but the embers that still burnt in him refused to be covered up. He would fain have ceased writing, and used to say, “It's a great thing to know when to stop”; but he could not stop, and did not stop, till the last. He continued to publish from time to time, in the magazines, poems which showed a clearness of vision and a perfection of workmanship such as he never had equalled at any period of his life. Indeed it may be said that his finest poems were his last. Of these a small collection appeared under the title of Keramos, and other Poems (1878). Besides these, in the years 1875-1878 he edited a collection of Poems of Places in thirty-one small volumes. In 1880 appeared Ultima Thule, meant to be his last work, and it was nearly so. In October 1881 he wrote a touching sonnet on the death of President Garfield, and in January 1882, when the hand of death was already upon him, his poem, Hermes Trismegistus, in which he gives utterance, in language as rich as that of the early gods, to that strange feeling of awe without fear, and hope without form, with which every man of spotless life and upright intellect withdraws from the phenomena of time to the realities of eternity.

In the last years of his life he suffered a great deal from rheumatism, and was, as he sometimes cheerfully said, “never free from pain.” Still he remained as sunny and genial as ever, looking from his Cambridge study windows across the Brighton meadows to the Brookline hills, or enjoying the “free wild winds of the Atlantic,” and listening to “The Bells of Lynn” in his Nahant home. He still continued to receive all visitors, and to take occasional runs up to Castine and Portland, the homes of his family. About the beginning of 1882, however, a serious change took place in his condition. Dizziness and want of strength confined him to his room for some time, and, although after some weeks he partially recovered, his elasticity and powers were gone. On the 19th of March he was seized with what proved to be peritonitis, and he died on the 24th. The poet was buried two days afterwards near his “three friends” in Mount Auburn cemetery. The regret for his loss was universal; for no modern man was ever better loved or better deserved to be loved.

Longfellow was made an LL.D. of Bowdoin College in 1828,. at the age of twenty-one, of Harvard in 1859 and of Cambridge (England) in 1868, and D.C.L. of Oxford in 1869. In 1873 he was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Science, and in 1877 of the Spanish Academy.

In person, Longfellow was rather below middle height, broad shouldered and well built. His head and face were extremely handsome, his forehead broad and high, his eyes full of clear, warming fire, his nose straight and graceful, his chin and lips, rich and full of feeling as those of the Praxitelean Hermes, and his voice low, melodious and full of tender cadences. His hair, originally dark, became, in his later years, silvery white, and its wavy locks combined with those of his flowing beard to give him that leonine appearance so familiar through his later portraits. Charles Kingsley said of Longfellow's face that it was the most beautiful human face he had ever seen. A bust to his memory was erected in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1884.

In Longfellow, the poet was the flower and fruit of the man. His nature was essentially poetic, and his life the greatest of his poems. Those who knew only the poems he wrote could form but a faint notion of the harmony, the sweetness, the manliness and the tenderness of that which he lived. What he would have been as a poet, if, instead of visiting Europe in early life and drinking in the spirit of the middle ages under the shadows of cathedral towers, he had, like Whittier, grown old amid American scenery and life, we can only guess from his earlier poems, which are as naturalistic, fresh and unmystical as could be desired; but certain it is that, from his long familiarity with the medieval view of nature, and its semi-pagan offspring, the romantic view, he was brought, for the greater part of his life, to look upon the world of men and things either as the middle scene of a miracle play, with a heaven of rewarding happiness above and a purgatory of purifying pain below, or else as a garment concealing, while it revealed, spiritual forms of unfathomed mystery. During this time he could hear “the trailing garments of the night sweep through her marble halls,” and see “the stars come out to listen to the music of the seas.” Later on, as he approached his second youth (he was spared a second childhood), he tended to a more pagan view. About the time when he was writing The Mask of Pandora, he could see “in the sunset Jason's fleece of gold,” and hear “the waves of the distracted sea piteously calling and lamenting” his lost friend. But through all the periods of his life his view of the world was essentially religious and subjective, and, consequently, his manner of dealing with it hymnal or lyric. This fact, even more than his merits as an artist, serves to account for his immense popularity. Too well-informed, too appreciative and too modest to deem himself the peer of the “grand old masters,” or one of “those far stars that come in sight once in a century,” he made it his aim to write something that should “make a purer faith and manhood shine in the untutored heart,” and to do this in the way that should best reach that heart. This aim determined at once his choice of subjects and his mode of treating them.

The subjects of Longfellow's poetry are, for the most part, aspects of nature as influencing human feeling, either directly or through historical association, the tender or pathetic sides and incidents of life, or heroic deeds preserved in legend or history. He had a special fondness for records of human devotion and self-sacrifice, whether they were monkish legends, Indian tales, Norse drápas or bits of American history. His mode of treatment is subjective and lyric. No matter what form his works assume, whether the epic, as in Evangeline, The Courtship of Miles Standish and Hiawatha, the dramatic, as in The Spanish Student, The Golden Legend and The Mask of Pandora, or the didactic, as in The Psalm of Life and many of the minor poems; they are all subjective. This is not the highest praise that can be given to works of art; but it implies less dispraise in Longfellow's case than in almost any other, by reason of his noble subjectivity.

If we look in Longfellow's poetry for originality of thought, profound psychological analysis or new insights into nature, we shall be disappointed. Though very far from being hampered by any dogmatic philosophical or religious system of the past, his mind, until near the end, found sufficient satisfaction in the Christian view of life to make it indifferent to the restless, inquiring spirit of the present, and disinclined to play with any more recent solution of life's problems. He had no sympathy with either scepticism or formal dogmatism, and no need to hazard rash guesses respecting man's destiny. He disliked the psychological school of art, believing it to be essentially morbid and unhealthy. He had no sympathy with the tendency represented by George Eliot, or with any attempt to be analytic in art. He held art to be essentially synthetic, creative and manifesting, not analytic, destructive or questioning. Hence he never strove to draw from nature some new secret, or to show in her relations never discovered before. His aim was to impress upon her familiar facts and aspects the seal of his own gracious nature. A man in intellect and courage, yet without conceit or bravado; a woman in sensibility and tenderness, yet without shrinking or weakness; a saint in purity of life and devotion of heart, yet without asceticism or religiosity; a knight-errant in hatred of wrong and contempt of baseness, yet without self-righteousness or cynicism; a prince in dignity and courtesy, yet without formality or condescension; a poet in thought and feeling, yet without jealousy or affectation; a scholar in tastes and habits, yet without aloofness or bookishness; a dutiful son, a loving husband, a judicious father, a trusty friend, a useful citizen and an enthusiastic patriot, — he united in his strong, transparent humanity almost every virtue under heaven. A thoroughly healthy, well-balanced, harmonious nature, accepting life as it came, with all its joys and sorrows, and living it beautifully and hopefully, without canker and without uncharity. No man ever lived more completely in the light than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Perhaps the most remarkable traits in Longfellow's character were his accessibility and his charity. Though a great worker, he seemed always to have time for anything he was asked to do. He was never too busy to see a caller, to answer a letter, or to assist, by word or deed, any one that needed assistance. His courtesy to all visitors, even to strangers and children who called to look at him, or who, not venturing to call, hung about his garden-gate in order to catch a glimpse of him, was almost a marvel. He always took it for granted that they had come to see Washington's study, and, accordingly, took the greatest interest in showing them that. He never, as long as he could write, was known to refuse his autograph, and so far was he from trying to protect himself from intruders that he rarely drew the blinds of his study windows at night, though that study was on the ground floor and faced the street. His acts of charity, though performed in secret, were neither few nor small. Of him it may be said with perfect truth, “He went about doing good”; and not with his money merely, but also with his presence and his encouragement. To how many sad hearts did he come like an angel, with the rich tones of his voice waking harmonics of hope, where before there had been despair and silence? How many young literary people, disappointed at the unsuccess of their first attempts, did he comfort and spur on to renewed and higher efforts! How careful he was to quench no smoking flax! How utterly free he was from jealousy or revengefulness! While poor, morbid Edgar Allan Poe was writing violent and scurrilous articles upon him, accusing him of plagiarism and other literary misdemeanours, he was delivering enthusiastic lectures to his classes on Poe's poetry. His charity was unbounded. Once, when the present writer proposed to the president of the Harvard University Visiting Committee that Longfellow should be placed on that committee, the president replied: “What would be the use? Longfellow could never be brought to find fault with anybody or anything.” And it was true. His whole life was bathed in that sympathy, that love which suffers long and envies not, which forgives unto seventy times seven times, and as many more if need be. Even in his last years, when loss of friends and continual physical pain made life somewhat “cold, and dark and dreary” for him, he never complained, lamented or blamed the arrangements of nature, and the only way in which it was possible to know that he suffered was through his ever-increasing delight in the health and strength of younger men. His whole nature was summed up in the lines of his favourite poet: —

“          intellettual, piena d'amore,

Amor di vero ben, pien di letizia,

Letizia che trascende ogni dolzore.”

See his Life . . . with Extracts from his Journals and Correspondence, by Samuel Longfellow, and the “Riverside” edition of the prose and poems (Boston, 11 vols., 1886-1890). An enlarged edition of the Life (3 vols., 1891) included the journals and correspondence, 1866-1882, published in 1887 as Final Memorials (Boston and New York). Also the volume by T. W. Higginson in the “American Men of Letters” series (1902); E. C. Stedman's criticism in Poets of America; and an article in W. D. Howells' My Literary Friends and Acquaintance (New York, 1900) which contains a valuable account of Longfellow's later life.

VOICES OF THE NIGHT

PRELUDE.

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,   And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene. Where, the long drooping boughs between, Shadows dark and sunlight sheen   Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives   No sunlight from above, But the dark foliage interweaves In one unbroken roof of leaves, Underneath whose sloping eaves   The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree   I lay upon the ground; His hoary arms uplifted he, And all the broad leaves over me Clapped their little hands in glee,   With one continuous sound;—

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings   The feelings of a dream, As of innumerable wings, As, when a bell no longer swings, Faint the hollow murmur rings   O'er meadow, lake, and stream.

And dreams of that which cannot die,   Bright visions, came to me, As lapped in thought I used to lie, And gaze into the summer sky, Where the sailing clouds went by,   Like ships upon the sea;

Dreams that the soul of youth engage   Ere Fancy has been quelled; Old legends of the monkish page, Traditions of the saint and sage, Tales that have the rime of age,   And chronicles of Eld.

And, loving still these quaint old themes,   Even in the city's throng I feel the freshness of the streams, That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams, Water the green land of dreams,   The holy land of song.

Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings   The Spring, clothed like a bride, When nestling buds unfold their wings, And bishop's-caps have golden rings, Musing upon many things,   I sought the woodlands wide.

The green trees whispered low and mild;   It was a sound of joy! They were my playmates when a child, And rocked me in their arms so wild! Still they looked at me and smiled,   As if I were a boy;

And ever whispered, mild and low,   "Come, be a child once more!" And waved their long arms to and fro, And beckoned solemnly and slow; O, I could not choose but go   Into the woodlands hoar,—

Into the blithe and breathing air,   Into the solemn wood, Solemn and silent everywhere Nature with folded hands seemed there Kneeling at her evening prayer!   Like one in prayer I stood.

Before me rose an avenue   Of tall and sombrous pines; Abroad their fan-like branches grew, And, where the sunshine darted through, Spread a vapor soft and blue,   In long and sloping lines.

And, falling on my weary brain,   Like a fast-falling shower, The dreams of youth came back again, Low lispings of the summer rain, Dropping on the ripened grain,   As once upon the flower.

Visions of childhood! Stay, O stay!   Ye were so sweet and wild! And distant voices seemed to say, "It cannot be! They pass away! Other themes demand thy lay;   Thou art no more a child!

"The land of Song within thee lies,   Watered by living springs; The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes Are gates unto that Paradise, Holy thoughts, like stars, arise,   Its clouds are angels' wings.

"Learn, that henceforth thy song shall be,   Not mountains capped with snow, Nor forests sounding like the sea, Nor rivers flowing ceaselessly, Where the woodlands bend to see   The bending heavens below.

"There is a forest where the din   Of iron branches sounds! A mighty river roars between, And whosoever looks therein Sees the heavens all black with sin,   Sees not its depths, nor bounds.

"Athwart the swinging branches cast,   Soft rays of sunshine pour; Then comes the fearful wintry blast Our hopes, like withered leaves, fail fast; Pallid lips say, 'It is past!   We can return no more!,

"Look, then, into thine heart, and write!   Yes, into Life's deep stream! All forms of sorrow and delight, All solemn Voices of the Night, That can soothe thee, or affright,—   Be these henceforth thy theme."

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

[Greek quotation]

I heard the trailing garments of the Night      Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light      From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,      Stoop o'er me from above; The calm, majestic presence of the Night,      As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,      The manifold, soft chimes, That fill the haunted chambers of the Night      Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air      My spirit drank repose; The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—      From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear      What man has borne before! Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,      And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!      Descend with broad-winged flight, The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,      The best-beloved Night!

A PSALM OF LIFE. WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,   Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers,   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!   And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest,   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,   Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,   And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,   In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle!   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!   Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,—act in the living Present!   Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us   We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us   Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that perhaps another,   Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,   With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,   Learn to labor and to wait.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,   And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,   And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;   "Have naught but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,   I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,   He kissed their drooping leaves; It was for the Lord of Paradise   He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"   The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they,   Where he was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,   Transplanted by my care, And saints, upon their garments white,   These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,   The flowers she most did love; She knew she should find them all again   In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,   The Reaper came that day; 'T was an angel visited the green earth,   And took the flowers away.

THE LIGHT OF STARS.

The night is come, but not too soon;   And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon   Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven   But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given   To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?   The star of love and dreams? O no! from that blue tent above,   A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,   When I behold afar, Suspended in the evening skies,   The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand   And smile upon my pain; Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,   And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light   But the cold light of stars; I give the first watch of the night   To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,   He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still,   And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,   That readest this brief psalm, As one by one thy hopes depart,   Be resolute and calm.

O fear not in a world like this,   And thou shalt know erelong, Know how sublime a thing it is   To suffer and be strong.

FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS.

When the hours of Day are numbered,   And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that slumbered,   To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,   And, like phantoms grim and tall, Shadows from the fitful firelight   Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed   Enter at the open door; The beloved, the true-hearted,   Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished   Noble longings for the strife, By the roadside fell and perished,   Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,   Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly,   Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,   Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me,   And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep   Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me,   Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me   With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like,   Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended,   Is the spirit's voiceless prayer, Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,   Breathing from her lips of air.

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,   All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only   Such as these have lived and died!

FLOWERS.

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,   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; 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,   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.

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,   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, 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'er-flowing,   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;

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,   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, 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,   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.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

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,   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, And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,   The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there,   No drum, nor sentry's pace; The mist-like banners clasped the air,   As clouds with clouds embrace.

But when the old cathedral bell   Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell   On the alarmed air.

Down the broad valley fast and far   The troubled army fled; Up rose the glorious morning star,   The ghastly host was dead.

I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,   That strange and mystic scroll, That an army of phantoms vast and wan   Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,   In Fancy's misty light, Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam   Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground   The spectral camp is seen, And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,   Flows the River of Life between.

No other voice nor sound is there,   In the army of the grave; No other challenge breaks the air,   But the rushing of Life's wave.

And when the solemn and deep churchbell   Entreats the soul to pray, The midnight phantoms feel the spell,   The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar   The spectral camp is fled; Faith shineth as a morning star,   Our ghastly fears are dead.

MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING YEAR

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!

The leaves are falling, falling,   Solemnly and slow; Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,   It is a sound of woe,        A sound of woe!

Through woods and mountain passes   The winds, like anthems, roll; They are chanting solemn masses,   Singing, "Pray for this poor soul,        Pray, pray!"

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!

There he stands in the foul weather,   The foolish, fond Old Year, Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,     Like weak, despised Lear,        A king, a king!

Then comes the summer-like day,   Bids the old man rejoice! His joy! his last! O, the man gray   Loveth that ever-soft voice,        Gentle and low.

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!"

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!

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!"

Then comes, with an awful roar,   Gathering and sounding on, The storm-wind from Labrador,   The wind Euroclydon,         The storm-wind!

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! 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!        Christe, eleyson!

**********

EARLIER POEMS

AN APRIL DAY

    When the warm sun, that brings Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, 'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs     The first flower of the plain.

    I love the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell     The coming-on of storms.

    From the earth's loosened mould The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives; Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,     The drooping tree revives.

    The softly-warbled song Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along     The forest openings.

    When the bright sunset fills The silver woods with light, the green slope throws Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,     And wide the upland glows.

    And when the eve is born, In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far, Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,     And twinkles many a star.

    Inverted in the tide Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw, And the fair trees look over, side by side,     And see themselves below.

    Sweet April! many a thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed; Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,     Life's golden fruit is shed.

AUTUMN

With what a glory comes and goes the year! The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out; And when the silver habit of the clouds Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with A sober gladness the old year takes up His bright inheritance of golden fruits, A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene.

  There is a beautiful spirit breathing now Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds. Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned, And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved, Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees The golden robin moves. The purple finch, That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds, A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle, And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings, And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke, Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.

  O what a glory doth this world put on For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks On duties well performed, and days well spent! For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings. He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death Has lifted up for all, that he shall go To his long resting-place without a tear.

WOODS IN WINTER.

When winter winds are piercing chill,   And through the hawthorn blows the gale, With solemn feet I tread the hill,   That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away   Through the long reach of desert woods, The embracing sunbeams chastely play,   And gladden these deep solitudes.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,   The summer vine in beauty clung, And summer winds the stillness broke,   The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs   Pour out the river's gradual tide, Shrilly the skater's iron rings,   And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,   When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green,   And the song ceased not with the day!

But still wild music is abroad,   Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,   Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear   Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year,   I listen, and it cheers me long.

HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS OF BETHLEHEM

AT THE CONSECRATION OF PULASKI'S BANNER.

When the dying flame of day Through the chancel shot its ray, Far the glimmering tapers shed Faint light on the cowled head; And the censer burning swung, Where, before the altar, hung The crimson banner, that with prayer Had been consecrated there. And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle.

   "Take thy banner! May it wave     Proudly o'er the good and brave;     When the battle's distant wail     Breaks the sabbath of our vale.     When the clarion's music thrills     To the hearts of these lone hills,     When the spear in conflict shakes,     And the strong lance shivering breaks.

   "Take thy banner! and, beneath     The battle-cloud's encircling wreath,     Guard it, till our homes are free!     Guard it! God will prosper thee!     In the dark and trying hour,     In the breaking forth of power,     In the rush of steeds and men,     His right hand will shield thee then.

    "Take thy banner! But when night      Closes round the ghastly fight,

There is a quiet spirit in these woods, That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows; Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade, The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air, The leaves above their sunny palms outspread. With what a tender and impassioned voice It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought, When the fast ushering star of morning comes O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf; Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve, In mourning weeds, from out the western gate, Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves In the green valley, where the silver brook,