Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Read online

  Twilight shades above thee,

  And when early morning glows, —

  Think on those that love thee!

  For an interval of years 45

  We ere long must sever,

  But the hearts that love endears

  Shall be parted never.

  Thanksgiving

  WHEN first ancient time, from Jubal’s tongue

  The tuneful anthem filled the morning air,

  To sacred hymnings and elysian song

  His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke.

  Devotion breathed aloud from every chord: 5

  The voice of praise was heard in every tone,

  And prayer and thanks to Him, the Eternal One,

  To Him, that with bright inspiration touched

  The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song,

  And warmed the soul with new vitality. 10

  A stirring energy through Nature breathed:

  The voice of adoration from her broke,

  Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard

  Long in the sullen waterfall, what time

  Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth 15

  Its bloom or blighting; when the summer smiled;

  Or Winter o’er the year’s sepulchre mourned.

  The Deity was there; a nameless spirit

  Moved in the breasts of men to do him homage;

  And when the morning smiled, or evening pale 20

  Hung 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 25

  The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees

  Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty;

  And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,

  The bright and widely wandering rivulet

  Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots 30

  That choked its reedy fountain, and dark rocks

  Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there

  The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice

  Where reeds grew rank on the rushy-fringed brink,

  And the green sedge bent to the wandering wind, 35

  Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.

  Men felt the heavenly influence; and it stole

  Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace:

  And even the air they breathed, the light they saw,

  Became religion; for the ethereal spirit 40

  That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,

  And mellows everything to beauty, moved

  With cheering energy within their breasts

  And made all holy there, for all was love.

  The morning stars, that sweetly sang together; 45

  The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky;

  Dayspring and eventide; and all the fair

  And beautiful forms of nature, had a voice

  Of eloquent worship. Ocean, with its tides

  Swelling and deep, where low the infant storm 50

  Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat

  The pulses of the sea, sent forth a voice

  Of awful adoration to the spirit

  That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.

  And when the bow of evening arched the east, 55

  Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling wave

  Kissed 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 wave

  Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear; 60

  For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.

  And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earth

  No 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 65

  Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,

  And him that in the nightfall of his years

  Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace

  His dim, pale eyes on life’s short wayfaring,

  Praise Him that rules the destiny of man. 70

  Autumnal Nightfall

  ROUND Autumn’s mouldering urn

  Loud mourns the chill and cheerless gale,

  When nightfall shades the quiet vale

  And stars in beauty burn.

  ‘T is the year’s eventide. 5

  The wind, like one that sighs in pain

  O’er joys that ne’er will bloom again

  Mourns on the far hillside.

  And yet my pensive eye

  Rests on the faint blue mountain long; 10

  And 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 gray

  The lyre of Autumn hangs unstrung

  And 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: 25

  A spirit in soft music calls

  From Autumn’s gray and moss-grown halls,

  And round her withered tree.

  The hoar and mantled oak,

  With moss and twisted ivy brown, 30

  Bends in its lifeless beauty down

  Where weeds the fountain choke.

  That fountain’s hollow voice

  Echoes the sound of precious things;

  Of early feeling’s tuneful springs 35

  Choked with our blighted joys.

  Leaves, that the night-wind bears

  To 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,

  Spring shall renew with cheerful days, —

  But not my joys again.

  Italian Scenery

  NIGHT rests in beauty on Mont Alto.

  Beneath its shade the beauteous Arno sleeps

  In Vallombrosa’s bosom, and dark trees

  Bend with a calm and quiet shadow down

  Upon the beauty of that silent river. 5

  Still the west a melancholy smile

  Mantles the lips of day, and twilight pale

  Moves like a spectre in the dusky sky,

  While eve’s sweet star on the fast-fading year

  Smiles calmly. Music steals at intervals 10

  Across 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 15

  The 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 years

  In motionless beauty stands the giant oak; 20

  Whilst those that saw its green and flourishing youth

  Are gone and are forgotten. Soft the fount,

  Whose secret springs the star-light pale discloses,

  Gushes in hollow music; and beyond

  The broader river sweeps its silent way, 25

  Mingling a silver current with that sea,

  Whose waters have not tides, coming nor going.

  On noiseless wing along that fair blue sea

 
The halcyon flits; and, where the wearied storm

  Left a loud moaning, all is peace again. 30

  A calm is on the deep. The winds that came

  O’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 sea

  Heaved its long billows, with a cheerless song 35

  Have passed away to the cold earth again,

  Like a wayfaring mourner. Silently

  Up 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 40

  Of 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 45

  The eagle screams in the fathomless ether,

  And stays his wearied wing. Here let us pause.

  The spirit of these solitudes — the soul

  That dwells within these steep and difficult places —

  Speaks a mysterious language to mine own, 50

  And brings unutterable musings. Earth

  Sleeps in the shades of nightfall, and the sea

  Spreads like a thin blue haze beneath my feet;

  Whilst the gray columns and the mouldering tombs

  Of the Imperial City, hidden deep 55

  Beneath the mantle of their shadows, rest.

  My spirit looks on earth. A heavenly voice

  Comes silently: “Dreamer, is earth thy dwelling?

  Lo! nursed within that fair and fruitful bosom,

  Which has sustained thy being, and within 60

  The colder breast of Ocean, lie the germs

  Of 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 65

  Thrives 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 eye

  Rests upon earth again. How beautiful, 70

  Where wild Velino heaves its sullen waves

  Down the high cliff of gray and shapeless granite,

  Hung on the curling mist, the moonlight bow

  Arches the perilous river! A soft light

  Silvers the Albanian mountains, and the haze 75

  That rests upon their summits mellows down

  The austerer features of their beauty. Faint

  And dim-discovered glow the Sabine hills;

  And, listening to the sea’s monotonous shell,

  High on the cliffs of Terracina stands 80

  The castle of the royal Goth in ruins.

  But night is in her wane: day’s early flush

  Glows like a hectic on her fading cheek,

  Wasting its beauty. And the opening dawn

  With cheerful lustre lights the royal city, 85

  Where, with its proud tiara of dark towers,

  It sleeps upon its own romantic bay.

  The Lunatic Girl

  MOST beautiful, most gentle! Yet how lost

  To all that gladdens the fair earth; the eye

  That watched her being; the maternal care

  That kept and nourished her; and the calm light

  That steals from our own thoughts, and softly rests 5

  On youth’s green valleys and smooth-sliding waters.

  Alas! few suns of life, and fewer winds,

  Had withered or had wasted the fresh rose

  That bloomed upon her cheek: but one chill frost

  Came in that early autumn, when ripe thought 10

  Is 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 15

  Love’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 felt

  A coldness for each other when they parted, 20

  But love returned again: and to her ear

  Came tidings that the ship which bore her lover

  Had sullenly gone down at sea, and all were lost.

  I saw her in her native vale, when high

  The aspiring lark up from the reedy river 25

  Mounted on cheerful pinion; and she sat

  Casting smooth pebbles into a clear fountain,

  And marking how they sunk; and oft she sighed

  For him that perished thus in the vast deep.

  She had a sea-shell, that her lover brought 30

  From the far-distant ocean; and she pressed

  Its smooth, cold lips unto her ear, and thought

  It whispered tidings of the dark blue sea;

  And sad, she cried, “The tides are out! — and now

  I see his corse upon the stormy beach!” 35

  Around 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 when

  She looked upon it, it would calm her thoughts 40

  As that bird calms the ocean, — for it gave

  Mournful, yet pleasant, memory. Once I marked,

  When through the mountain hollows and green woods

  That bent beneath its footsteps, the loud wind

  Came with a voice as of the restless deep, 45

  She raised her head, and on her pale, cold cheek

  A beauty of diviner seeming came;

  And then she spread her hands, and smiled, as if

  She welcomed a long-absent friend, — and then

  Shrunk timorously back again, and wept. 50

  I 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 earth

  There is warm love and deep sincerity, — 55

  She gazed upon the west, where the blue sky

  Held, like an ocean, in its wide embrace

  Those fairy islands of bright cloud, that lay

  So calm and quietly in the thin ether.

  And then she pointed where, alone and high, 60

  One little cloud sailed onward, like a lost

  And wandering bark, and fainter grew, and fainter,

  And soon was swallowed up in the blue depths;

  And, when it sunk away, she turned again

  With sad despondency and tears to earth. 65

  Three long and weary months — yet not a whisper

  Of stern reproach for that cold parting! Then

  She sat no longer by her favorite fountain:

  She was at rest forever.

  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; 10

  And list! — his tuneful viol strings

  The young Venetian Gondolier.

&nbs
p; 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.

  Haste! — dip the oar again— ‘t is time

  To seek Genevra’s balcony.

  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 lark

  To its silver cloud-and hark! 5

  On his way the woodman sings.

  On the dim and misty lakes

  Gloriously the morning breaks,

  And the eagle’s on his cloud: —

  Whilst the wind, with sighing, wooes 10

  To its arms the chaste cold ooze,

  And the rustling reeds pipe loud.

  Where the embracing ivy holds

  Close the hoar elm in its folds,

  In the meadow’s fenny land, 15

  And the winding river sweeps

  Through its shallows and still deeps, —

  Silent with my rod I stand.

  But when sultry suns are high

  Underneath the oak I lie 20

  As it shades the water’s edge,

  And I mark my line, away

  In the wheeling eddy, play,

  Tangling with the river sedge.

  When the eye of evening looks 25

  On 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

  Lengthens by the greenwood tree. 30

  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.