Henry W. Longfellow. 1807-1882.
(From the edition of 1886.)
Look, then, into thine heart, and write![612:1]
Voices of the Night. Prelude.
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.[612:2]
A Psalm of Life.
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.
A Psalm of Life.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,[612:3]
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.[612:4]
A Psalm of Life.
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!
A Psalm of Life.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
A Psalm of Life.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;[612:5]
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
A Psalm of Life.
[613]
There is a reaper whose name is Death,[613:1]
And with his sickle keen
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
The Reaper and the Flowers.
The star of the unconquered will.
The Light of Stars.
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
The Light of Stars.
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.
Flowers.
The hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.
Midnight Mass.
No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Sunrise on the Hills.
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Endymion.
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest![613:2]
It is not always May.
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
The Rainy Day.
[614]
The prayer of Ajax was for light.[614:1]
The Goblet of Life.
O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!
The Goblet of Life.
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Maidenhood.
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!
Maidenhood.
She floats upon the river of his thoughts.[614:2]
The Spanish Student. Act ii. Sc. 3.
A banner with the strange device.
Excelsior.
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,—
Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy past
The forms that once have been.
A Gleam of Sunshine.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
The Day is done.
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
The Day is done.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
The Day is done.
[615]
Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
The Building of the Ship.
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,—
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
The Building of the Ship.
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
The Fire of Drift-wood.
There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there;
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair.
Resignation.
The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead.
Resignation.
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
Resignation.
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.
Resignation.
There is no death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
Resignation.
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.
Resignation.
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.
The Builders.
This is the forest primeval.
Evangeline. Part i.
[616]
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Evangeline. Part i. 1.
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Evangeline. Part i. 3.
And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Evangeline. Part ii. 5.
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.[616:1]
The Courtship of Miles Standish. iv.
Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation![616:2]
The Courtship of Miles Standish. iv.
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame.[616:3]
The Ladder of Saint Augustine.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.
The Ladder of Saint Augustine.
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
The Herons of Elmwood.
He has singed the beard of the king of Spain.[616:4]
The Dutch Picture.
[617]
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
Morituri Salutamus.
With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!
The Masque of Pandora. Chorus of the Eumenides.
All things come round to him who will but wait.[617:1]
Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student's Tale.
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
The Golden Legend. iv.
Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
Translation from Frithiof's Saga.
Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.
Motto, Hyperion. Book i.[617:2]
Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish
And in itself to ashes burn.
Hyperion. Book ii.
Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.
Hyperion. Book iv. Chap. viii.
[618]
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.[618:1]
Kavanagh.
There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.[618:2]
Inferno. Canto v. Line 121.
Footnotes
[612:1] See Philip Sidney, page 34.
[612:2] Things are not always what they seem.—Phædrus: Fables, book iv. Fable 2.
[612:3] See Chaucer, page 6.
Art is long, life is short.—Goethe: Wilhelm Meister, vii. 9.
[612:4] Our lives are but our marches to the grave.-Beaumont and Fletcher: The Humorous Lieutenant, act iii. sc. 5.
[612:5] See Byron, page 553.
[613:1] There is a Reaper whose name is death.—Arnim and Brentano: Erntelied. (From "Des Knaben Wunderhorn," ed. 1857, vol. i. p. 59.)
[613:2] Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. lxxiv.
[614:1]
The light of Heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
Pope: The Iliad, book xvii. line 730.
[614:2] See Byron, page 553.
[616:1] See Stoughton, page 266.
[616:2] Plymouth rock.
[616:3]
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
Tennyson: In Memoriam, i.
[616:4] Sir Francis Drake entered the harbour of Cadiz, April 19, 1587, and destroyed shipping to the amount of ten thousand tons lading. To use his own expressive phrase, he had "singed the Spanish king's beard."—Knight: Pictorial History of England, vol. iii. p. 215.
[617:1] See Emerson, page 601.
[617:2]
Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass,
Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.
Goethe: Wilhelm Meister, book ii. chap. xiii.
[618:1] Quoted from Cotton's "To-morrow." See Genesis xxx. 3.
[618:2] See Chaucer, page 5.
In omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem (In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune).—Boethius: De Consolatione Philosophiæ, liber ii.
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
Tennyson: Locksley Hall, line 75.