That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall
In rushing river-tides!
Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebbled edge,
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun
Through the cleft mountain-ledge.
The slender rill had strayed,
But for the slanting stone,
To evening’s ocean, with the tangled braid
Of foam-flecked Oregon.
So from the heights of Will
Life’s parting stream descends,
And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends,—
From the same cradle’s side,
From the same mother’s knee,—
One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sea.
INTERNATIONAL ODE.
OUR FATHERS’ LAND.
Sung in unison by twelve hundred children of the public schools, at the
visit of the Prince of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860. Air, “God save
the Queen.”
God bless our Fathers’ Land!
Keep her in heart and hand
One with our own!
From all her foes defend,
Be her brave People’s Friend,
On all her realms descend,
Protect her Throne!
Father, with loving care
Guard Thou her kingdom’s Heir,
Guide all his ways:
Thine arm his shelter be,
From him by land and sea
Bid storm and danger flee,
Prolong his days!
Lord, let War’s tempest cease,
Fold the whole Earth in peace
Under thy wings!
Make all Thy nations one,
All hearts beneath the sun,
Till thou shalt reign alone,
Great King of kings!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL’S BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL.
We will not speak of years to-night,
For what have years to bring
But larger floods of love and light,
And sweeter songs to sing.
Enough for him the silent grasp
That knits us hand in hand,
And he the bracelet’s radiant clasp
That locks our circling band.
Strength to his hours of manly toil,
Peace to his starlit dreams!
Who loves alike the furrowed soil,
The music-haunted streams!
Sweet smiles to keep forever bright
The sunshine on his lips,
And faith that sees the ring of light
Round nature’s last eclipse.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
Born Feb. 27, 1807. Died March 24, 1882.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
WILLIAM W. STORY.
A pure sweet spirit, generous and large
Was thine, dear poet. Calm, unturbulent,
Its course along Life’s varying ways it went,
Like some broad river on whose happy marge
Are noble groves, lawns, towns—which takes the charge
Of peaceful freights from inward regions sent
For human use and help and heart’s content,
And bears Love’s sunlit sails and Beauty’s barge.
So brimming, deepening ever to the sea
Through gloom and sun, reflecting inwardly
The ever-changing heavens of day and night,
Thy life flowed on, from all low passions free,
Filled with high thoughts, charmed into Poesy
To all the world a solace and delight.
* * * * *
Yes, we were warm friends. He was a delightful man and a great poet.
Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow, and myself were always friends. There
were no jealousies between us, and each took a pride in the work and
successes of the other. We would exchange notes upon our productions, and
if one saw a kindly notice of the other it was always cut out and sent
him.—JOHN G. WHITTIER.
* * * * *
The magnetism of Longfellow’s touch lies in the broad humanity of his
sympathy which commends his poetry to the universal heart. His artistic
sense is so exquisite that each of his poems is a valuable literary
study. Longfellow’s mind takes a simple, childlike hold of life. His
delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages and
times must rank him among the learned poets.—GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
* * * * *
It is a singular fact that Longfellow is more popular in England than
Tennyson, the laureate. Yet perhaps it is not so very singular. He sings
like one whose heart has been warmed at the hearth-stone. There is hardly
a line of his but would rhyme with the chirp of the cricket; hearts are
hearts whatever blood quickens them, and he has touched the heart as
no other poet of his day has. Is there any one whose life is likely to
remind us more forcibly of the sublimity of patience, truth, purity, and
all the virtues than that of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?—RICHARD HENRY
STODDARD.
* * * * *
A poetical atmosphere, an aroma, hung about Longfellow as about no other
of our poets. He was associated with memories of the early years of the
republic; with the picturesque epoch of our national existence; with the
dawn of democratic institutions, with the flushing hope which reddened
the sky when the young nation committed itself so cordially to faith in
man. His name was seldom spoken except in connection with charity and
good-will. And when he died, the sorrow of the greatest and of the least
was equally sincere.—REV. OCTAVIUS B. FROTHINGHAM.
* * * * *
Can it be that a man like this is dead? I cannot believe it. Like a lark
that sings and soars, and still sings fading out of sight in the blue
heavens. I cannot believe that he has gone because he has disappeared
from our view. A rounded life was his; his work was done. Where has he
gone? We may not know as yet. So far as we are concerned, he has gone,
to quote his own words, “into the silent land.” We will rejoice that he
has left behind him words that will sing their song of trust and hope for
many a year to come.—REV. MINOT J. SAVAGE.
A LONGFELLOW ALPHABET.
Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.
_A Fragment._
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
_Maidenhood._
Closed was the teacher’s task, and with heaven in their hearts and
their faces
Up rose the children all, and each bowed him, weeping full sorely,
Downward to kiss that reverend hand.
_Children of the Lord’s Supper._
Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.
_Resignation._
Each heart has its haunted chamber,
Where the silent moonlight falls!
On the floor are mysterious footsteps,
There are whispers along the walls!
_The Haunted Chamber._
“Farewell!” the portly landlord cried;
“Farewell!” the parting guests replied,
But little thought that never more
Their feet would pass that threshold o’er.
_Tales of a Wayside Inn._
Gone are all the barons bold,
Gone are all the knights and squires;
Gone the abbot, stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars.
_Oliver Basselin._
How many centuries has it been
About those deserts blown!
How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!
_Sand of the Desert._
It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace,
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up and shake it like a fleece.
_The Lighthouse._
Just above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows faint and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely, a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.
_Chrysaor._
Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children, a crucifix fastened
High on the trunk of the tree. This was their rural chapel.
_Evangeline._
Left to myself, I wander as I will,
And as my fancy leads me, through this house;
Nor could I ask a dwelling more complete,
Were I indeed the goddess that he deems me.
_The Masque of Pandora._
Month after month passed away, and in autumn the ships of the merchants
Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for the Pilgrims.
_The Courtship of Miles Standish._
Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face,
Came from their convent on the shining heights
Of Pierus, the mountain of delights,
To dwell among the people at its base.
_The Nine Muses._
“O Cæsar, we who are about to die
Salute you!” was the gladiators’ cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.
_Morituri Salutamus._
Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,
Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,
Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac.
_Elegiac Verse._
Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel.
_To an Old Danish Song-book._
River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!
_To the River Charles._
Sudden and swift, a whistling ball
Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill.
_Killed at the Ford._
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domains.
_Autumn._
Up soared the lark into the air,—
A shaft of song, a winged prayer,
As if a soul, released from pain,
Were flying back to heaven again.
_The Sermon of St. Francis._
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again.
_The Belfry of Bruges._
Whereunto is money good?
Who has it not wants hardihood;
Who has it has much trouble and care;
Who once has had it has despair.
_Poetic Aphorisms._
“Excelsior!”
_Excelsior._
Youth is lovely, age is lonely,
Youth is fiery, age is frosty;
You bring back the days departed,
And the beautiful Wenonah.
_Hiawatha._
Zeal was stronger than fear or love.
_Tales of a Wayside Inn._
MUSINGS.
[An early poem, not usually published.]
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,
With a 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,
Till a haze came over the lowland lea,
And shrouded the beautiful blue.
Bright in the moon the autumn wood
Its crimson scarf unrolled,
And the trees like a splendid army stood,
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.
Then I watched from my windows how fast
The lights around me fled,
As the wearied man to his slumber passed,
And the sick one to his bed.
All faded save one; that burned
With a distant and steady light;
But that, too, went out, and I turned
When my own lamp within shone bright!
Thus, thought I, our joys must die;
Yes, the brightest from earth we win;
Till each turns away, with a sigh,
To the lamp that burns brightly within.
THE CITY AND THE SEA.
The panting City cried to the Sea,
“I am faint with heat,—O breathe on me!”
And the Sea said, “Lo, I breathe! but my breath
To some will be life, to others death!”
As to Prometheus, bringing ease
In pain, come the Oceanides,
So to the City, hot with flame
Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.
It came from the heaving breast of the deep,
Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.
Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be,
O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?
LOSS AND GAIN.
When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.
I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.
But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
CHARLES SUMNER.
Garlands upon his grave,
And flowers upon his hearse,
And to the tender heart and brave
The tribute of this verse.
His was the troubled life,
The conflict and the pain,
The grief, the bitterness of strife,
The honor without stain.
Death takes us by surprise,
And stays our hurrying feet;
The great design unfinished lies,
Our lives are incomplete.
But in the dark unknown
Perfect their circles seem,
Even as a bridge’s arch of stone
Is rounded in the stream.
Were a star quenched on high,
For ages would its light,
Still traveling downward from the sky,
Shine on our mortal sight.
So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Born Feb. 22, 1819.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
[HARVARD COMMENCEMENT POEM.]
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
This is your month, the month of perfect days,
Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze;
Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes,
Spreads every leaflet, every bower in wreaths;
Carpets her paths for your returning feet,
Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet;
And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune
When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June.
These blessed days are waning all too fast,
And June’s bright visions mingling with the past;
Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose
Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows
And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets;
The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites;
The dandelion, which you sang of old,
Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold,
But still displays its feathery-mantled globe,
Which children’s breath or wandering winds unrobe.
These were your humble friends; your opened eyes
Nature had trained her common gifts to prize;
Not Cam or Isis taught you to despise
Charles, with his muddy margin, and the harsh,
Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh.
New England’s home-bred scholar, well you knew
Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through,
And loved them ever with the love that holds
All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds.
Though far and wide your winged words had flown,
Your daily presence kept you all our own,
Till with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride,
We heard your summons, and you left our side
For larger duties and for tasks untried.
_Atlantic Monthly._
* * * * *
We have been under the necessity of telling some unpleasant truths about
American literature from time to time; and it is with hearty pleasure
that we are now able to own that the Britishers have been, for the
present, utterly and apparently hopelessly beaten by a Yankee in one
important department of poetry. The tyranny of a vulgar public opinion
and the charlatanism which is the price of political power, are butts
for the shafts of the satirist which European poets may well envy Mr.
Lowell.—_North British Review._
* * * * *
Though eminent and able in many ways, Lowell remains absolutely a poet
in feeling. His native genius was fostered by the associations of a
singularly beautiful home; nourished by the works of the dramatists,
by the ideal pictures of poets and novelists, by the tender solemnity
of the discourses of his father, and of Channing and others of his
father’s friends. Though he was not a rhyming prodigy like Pope, lisping
in numbers, his first effusions as he came to manhood were in poetic
form.—FRANCES H. UNDERWOOD.
* * * * *
Lowell is a remarkable man and poet. That he is one of the first poets of
this age, no man will deny. He is sincerely a reformer; his sympathies
are entirely with the oppressed and down-trodden. Some of his poems are
exceedingly beautiful, while others are full of grand thoughts which
strike upon the ear and heart like the booming cannon-shot, which tells
that an ardently desired conflict has commenced.—DAVID W. BARTLETT.
* * * * *
The most characteristic and most essential happens to be the most salient
quality of Mr. Lowell’s style. It is a wit that is as omnipresent and
as tireless as electricity itself. The effect is quite indescribable.
We are sure that no other equal amount of literature could be produced
that would yield to a competent assay a larger net result of pure wit.
Generally the spirit of the wit is humane and gracious.—W. C. WILKINSON.
* * * * *
Mr. Lowell says somewhere that the art of writing consists largely in
knowing what to leave in the ink-pot. How many volumes of Lowell’s prose
works if not in the waste-basket are almost as effectually buried in
papers and magazines? What his working life has given to the world will
give the reader some notion of what the world has not got, and will serve
to call attention to the condensed wealth contained in “Among my Books”
and “My Study Windows.”—REV. H. R. HAWEIS.
A LOWELL ALPHABET.
Another star ’neath Time’s horizon dropped
To gleam o’er unknown lands and seas;
Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,—
What mournful words are these!
_To the Memory of Hood._
Bowing then his head, he listened
For an answer to his prayer;
No loud burst of thunder followed,
Not a murmur stirred the air.
_A Parable._
Care, not of self, but of the common weal,
Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead
A look of patient power and iron will.
_A Glance behind the Curtain._
Dear, common flower, that grow’st beside the way
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May.
_To the Dandelion._
Each man is some man’s servant; every soul
Is by some other’s presence quite discrowned;
Each owes the next through all the imperfect round.
_The Pioneer._
For mankind are one in spirit,
And an instinct bears along,
Round the earth’s electric circle,
The swift flash of right or wrong.
_The Present Crisis._
Glorious fountain!
Let my heart be
Fresh, changeful, constant,
Upward, like thee!
_The Fountain._
He could believe the promise of to-morrow
And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day;
He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow
Than the world’s seeming loss could take away.
_Ode._
It is God’s day. It is Columbus’s,
A lavish day! One day, with life and heart,
Is more than time enough to find a world.
_Columbus._
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal._
Knew you what silence was before?
Here is no startle of dreaming bird
That sings in his sleep, or strives to sing.
_Pictures from Appledore._
Life may be given in many ways,
And loyalty to Truth be sealed
As bravely in the closet as the field.
_Commemoration Ode._
My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree,
Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud,
Saw its white double in the stream below.
_Under the Willows._
Not always unimpeded can I pray,
Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession claim.
_Sea-weed._
O realm of silence and of swart eclipse,
The shapes that haunt thy gloom
Make signs to us, and move thy withered lips
Across the gulf of doom.
_To the Past._
Pan leaps and pipes all summer long,
The fairies dance each full-mooned night,
Would we but doff our lenses strong,
And trust our wiser eyes’ delight.
_The Foot-path._
Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree,
And, listening fearfully, he heard once more
The low voice murmur “Rhoecus,” close at hand.
_Rhoecus._
Roots, wood, bark, and leaves singly perfect may be,
But, clapt hodge-podge together, they don’t make a tree.
_A Fable for Critics._
Since first I heard our North wind blow,
Since first I saw Atlantic throw
On our fierce rocks his thunderous snow,
I loved thee, Freedom!
_Ode to France._
Thine is music such as yields
Feelings of old brooks and fields,
And, around this pent-up room,
Sheds a woodland, free perfume.
_To Perdita, Singing._
Untremulous in the river clear,
Towards the sky’s image, hangs the imaged bridge;
So still the air that I can hear
The slender clarion of the unseen midge.
_Summer Storm._
Violet! sweet violet!
Thine eyes are full of tears;
Are they wet
Even yet
With the thought of other years?
_Song._
Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right
To the firm center lays its moveless base.
_Prometheus._
Extemp’ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Fejee Thanksgivin’.
_The Biglow Papers._
Yet sets she not her soul so steadily
Above that she forgets her ties to earth.
_Irene._
Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown
An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
An’ there sot Huldy all alone
’Ith no one nigh to hender.
_The Courtin’._
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new roof’d with Carrara
Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow;
The stiff sails were softened to swan’s down,
And still flutter’d down the snow.
I stood and watch’d by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little head-stone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.
Again I look’d at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arch’d o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heap’d so high.
I remember’d the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plung’d woe.
And again to the child I whisper’d,
“The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kiss’d her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.
For him her Old World molds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind’s unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will,
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind—
Broad prairie, rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind.
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch’s men talked with us face to face.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
He stood upon the world’s broad threshold; wide
The din of battle and of slaughter rolled;
He saw God stand upon the weaker side,
That sank in seeming loss before its foes;
Many there were who made great haste and sold
Unto the cunning enemy their swords.
He scorned their gifts of fame, and flower, and gold,
And underneath their soft and flowery words
Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went
And humbly joined him to the weaker part.
Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content
So he could be the nearer to God’s heart,
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood
Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good.
FREEDOM.
Men!—whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain
When it works a brother’s pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed—
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No!—true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And with heart and hand to be
Earnest to make others free!
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think.
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
Born Dec. 17, 1807.
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
New England’s poet, rich in love as years,
Her hills and valleys praise thee, and her brooks
Dance to thy song; to her grave sylvan nooks
Thy feet allure us, which the wood-thrush hears
As maids their lovers, and no treason fears.
Through thee her Merrimacks and Angloochooks,
And many a name uncouth, win loving looks,
Sweetly familiar to both England’s years.
Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake
The lily’s anchorage which no eyes behold
Save those of stars, yet for thy brother’s sake
That lay in bonds, thou blew’st a blast as bold,
As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake
Far heard through Pyrennean valleys cold.
* * * * *