Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated) E-Book

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• Herausgeber: Delphi Classics
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: Delphi Poets Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 3595

Beschreibung

Famous for his poems ‘Paul Revere's Ride’ and ‘The Song of Hiawatha’, the Fireside Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most successful American writers of his day, enjoying success overseas as well as at home. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature’s finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the complete works of America’s beloved poet, with beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 2)
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* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Longfellow's life and works
* Concise introductions to the poetry and other works
* Images of how the poetry books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
* Famous epic poems such as THE SONG OF HIAWATHA and EVANGELINE are fully illustrated with contemporary images
* Excellent formatting of the poems
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry
* Easily locate the poems you want to read
* Includes Longfellow's novels
* Also includes Longfellow's detailed travelogue OUTRE-MER, appearing here for the first time in digital print
* Features a bonus biography on the great poet - discover Longfellow's literary life
* Updated with the complete translation of Dante’s 'Divine Comedy'
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
CONTENTS:

The Poetry Collections
Voices of the Night
Juvenile and Earlier Poems
Ballads and Other Poems
Poems on Slavery
The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems
Birds of Passage
Songs and Sonnets
The Spanish Student
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
The Seaside and the Fireside
The Song of Hiawatha
The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems
Tales of a Wayside Inn
Flower-De-Luce
Dante’s Divine Comedy
The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems
Kéramos and Other Poems
Ultima Thule
In the Harbor
Christus: A Mystery
Judas Maccabæus
Michel Angelo: A Fragment
Fragments
Translations

The Poems
List of Poems in Chronological Order
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

The Novels
Hyperion, a Romance
Kavanagh

The Travel Writing
Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea

The Biography
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Leseprobe

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(1807–1882)

Contents

The Poetry Collections

Voices of the Night

Juvenile and Earlier Poems

Ballads and Other Poems

Poems on Slavery

The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

Birds of Passage

Songs and Sonnets

The Spanish Student

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

The Seaside and the Fireside

The Song of Hiawatha

The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems

Tales of a Wayside Inn

Flower-De-Luce

Dante’s Divine Comedy

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems

Kéramos and Other Poems

Ultima Thule

In the Harbor

Christus: A Mystery

Judas Maccabæus

Michel Angelo: A Fragment

Fragments

Translations

The Poems

List of Poems in Chronological Order

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

The Novels

Hyperion, a Romance

Kavanagh

The Travel Writing

Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea

The Biography

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

©Delphi Classics 2012

Version 2

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By Delphi Classics, 2012

COPYRIGHT

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Delphi Poets Series

First published in the United Kingdom in 2012 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2012.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

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NOTE

When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

The Poetry Collections

489 Congress Street, Portland, Maine — Longfellow’s birthplace; now known as ‘Wadsworth-Longfellow House’, a world famous literary museum

Longfellow’s birthplace in 1910

The house in 1826

The poet’s father, Stephen Longfellow (June 23, 1776 - August 2, 1849), was a U.S. Representative from Maine.

Voices of the Night

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most popular writer of his day and is generally regarded as America’s most distinguished poet, whose famous works Paul Revere’s Ride, The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline have enjoyed wide-spread popularity ever since their first appearance. Longfellow was also a keen classicist, who was the first American to translate Dante’s The Divine Comedy and other foreign language texts, encouraging a new age of American scholarship.

Initially, after completing his education at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Massachusetts, Longfellow became a professor at Bowdoin and later at Harvard College. Whilst teaching, he released his first poetry collection, Voices of the Night (1839), which contained the poems Hymn to the Night, The Psalm of Life and The Light of the Stars, achieving immediate popularity. This inspired the young poet to write a second collection, entitled Ballads and Other Poems, which appeared two years later in 1841. At this time, Longfellow wrote predominantly lyric poems, known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. However, he was criticised for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.

After the release of Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems, Edgar Allan Poe wrote in the February 1840 issue of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine that Longfellow had “idiosyncratic excellences” and a “fitful imagination.” But Poe also complained that these were insufficient to “the ultimate achievement of any well-founded monument– any enduring reputation… Longfellow appears to us singularly deficient in all those important faculties which give artistical power, and without which never was immortality effected.”  Still, Voices of the Night was instantly popular with readers and TheNew-Yorker announced Longfellow as “one of the very few in our time who has successfully aimed in putting poetry to its best and sweetest uses”.  The Southern Literary Messenger immediately put Longfellow “among the first of our American poets”, whilst the poet John Greenleaf Whittier said that Longfellow’s poetry illustrated “the careful moulding by which art attains the graceful ease and chaste simplicity of nature”.

Longfellow, as a young man

Mary Storer Potter became Longfellow’s first wife in 1831, but she sadly died four years later after a miscarriage.

CONTENTS

Prelude

Hymn to the Night

A Psalm of Life

The Reaper and the Flowers

The Light of Stars

Footsteps of Angels

Flowers

The Beleaguered City

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year

The first edition

Prelude

The title Voices of the Night originally was used by Mr. Longfellow for the poem Footsteps of Angels; then he gave it to the first collected volume of his poetry with special application to the group of eight poems following Prelude. Here it is confined to this group.

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  5  Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives  No sunlight from above,But the dark foliage interweavesIn one unbroken roof of leaves,  10Underneath whose sloping eaves  The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree  I lay upon the ground;His hoary arms uplifted he,  15And all the broad leaves over meClapped their little hands in glee,  With one continuous sound; —

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings  The feelings of a dream,  20As 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,  25  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;  30

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,  35  And chronicles of eld.

And, loving still these quaint old themes,  Even in the city’s throngI feel the freshness of the streams,That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams,  40Water 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,  45And 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!  50They 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,  55  “Come, be a child once more!”And waved their long arms to and fro,And beckoned solemnly and slow;Oh, I could not choose but go  Into the woodlands hoar, — 60

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!  65  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,  70Spread 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, — 75Low lispings of the summer rain,Dropping on the ripened grain,  As once upon the flower.

Visions of childhood! Stay, oh, stay!  Ye were so sweet and wild!  80And 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,  85  Watered by living springs;The lids of Fancy’s sleepless eyesAre gates unto that Paradise;Holy thoughts, like stars, arise;  Its clouds are angels’ wings.  90

“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  95  The bending heavens below.

“There is a forest where the din  Of iron branches sounds!A mighty river roars between,And whosoever looks therein  100Sees 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;  105Our hopes, like withered leaves, fall 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!  110

Hymn to the Night

Composed in the summer of 1839, “while sitting at my chamber window, on one of the balmiest nights of the year. I endeavored to reproduce the impression of the hour and scene.”

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,  5  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,  10That 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, — 15  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.  20

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  Mr. Longfellow said of this poem: “I kept it some time in manuscript, unwilling to show it to any one, it being a voice from my inmost heart, at a time when I was rallying from depression.” Before it was published in the Knickerbocker Magazine, October, 1838, it was read by the poet to his college class at the close of a lecture on Goethe. Its title, though used now exclusively for this poem, was originally, in the poet’s mind, a generic one. He notes from time to time that he has written a psalm, a psalm of death, or another psalm of life. The “psalmist” is thus the poet himself. When printed in the Knickerbocker it bore as a motto the lines from Crashaw: —

       Life that shall sendA challenge to its end,And when it comes say, Welcome, friend.

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!  5  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;  10But 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  15  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!  20

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  25  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,  30A 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,  35  Learn to labor and to wait.

The Reaper and the Flowers

In his diary, under date of December 6, 1838, Mr. Longfellow writes: “A beautiful holy morning within me. I was softly excited, I knew not why, and wrote with peace in my heart, and not without tears in my eyes, The Reaper and the Flowers, a Psalm of Death. I have had an idea of this kind in my mind for a long time, without finding any expression for it in words. This morning it seemed to crystallize at once, without any effort of my own.” This psalm was printed in the Knickerbocker for January, 1839, with the sub-title A Psalm of Death, and with the familiar stanza from Henry Vaughan, beginning: —

       Dear beauteous death; the jewel of the just!

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;  5  “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;  10It 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,  15  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.”  20

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.

Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,  25  The Reaper came that day;‘T was an angel visited the green earth,  And took the flowers away.

The Light of Stars

“This poem was written on a beautiful summer night. The moon, a little strip of silver, was just setting behind the groves of Mount Auburn, and the planet Mars blazing in the southeast. There was a singular light in the sky.” H. W. L. It was published in the same number of the Knickerbocker as the last, where it was headed A Second Psalm of Life, and prefaced by another stanza from the same poem of Vaughan: —

       It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,  Like stars upon some gloomy grove,Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest  After the sun’s remove.

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  5  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?  10Oh 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,  15  The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand  And smile upon my pain;Thou beckonest with thy mailèd hand,  And I am strong again.  20

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,  25  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,  30As one by one thy hopes depart,  Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,  And thou shalt know erelong,Know how sublime a thing it is  35

Footsteps of Angels

The poem in its first form bore the title Evening Shadows. The reference in the fourth stanza is to the poet’s friend and brother-in-law George W. Pierce, of whom he said long after: “I have never ceased to feel that in his death something was taken from my own life which could never be restored.” News of his friend’s death reached Mr. Longfellow in Heidelberg on Christmas eve, 1835, less than a month after the death of Mrs. Longfellow, who is referred to in the sixth and following stanzas.

WHEN the hours of Day are numbered,  And the voices of the NightWake the better soul, that slumbered,  To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,  5  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;  10The 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,  15  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!  20

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  25  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,  30Like 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,  35  Breathing from her lips of air.

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,  All my fears are laid aside,If I but remember only

Flowers

“I wrote this poem on the 3d of October, 1837, to send with a bouquet of autumnal flowers. I still remember the great delight I took in its composition, and the bright sunshine that streamed in at the southern windows as I walked to and fro, pausing ever and anon to note down my thoughts.” H. W. L. It was probably the first poem written by Mr. Longfellow after his establishment at Cambridge.

SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden,  One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,  Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,  5  As astrologers and seers of eld;Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,  Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,  God hath written in those stars above;  10But not less in the bright flowerets under us  Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,  Written all over this great world of ours;Making evident our own creation,  15  In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,  Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a partOf the self-same, universal being,  Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.  20

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,  Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,  Buds that open only to decay;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,  25  Flaunting gayly in the golden light;Large desires, with most uncertain issues,  Tender wishes, blossoming at night!

These in flowers and men are more than seeming,  Workings are they of the self-same powers,  30Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,  Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing,  Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;Others, their blue eyes with tears o’erflowing,  35  Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;

Not alone in Spring’s armorial bearing,  And in Summer’s green-emblazoned field,But in arms of brave old Autumn’s wearing,  In the centre of his brazen shield;  40

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,  On the mountain-top, and by the brinkOf sequestered pools in woodland valleys,  Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,  45  Not on graves of bird and beast alone,But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,  On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

In the cottage of the rudest peasant,  In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,  50Speaking of the Past unto the Present,  Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons,  Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,  55  How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection,

The Beleaguered City

Mr. Samuel Longfellow states that the suggestion of the poem came from a note in one of the volumes of Scott’s Border Minstrelsy: “Similar to this was the Nacht Lager, or midnight camp, which seemed nightly to beleaguer the walls of Prague, but which disappeared upon the recitation of [certain] magical words.” The title of the poem served also as that of a remarkable prose sketch by Mrs. Oliphant.

I HAVE read, in some old, marvellous tale,  Some legend strange and vague,That a midnight host of spectres pale  Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau’s rushing stream,  5  With the wan moon overhead,There stood, as in an awful dream,  The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,  The spectral camp was seen,  10And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,  The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there,  No drum, nor sentry’s pace;The mist-like banners clasped the air  15  As clouds with clouds embrace.

But when the old cathedral bell  Proclaimed the morning prayer,The white pavilions rose and fell  On the alarmèd air.  20

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

I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,  25  That strange and mystic scroll,That an army of phantoms vast and wan  Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamped beside Life’s rushing stream,  In Fancy’s misty light,  30Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam  Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground  The spectral camp is seen,And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,  35  Flows the River of Life between.

No other voice nor sound is there,  In the army of the grave;No other challenge breaks the air,  But the rushing of Life’s wave.  40

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

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar  45  The spectral camp is fled;

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year

Published in the Knickerbocker as The Fifth Psalm the author also calls it in his diary An Autumnal Chant.

YES, the Year is growing old,  And his eye is pale and bleared!Death, with frosty hand and cold,  Plucks the old man by the beard,      Sorely, sorely!  5

The leaves are falling, falling,  Solemnly and slow;Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,  It is a sound of woe,      A sound of woe!  10

Through woods and mountain passes  The winds, like anthems, roll;They are chanting solemn masses,  Singing, “Pray for this poor soul,      Pray, pray!”  15

And the hooded clouds, like friars,  Tell their beads in drops of rain,And patter their doleful prayers;  But their prayers are all in vain,      All in vain!  20

There he stands in the foul weather,  The foolish, fond Old Year,Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,  Like weak, despisèd Lear,      A king, a king!  25

Then comes the summer-like day,  Bids the old man rejoice!His joy! his last! Oh, the old man gray  Loveth that ever-soft voice,      Gentle and low.  30

To the crimson woods he saith,  To the voice gentle and lowOf the soft air, like a daughter’s breath,  “Pray do not mock me so!      Do not laugh at me!”  35

And now the sweet day is dead;  Cold in his arms it lies;No stain from its breath is spread  Over the glassy skies,      No mist or stain!  40

Then, too, the Old Year dieth,  And the forests utter a moan,Like the voice of one who crieth  In the wilderness alone,      “Vex not his ghost!”  45

Then comes, with an awful roar,  Gathering and sounding on,The storm-wind from Labrador,  The wind Euroclydon,      The storm-wind!  50

Howl! howl! and from the forest  Sweep the red leaves away!Would the sins that thou abhorrest,  O soul! could thus decay,      And be swept away!  55

For there shall come a mightier blast,  There shall be a darker day;

Juvenile and Earlier Poems

CONTENTS

JUVENILE POEMS

The Battle of Lovell’s Pond

To Ianthe

Thanksgiving

Autumnal Nightfall

Italian Scenery

The Lunatic Girl

The Venetian Gondolier

The Angler’s Song

Lover’s Rock

Dirge over a Nameless Grave

A Song of Savoy

The Indian Hunter

Ode written for the Commemoration at Fryeburg, Maine, of Lovewell’s Fight

Jeckoyva

The Sea-Diver

Musings

Song

Song of the Birds

EARLIER POEMS

An April Day

Autumn

Woods in Winter

Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem

Sunrise on the Hills

The Spirit of Poetry

Burial of the Minnisink

L’Envoi

JUVENILE POEMS

The Battle of Lovell’s Pond

       WHEN Mr. Longfellow made his first collection of poems in Voices of the Night, he included a group of Earlier Poems, but printed only seven out of a number which bore his initials or are directly traceable to him. He chose these, doubtless, not as specimens of his youthful work, but because, of all that he had written ten years or more before, they only appeared to him to have poetic qualities which he could regard with any complacency. It is not likely that any readers will be found to contravene his judgment in the omission of the other verses, but since this edition is intended for the student as well as for the general reader, it has been thought best to print here those poetical exercises which curious investigators have recovered from the obscurity in which Mr. Longfellow was entirely willing to leave them. They are printed in as nearly chronological order as may be.  These are Mr. Longfellow’s first verses, so far as known, printed in the Portland Gazette, November 17, 1820.

COLD, cold is the north wind and rude is the blastThat sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast,As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear,Sighs a requiem sad o’er the warrior’s bier.

The war-whoop is still, and the savage’s yell  5Has sunk into silence along the wild dell;The din of the battle, the tumult, is o’er,And the war-clarion’s voice is now heard no more.

The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed;  10No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.

They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,And Victory’s loud trump their death did proclaim;They are dead; but they live in each Patriot’s breast,  15And their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest.

To Ianthe

WHEN upon the western cloud  Hang day’s fading roses,When the linnet sings aloud  And the twilight closes, — As I mark the moss-grown spring  5  By the twisted holly,Pensive thoughts of thee shall bring  Love’s own melancholy.

Lo, the crescent moon on high  Lights the half-choked fountain;  10Wandering winds steal sadly by  From the hazy mountain.Yet that moon shall wax and wane,  Summer winds pass over, — Ne’er the heart shall love again  15  Of the slighted lover!

When the russet autumn brings  Blighting to the forest,Twisted close the ivy clings  To the oak that’s hoarest;  20So the love of other days  Cheers the broken-hearted;But if once our love decays  ‘T is for aye departed.

When the hoar-frost nips the leaf,  25  Pale and sear it lingers,Wasted in its beauty brief  By decay’s cold fingers;Yet unchanged it ne’er again  Shall its bloom recover; — 30Thus the heart shall aye remain  Of the slighted lover.

Love is like the songs we hear  O’er the moonlit ocean;Youth, the spring-time of a year  35  Passed in Love’s devotion!Roses of their bloom bereft  Breathe a fragrance sweeter;Beauty has no fragrance left  Though its bloom is fleeter.  40

Then when tranquil evening throws  Twilight shades above thee,And when early morning glows, —   Think on those that love thee!For an interval of years  45

Thanksgiving

WHEN first ancient time, from Jubal’s tongueThe tuneful anthem filled the morning air,To sacred hymnings and elysian songHis music-breathing shell the minstrel woke.Devotion breathed aloud from every chord:  5The voice of praise was heard in every tone,And prayer and thanks to Him, the Eternal One,To Him, that with bright inspiration touchedThe high and gifted lyre of heavenly song,And warmed the soul with new vitality.  10A stirring energy through Nature breathed:The voice of adoration from her broke,Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heardLong in the sullen waterfall, what timeSoft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth  15Its bloom or blighting; when the summer smiled;Or Winter o’er the year’s sepulchre mourned.The Deity was there; a nameless spiritMoved in the breasts of men to do him homage;And when the morning smiled, or evening pale  20Hung weeping o’er the melancholy urn,They came beneath the broad, o’erarching trees,And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft,Where pale the vine clung round their simple altars,And gray moss mantling hung. Above was heard  25The melody of winds, breathed out as the green treesBowed to their quivering touch in living beauty;And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,The bright and widely wandering rivuletStruggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots  30That choked its reedy fountain, and dark rocksWorn smooth by the constant current. Even thereThe listless wave, that stole with mellow voiceWhere reeds grew rank on the rushy-fringed brink,And the green sedge bent to the wandering wind,  35Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.Men felt the heavenly influence; and it stoleLike balm into their hearts, till all was peace:And even the air they breathed, the light they saw,Became religion; for the ethereal spirit  40That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,And mellows everything to beauty, movedWith cheering energy within their breastsAnd made all holy there, for all was love.The morning stars, that sweetly sang together;  45The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky;Dayspring and eventide; and all the fairAnd beautiful forms of nature, had a voiceOf eloquent worship. Ocean, with its tidesSwelling and deep, where low the infant storm  50Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beatThe pulses of the sea, sent forth a voiceOf awful adoration to the spiritThat, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.And when the bow of evening arched the east,  55Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling waveKissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach,And soft the song of winds came o’er the waters,The mingled melody of wind and waveTouched like a heavenly anthem on the ear;  60For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earthNo pure reflections caught from heavenly light?Have our mute lips no hymn, our souls no song?Let him that in the summer-day of youth  65Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,And him that in the nightfall of his yearsLies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace

Autumnal Nightfall

    ROUND Autumn’s mouldering urnLoud mourns the chill and cheerless gale,When nightfall shades the quiet vale    And stars in beauty burn.

    ‘T is the year’s eventide.  5The wind, like one that sighs in painO’er joys that ne’er will bloom again    Mourns on the far hillside.

    And yet my pensive eyeRests on the faint blue mountain long;  10And for the fairy-land of song,    That lies beyond, I sigh.

    The moon unveils her brow;In the mid-sky her urn glows bright,And in her sad and mellowing light  15    The valley sleeps below.

    Upon the hazel grayThe lyre of Autumn hangs unstrungAnd o’er its tremulous chords are flung    The fringes of decay.  20

    I stand deep musing here,Beneath the dark and motionless beech,Whilst wandering winds of nightfall reach    My melancholy ear.

    The air breathes chill and free:  25A spirit in soft music callsFrom Autumn’s gray and moss-grown halls,    And round her withered tree.

    The hoar and mantled oak,With moss and twisted ivy brown,  30Bends in its lifeless beauty down    Where weeds the fountain choke.

    That fountain’s hollow voiceEchoes the sound of precious things;Of early feeling’s tuneful springs  35    Choked with our blighted joys.

    Leaves, that the night-wind bearsTo earth’s cold bosom with a sigh,Are types of our mortality,    And of our fading years.  40

    The tree that shades the plain,Wasting and hoar as time decays,

Italian Scenery

NIGHT rests in beauty on Mont Alto.Beneath its shade the beauteous Arno sleepsIn Vallombrosa’s bosom, and dark treesBend with a calm and quiet shadow downUpon the beauty of that silent river.  5

Still the west a melancholy smileMantles the lips of day, and twilight paleMoves like a spectre in the dusky sky,While eve’s sweet star on the fast-fading yearSmiles calmly. Music steals at intervals  10Across the water, with a tremulous swell,From out the upland dingle of tall firs;And a faint footfall sounds, where, dim and dark,Hangs the gray willow from the river’s brink,O’ershadowing its current. Slowly there  15The lover’s gondola drops down the stream,Silent, save when its dipping oar is heard,Or in its eddy sighs the rippling wave.Mouldering and moss-grown through the lapse of yearsIn motionless beauty stands the giant oak;  20Whilst those that saw its green and flourishing youthAre gone and are forgotten. Soft the fount,Whose secret springs the star-light pale discloses,Gushes in hollow music; and beyondThe broader river sweeps its silent way,  25Mingling a silver current with that sea,Whose waters have not tides, coming nor going.On noiseless wing along that fair blue seaThe halcyon flits; and, where the wearied stormLeft a loud moaning, all is peace again.  30

  A calm is on the deep. The winds that cameO’er the dark sea-surge with a tremulous breathing,And mourned on the dark cliff where weeds grew rank,And to the autumnal death-dirge the deep seaHeaved its long billows, with a cheerless song  35Have passed away to the cold earth again,Like a wayfaring mourner. SilentlyUp from the calm sea’s dim and distant verge,Full and unveiled, the moon’s broad disk emerges.On Tivoli, and where the fairy hues  40Of autumn glow upon Abruzzi’s woods,The silver light is spreading. Far above,Encompassed with their thin, cold atmosphere,The Apennines uplift their snowy brows,Glowing with colder beauty, where unheard  45The eagle screams in the fathomless ether,And stays his wearied wing. Here let us pause.The spirit of these solitudes — the soulThat dwells within these steep and difficult places — Speaks a mysterious language to mine own,  50And brings unutterable musings. EarthSleeps in the shades of nightfall, and the seaSpreads like a thin blue haze beneath my feet;Whilst the gray columns and the mouldering tombsOf the Imperial City, hidden deep  55Beneath the mantle of their shadows, rest.

My spirit looks on earth. A heavenly voiceComes silently: “Dreamer, is earth thy dwelling?Lo! nursed within that fair and fruitful bosom,Which has sustained thy being, and within  60The colder breast of Ocean, lie the germsOf thine own dissolution! E’en the air,That fans the clear blue sky, and gives thee strength,Up from the sullen lake of mouldering reeds,And the wide waste of forest, where the osier  65Thrives in the damp and motionless atmosphere,Shall bring the dire and wasting pestilence,And blight thy cheek. Dream thou of higher things:This world is not thy home!” And yet my eyeRests upon earth again. How beautiful,  70Where wild Velino heaves its sullen wavesDown the high cliff of gray and shapeless granite,Hung on the curling mist, the moonlight bowArches the perilous river! A soft lightSilvers the Albanian mountains, and the haze  75That rests upon their summits mellows downThe austerer features of their beauty. FaintAnd dim-discovered glow the Sabine hills;And, listening to the sea’s monotonous shell,High on the cliffs of Terracina stands  80The castle of the royal Goth in ruins.

  But night is in her wane: day’s early flushGlows like a hectic on her fading cheek,Wasting its beauty. And the opening dawnWith cheerful lustre lights the royal city,

The Lunatic Girl

MOST beautiful, most gentle! Yet how lostTo all that gladdens the fair earth; the eyeThat watched her being; the maternal careThat kept and nourished her; and the calm lightThat steals from our own thoughts, and softly rests  5On youth’s green valleys and smooth-sliding waters.Alas! few suns of life, and fewer winds,Had withered or had wasted the fresh roseThat bloomed upon her cheek: but one chill frostCame in that early autumn, when ripe thought  10Is rich and beautiful, and blighted it;And the fair stalk grew languid day by day,And drooped — and drooped, and shed its many leaves,‘T is said that some have died of love; and some,That once from beauty’s high romance had caught  15Love’s passionate feelings and heart-wasting cares,Have spurned life’s threshold with a desperate foot;And others have gone mad, — and she was one!Her lover died at sea; and they had feltA coldness for each other when they parted,  20But love returned again: and to her earCame tidings that the ship which bore her loverHad sullenly gone down at sea, and all were lost.I saw her in her native vale, when highThe aspiring lark up from the reedy river  25Mounted on cheerful pinion; and she satCasting smooth pebbles into a clear fountain,And marking how they sunk; and oft she sighedFor him that perished thus in the vast deep.She had a sea-shell, that her lover brought  30From the far-distant ocean; and she pressedIts smooth, cold lips unto her ear, and thoughtIt whispered tidings of the dark blue sea;And sad, she cried, “The tides are out! — and nowI see his corse upon the stormy beach!”  35Around her neck a string of rose-lipped shells,And coral, and white pearl, was loosely hung;And close beside her lay a delicate fan,Made of the halcyon’s blue wing; and whenShe looked upon it, it would calm her thoughts  40As that bird calms the ocean, — for it gaveMournful, yet pleasant, memory. Once I marked,When through the mountain hollows and green woodsThat bent beneath its footsteps, the loud windCame with a voice as of the restless deep,  45She raised her head, and on her pale, cold cheekA beauty of diviner seeming came;And then she spread her hands, and smiled, as ifShe welcomed a long-absent friend, — and thenShrunk timorously back again, and wept.  50I turned away: a multitude of thoughts,Mournful and dark, were crowding on my mind;And as I left that lost and ruined one, — A living monument that still on earthThere is warm love and deep sincerity, — 55She gazed upon the west, where the blue skyHeld, like an ocean, in its wide embraceThose fairy islands of bright cloud, that laySo calm and quietly in the thin ether.And then she pointed where, alone and high,  60One little cloud sailed onward, like a lostAnd wandering bark, and fainter grew, and fainter,And soon was swallowed up in the blue depths;And, when it sunk away, she turned againWith sad despondency and tears to earth.  65

  Three long and weary months — yet not a whisperOf stern reproach for that cold parting! ThenShe sat no longer by her favorite fountain:

The Venetian Gondolier

HERE rest the weary oar! — soft airs  Breathe out in the o’erarching sky;And Night-sweet Night — serenely wears  A smile of peace: her noon is nigh.

Where the tall fir in quiet stands,  5  And waves, embracing the chaste shores,Move over sea-shells and bright sands,  Is heard the sound of dipping oars.

Swift o’er the wave the light bark springs,  Love’s midnight hour draws lingering near;  10And list! — his tuneful viol strings  The young Venetian Gondolier.

Lo! on the silver-mirrored deep,  On earth, and her embosomed lakes,And where the silent rivers sweep,  15  From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks

Soft music breathes around, and dies  On the calm bosom of the sea;Whilst in her cell the novice sighs  Her vespers to her rosary.  20

At their dim altars bow fair forms,  In tender charity for those,That, helpless left to life’s rude storms,  Have never found this calm repose.

The bell swings to its midnight chime,  25  Relieved against the deep blue sky.

The Angler’s Song

FROM the river’s plashy bank,Where the sedge grows green and rank,  And the twisted woodbine springs,Upward speeds the morning larkTo its silver cloud-and hark!  5  On his way the woodman sings.

On the dim and misty lakesGloriously the morning breaks,  And the eagle’s on his cloud: —

Whilst the wind, with sighing, wooes  10To its arms the chaste cold ooze,  And the rustling reeds pipe loud.

Where the embracing ivy holdsClose the hoar elm in its folds,  In the meadow’s fenny land,  15And the winding river sweepsThrough its shallows and still deeps, —   Silent with my rod I stand.

But when sultry suns are highUnderneath the oak I lie  20  As it shades the water’s edge,And I mark my line, awayIn the wheeling eddy, play,  Tangling with the river sedge.

When the eye of evening looks  25On green woods and winding brooks,  And the wind sighs o’er the lea, — Woods and streams, — I leave you then,While the shadow in the glen

Lover’s Rock

They showed us, near the outlet of Sebago, the Lover’s Rock, from which an Indian maid threw herself down into the lake, when the guests were coming together to the marriage festival of her false-hearted lover.” — Leaf from a Traveller’s Journal.

THERE is a love that cannot die! —   And some their doom have metHeart-broken — and gone as stars go by,  That rise, and burn, and set.Their days were in Spring’s fallen leaf — 5Tender — and young — and bright — and brief.

There is a love that cannot die! —   Aye — it survives the grave;When life goes out with many a sigh,  And earth takes what it gave,  10Its light is on the home of thoseThat heed not when the cold wind blows.

With us there are sad records left  Of life’s declining day:How true hearts here were broken and cleft,  15  And how they passed away.And yon dark rock that swells aboveIts blue lake — has a tale of love.

‘T is of an Indian maid, whose fate  Was saddened by the burst  20Of passion, that made desolate  The heart it filled at first.Her lover was false-hearted, — yetHer love she never could forget.

It was a summer-day, and bright  25  The sun was going down:The wave lay blushing in rich light  Beneath the dark rock’s frown,And under the green maple’s shadeHer lover’s bridal feast was made.  30

She stood upon the rocky steep,  Grief had her heart unstrung,And far across the lake’s blue sweep  Was heard the dirge she sung.It ceased — and in the deep cold wave  35

Dirge over a Nameless Grave

BY yon still river, where the wave  Is winding slow at evening’s close,The beech, upon a nameless grave.  its sadly-moving shadow throws.

O’er the fair woods the sun looks down  5  Upon the many-twinkling leaves,And twilight’s mellow shades are brown,  Where darkly the green turf upheaves.

The river glides in silence there,  And hardly waves the sapling tree:  10Sweet flowers are springing, and the air  Is full of balm — but where is she!

They bade her wed a son of pride,  And leave the hope she cherished long:She loved but one-and would not hide  15  A love which knew a wrong.

And months went sadly on-and years:  And she was wasting day by day:At length she died — and many tears  Were shed, that she should pass away.  20

Then came a gray old man, and knelt  With bitter weeping by her tomb:And others mourned for him, who felt  That he had sealed a daughter’s doom.

The funeral train has long past on,  25  And time wiped dry the father’s tear!Farewell — lost maiden! — there is one

A Song of Savoy

As the dim twilight shrouds  The mountain’s purple crest,And Summer’s white and folded clouds  Are glowing in the west,Loud shouts come up the rocky dell,  5And voices hail the evening-bell.

Faint is the goatherd’s song,  And sighing comes the breeze;The silent river sweeps along  Amid its bending trees — 10And the full moon shines faintly there,And music fills the evening air.

Beneath the waving firs  The tinkling cymbals sound;And as the wind the foliage stirs,  15  I see the dancers boundWhere the green branches, arched above,Bend over this fair scene of love.

And he is there, that sought  My young heart long ago!  20But he has left me — though I thought  He ne’er could leave me so.Ah! lover’s vows — how frail are they!And his — were made but yesterday.

Why comes he not? I call  25  In tears upon him yet;‘T were better ne’er to love at all,  Than love, and then forget!Why comes he not? Alas! I shouldReclaim him still, if weeping could.  30

But see — he leaves the glade,  And beckons me away:He comes to seek his mountain maid!  I cannot chide his stay.Glad sounds along the valley swell,

The Indian Hunter

WHEN the summer harvest was gathered in,And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin,And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,Where the stubble land had been lately cleft,An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow,  5Looked down where the valley lay stretched below.

He was a stranger there, and all that dayHad been out on the hills, a perilous way,But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter’s feet.  10And bitter feelings passed o’er him then,As he stood by the populous haunts of men.

The winds of autumn came over the woodsAs the sun stole out from their solitudes;The moss was white on the maple’s trunk,  15And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk.And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and redWere the tree’s withered leaves round it shed.

The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawnAnd the sickle cut down the yellow corn — 20The mower sung loud by the meadow-side,Where the mists of evening were spreading wide,And the voice of the herdsmen came up the lea,And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.

Then the hunter turned away from that scene,  25Where the home of his fathers once had been,And heard by the distant and measured stroke,That the woodman hewed down the giant oak,And burning thoughts flashed over his mindOf the white man’s faith, and love unkind.  30

The moon of the harvest grew high and bright,As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white — A footstep was heard in the rustling brake,Where the beech overshadowed the misty lake,And a mourning voice, and a plunge from shore, — 35And the hunter was seen on the hills no more.

When years had passed on, by that still lakesideThe fisher looked down through the silver tide,And there, on the smooth yellow sand displayed,A skeleton wasted and white was laid,  40And ‘t was seen, as the waters moved deep and slow,

Ode written for the Commemoration at Fryeburg, Maine, of Lovewell’s Fight

Air — Bruce’s Address.

IMANY a day and wasted yearBright has left its footsteps here,Since was broke the warrior’s spear,        And our fathers bled.Still the tall trees, arching, shake  5Where the fleet deer by the lake,As he dash’d through birch and brake.        From the hunter fled.

IIIn these ancient woods so bright,That are full of life and light,  10Many a dark, mysterious rite        The stern warriors kept.But their altars are bereft,Fall’n to earth, and strewn and cleft,And a holier faith is left  15        Where their fathers slept.

IIIFrom their ancient sepulchres,Where amid the giant firs,Moaning loud, the high wind stirs,        Have the red men gone.  20Tow’rd the setting sun that makesBright our western hills and lakes,Faint and few, the remnant takes        Its sad journey on.

IVWhere the Indian hamlet stood,  25In the interminable wood,Battle broke the solitude,        And the war-cry rose;Sudden came the straggling shotWhere the sun looked on the spot  30That the trace of war would blot        Ere the day’s faint close.

VLow the smoke of battle hung;Heavy down the lake it swung,Till the death wail loud was sung  35        When the night shades fell;And the green pine, waving dark,Held within its shattered barkMany a lasting scathe and mark,        That a tale could tell.  40

VIAnd the story of that dayShall not pass from earth away,Nor the blighting of decay        Waste our liberty;But within the river’s sweep  45

Jeckoyva

The Indian chief, Jeckoyva, as tradition says, perished alone on the mountain which now bears his name. Night overtook him whilst hunting among the cliffs, and he was not heard of till after a long time, when his half-decayed corpse was found at the foot of a high rock, over which he must have fallen. Mount Jeckoyva is near the White Hills.  H. W. L.

THEY made the warrior’s grave besideThe dashing of his native tide:And there was mourning in the glen — The strong wail of a thousand men —   O’er him thus fallen in his pride,  5Ere mist of age — or blight or blastHad o’er his mighty spirit past.

They made the warrior’s grave beneathThe bending of the wild elm’s wreath,When the dark hunter’s piercing eye  10Had found that mountain rest on high,  Where, scattered by the sharp wind’s breath,Beneath the ragged cliff were thrownThe strong belt and the mouldering bone.

Where was the warrior’s foot, when first  15The red sun on the mountain burst?Where — when the sultry noon-time cameOn the green vales with scorching flame,  And made the woodlands faint with thirst?‘T was where the wind is keen and loud,  20And the gray eagle breasts the cloud.

Where was the warrior’s foot when nightVeiled in thick cloud the mountain-height?None heard the loud and sudden crash — None saw the fallen warrior dash  25  Down the bare rock so high and white!But he that drooped not in the chaseMade on the hills his burial-place.

They found him there, when the long dayOf cold desertion passed away,  30And traces on that barren cleftOf struggling hard with death were left —   Deep marks and footprints in the clay!And they have laid this feathery helm

The Sea-Diver

MY way is on the bright blue sea,  My sleep upon its rocking tide;And many an eye has followed me  Where billows clasp the worn seaside.

My plumage bears the crimson blush,  5  When ocean by the sun is kissed!When fades the evening’s purple flush,  My dark wing cleaves the silver mist.

Full many a fathom down beneath  The bright arch of the splendid deep  10My ear has heard the sea-shell breathe  O’er living myriads in their sleep.

They rested by the coral throne,  And by the pearly diadem;Where the pale sea-grape had o’ergrown  15  The glorious dwellings made for them.

At night upon my storm-drench’d wing,  I poised above a helmless bark,And soon I saw the shattered thing  Had passed away and left no mark.  20

And when the wind and storm were done,  A ship, that had rode out the gale,Sunk down, without a signal-gun,  And none was left to tell the tale.

I saw the pomp of day depart — 25  The cloud resign its golden crown,When to the ocean’s beating heart  The sailor’s wasted corse went down.

Peace be to those whose graves are made  Beneath the bright and silver sea!  30Peace — that their relics there were laid

Musings

I SAT by my window one night,  And watched how the stars grew high;And the earth and skies were a splendid sight  To a sober and musing eye.

From heaven the silver moon shone down  5  With gentle and mellow ray,And beneath the crowded roofs of the town  In broad light and shadow lay.

A glory was on the silent sea,  And mainland and island too,  10Till a haze came over the lowland lea,  And shrouded that beautiful blue.

Bright in the moon the autumn wood  Its crimson scarf unrolled,And the trees like a splendid army stood  15  In a panoply of gold!

I saw them waving their banners high,  As their crests to the night wind bowed,And a distant sound on the air went by,  Like the whispering of a crowd.  20

Then I watched from my window how fast  The lights all around me fled,As the wearied man to his slumber passed  And the sick one to his bed.

All faded save one, that burned  25  With distant and steady light;But that, too, went out — and I turned  Where my own lamp within shone bright!

Thus, thought I, our joys must die,  Yes — the brightest from earth we win:  30Till each turns away, with a sigh,  To the lamp that burns brightly within.

Song

WHERE, from the eye of day,  The dark and silent riverPursues through tangled woods a way  O’er which the tall trees quiver;

The silver mist, that breaks  5  From out that woodland cover,Betrays the hidden path it takes,  And hangs the current over!

So oft the thoughts that burst  From hidden springs of feeling,  10Like silent streams, unseen at first,  From our cold hearts are stealing:

But soon the clouds that veil  The eye of Love, when glowing,Betray the long unwhispered tale  15

Song of the Birds

WITH what a hollow dirge its voice did fillThe vast and empty hollow of the night! — It had perched itself upon a tall old tree,That hung its tufted and thick clustering leavesMidway across the brook; and sung most sweetly,  5In all the merry and heart-broken sadnessOf those that love hath crazed. Clearly it ranThrough all the delicate compass of its voice: —

And then again, as from a distant hollow,I heard its sweet tones like an echo sounding,  10And coming, like the memory of a friendFrom a far distant country — or the silent landOf the mourned and the dead, to which we all are passing;It seemed the song of some poor broken heart,Haunted forever with love’s cruel fancies! — 15Of one that has loved much yet never knownThe luxury of being loved again!

But when the morning broke, and the green woodsWere all alive with birds — with what a clearAnd ravishing sweetness sung the plaintive thrush;  20I love to hear its delicate rich voice,Chanting through all the gloomy day, when loudAmid the trees is dropping the big rain,And gray mists wrap the hills; — for aye the sweeterIts song is, when the day is sad and dark. And thus,  25When the bright fountains of a woman’s loveAre gently running over, if a cloudBut darken, with its melancholy shadow,The bright flowers round our way, her heartDoth learn new sweetness, and her rich voice falls  30With more delicious music on our ears.

EARLIER POEMS

An April Day

“These poems were written for the most part during my college life, and all of them before the age of nineteen. Some have found their way into schools, and seem to be successful. Others lead a vagabond and precarious existence in the corners of newspapers; or have changed their names and run away to seek their fortunes beyond the sea. I say, with the Bishop of Avranches on a similar occasion: ‘I cannot be displeased to see these children of mine, which I have neglected, and almost exposed, brought from their wanderings in lanes and alleys, and safely lodged, in order to go forth into the world together in a more decorous garb.’” This note was prefixed by Mr. Longfellow to the following group of poems when published in Voices of the Night.