The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence. Him whom thou dost once enamour,

Thou, beloved, never leavest; In life's discord, strife, and clamour, Still he feels thy spell of glamour;

Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.

Weary hearts by thee are lifted, Struggling souls by thee are strengthened,

Clouds of fear asunder rifted,
Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,
Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!
Therefore art thou ever dearer,

O my Sibyl, my deceiver!
For thou makest each mystery clearer,
And the unattained seems nearer,

When thou fillest my heart with fever! Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!

Though the fields around us wither, There are ampler realms and spaces, Where no foot has left its traces:

Let us turn and wander thither!

FLIGHT THE SECOND.

A DAY OF SUNSHINE.

O GIFT of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through
vein,

I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,

every

Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts

Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the

rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.

BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence;

Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape they surround me ; They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you for ever,
Yes, for ever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

THE CUMBERLAND.

AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,

On board of the Cumberland, sloop of war; And at times from the fortress across the bay The alarum of drums swept past,

Or a bugle blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose

A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foe
Was steadily steering its course

To try the force

Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,

Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death,

With fiery breath,

From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straight
Defiance back in a full broadside!
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate
Rebounds our heavier hail
From each iron scale

Of the monster's hide.

"Strike your flag!" the rebel cries,
In his arrogant old plantation strain.
"Never!" our gallant Morris replies;

"It is better to sink than to yield !"
And the whole air pealed

With the cheers of our men.

Then, like a kraken huge and black,
She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,
With a sudden shudder of death,
And the cannon's breath

For her dying gasp.

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,

Still floated our flag at the mainmast head.

Lord, how beautiful was thy day!

Every waft of the air

Was a whisper of prayer,

Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream,
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,
Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
Shall be one again,

And without a seam!

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.

LABOUR with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still

Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,

At the threshold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer,

Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid:

By the cares of yesterday

Each to-day is heavier made; Till at length the burden seems Greater than our strength can bear; Heavy as the weight of dreams,

Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.

WEARINESS.

O LITTLE feet! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears,

Must ache and bleed beneath your load; I, nearer to the Wayside Inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin,

Am weary, thinking of your road!

O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,

Have still so long to give or ask ;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,

Am weary, thinking of your task.

O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,

Such limitless and strong desires; Mine that so long has glowed and burned, With passions into ashes turned

Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light

Direct from heaven, their source
divine;

Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,

How lurid looks this soul of mine!

OUT of the bosom of the Air,

SNOW-FLAKES.

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expres

sion,

Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the Air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hearded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

The Courtship of Miles Standish.

1958.

MILES STANDISH.

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrim
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,-
Cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and
matchlock.

Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,

Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not Angles but Angels."
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the May Flower.

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting, Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth "Look at these arms," he said, "the warlike weapons that hang here Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!

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