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

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Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 79

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


  Nothing doth the good monk care

  For such worldly themes as these.

  From the garden just below

  Little puffs of perfume blow, 75

  And a sound is in his ears

  Of the murmur of the bees

  In the shining chestnut trees;

  Nothing else he heeds or hears.

  All the landscape seems to swoon 80

  In the happy afternoon;

  Slowly o’er his senses creep

  The encroaching waves of sleep,

  And he sinks as sank the town,

  Unresisting, fathoms down, 85

  Into caverns cool and deep!

  Walled about with drifts of snow,

  Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,

  Seeing all the landscape white

  And the river cased in ice, 90

  Comes this memory of delight,

  Comes this vision unto me

  Of a long-lost Paradise

  In the land beyond the sea.

  The Sermon of St. Francis

  UP soared the lark into the air,

  A shaft of song, a wingèd prayer,

  As if a soul released from pain

  Were flying back to heaven again.

  St. Francis heard: it was to him 5

  An emblem of the Seraphim;

  The upward motion of the fire,

  The light, the heat, the heart’s desire.

  Around Assisi’s convent gate

  The birds, God’s poor who cannot wait, 10

  From moor and mere and darksome wood

  Come flocking for their dole of food.

  “O brother birds,” St. Francis said,

  “Ye come to me and ask for bread,

  But not with bread alone to-day 15

  Shall ye be fed and sent away.

  “Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,

  With manna of celestial words;

  Not mine, though mine they seem to be,

  Not mine, though they be spoken through me. 20

  “Oh, doubly are ye bound to praise

  The great Creator in your lays;

  He giveth you your plumes of down,

  Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.

  “He giveth you your wings to fly 25

  And breathe a purer air on high,

  And careth for you everywhere,

  Who for yourselves so little care!”

  With flutter of swift wings and songs

  Together rose the feathered throngs, 30

  And singing scattered far apart;

  Deep peace was in St. Francis’ heart.

  He knew not if the brotherhood

  His homily had understood;

  He only knew that to one ear 35

  The meaning of his words was clear.

  Belisarius

  I AM poor and old and blind;

  The sun burns me, and the wind

  Blows through the city gate,

  And covers me with dust

  From the wheels of the august 5

  Justinian the Great.

  It was for him I chased

  The Persians o’er wild and waste,

  As General of the East;

  Night after night I lay 10

  In their camps of yesterday;

  Their forage was my feast.

  For him, with sails of red,

  And torches at mast-head,

  Piloting the great fleet, 15

  I swept the Afric coasts

  And scattered the Vandal hosts,

  Like dust in a windy street.

  For him I won again

  The Ausonian realm and reign, 20

  Rome and Parthenope;

  And all the land was mine

  From the summits of Apennine

  To the shores of either sea.

  For him, in my feeble age, 25

  I dared the battle’s rage,

  To save Byzantium’s state,

  When the tents of Zabergan

  Like snow-drifts overran

  The road to the Golden Gate. 30

  And for this, for this, behold!

  Infirm and blind and old,

  With gray, uncovered head,

  Beneath the very arch

  Of my triumphal march, 35

  I stand and beg my bread!

  Methinks I still can hear,

  Sounding distinct and near,

  The Vandal monarch’s cry,

  As, captive and disgraced, 40

  With majestic step he paced, —

  “All, all is Vanity!”

  Ah! vainest of all things

  Is the gratitude of kings;

  The plaudits of the crowd 45

  Are but the clatter of feet

  At midnight in the street,

  Hollow and restless and loud.

  But the bitterest disgrace

  Is to see forever the face 50

  Of the Monk of Ephesus!

  The unconquerable will

  This, too, can bear; — I still

  Am Belisarius!

  Songo River

  Songo River is a winding stream which connects Lake Sebago with Long Lake in Cumberland County, Maine. Among the early literary plans of Mr. Longfellow was one for a prose tale, the scene of which was to be laid near Lake Sebago. This poem was written September 18, 1875, after a visit to the river in the summer then closing.

  NOWHERE such a devious stream,

  Save in fancy or in dream,

  Winding slow through bush brake,

  Links together lake and lake.

  Walled with woods or sandy shelf, 5

  Ever doubling on itself

  Flows the stream, so still and slow

  That it hardly seems to flow.

  Never errant knight of old,

  Lost in woodland or on wold, 10

  Such a winding path pursued

  Through the sylvan solitude.

  Never school-boy, in his quest

  After hazel-nut or nest,

  Through the forest in and out 15

  Wandered loitering thus about.

  In the mirror of its tide

  Tangled thickets on each side

  Hang inverted, and between

  Floating cloud or sky serene. 20

  Swift or swallow on the wing

  Seems the only living thing,

  Or the loon, that laughs and flies

  Down to those reflected skies.

  Silent stream! thy Indian name 25

  Unfamiliar is to fame;

  For thou hidest here alone,

  Well content to be unknown.

  But thy tranquil waters teach

  Wisdom deep as human speech, 30

  Moving without haste or noise

  In unbroken equipoise.

  Though thou turnest no busy mill,

  And art ever calm and still,

  Even thy silence seems to say 35

  To the traveller on his way: —

  “Traveller, hurrying from the heat

  Of the city, stay thy feet!

  Rest awhile, nor longer waste

  Life with inconsiderate haste! 40

  “Be not like a stream that brawls

  Loud with shallow waterfalls,

  But in quiet self-control

  Link together soul and soul.”

  KÉRAMOS AND OTHER POEMS

  CONTENTS

  Kéramos.

  Birds of Passage: Flight the Fifth.

  The Herons of Elmwood

  A Dutch Picture

  Castles in Spain

  Vittoria Colonna

  The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face

  To the River Yvette

  The Emperor’s Glove

  A Ballad of the French Flee

  The Leap of Roushan Beg

  Haroun al Raschid

  King Trisanku

  A Wraith in the Mist

  The Three Kings

  Song: “Stay, stay at home my heart, and rest”

  The White Czar />
  Delia

  A Book of Sonnets: Part II.

  Nature

  In the Churchyard at Tarrytown

  Eliot’s Oak

  The Descent of the Muses

  Venice

  The Poets

  Parker Cleaveland

  The Harvest Moon

  To the River Rhone

  The Three Silences of Molinos

  The Two Rivers

  Boston

  St. John’s, Cambridge

  Moods

  Woodstock Park

  The Four Princesses at Wilna

  Holidays

  Wapentake

  The Broken Oar

  The Cross of Snow

  Kéramos.

  Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round

  Without a pause, without a sound:

  So spins the flying world away!

  This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,

  Follows the motion of my hand; 5

  For some must follow, and some command,

  Though all are made of clay!

  Thus sang the Potter at his task

  Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree,

  While o’er his features, like a mask, 10

  The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade

  Moved, as the boughs above him swayed,

  And clothed him, till he seemed to be

  A figure woven in tapestry,

  So sumptuously was he arrayed 15

  In that magnificent attire

  Of sable tissue flaked with fire.

  Like a magician he appeared,

  A conjurer without book or beard;

  And while he plied his magic art — 20

  For it was magical to me —

  I stood in silence and apart,

  And wondered more and more to see

  That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay

  Rise up to meet the master’s hand, 25

  And now contract and now expand,

  And even his slightest touch obey;

  While ever in a thoughtful mood

  He sang his ditty, and at times

  Whistled a tune between the rhymes, 30

  As a melodious interlude.

  Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change

  To something new, to something strange;

  Nothing that is can pause or stay;

  The moon will wax, the moon will wane, 35

  The mist and cloud will turn to rain,

  The rain to mist and cloud again,

  To-morrow be to-day.

  Thus still the Potter sang, and still,

  By some unconscious act of will, 40

  The melody and even the words

  Were intermingled with my thought,

  As bits of colored thread are caught

  And woven into nests of birds.

  And thus to regions far remote, 45

  Beyond the ocean’s vast expanse,

  This wizard in the motley coat

  Transported me on wings of song,

  And by the northern shores of France

  Bore me with restless speed along. 50

  What land is this that seems to be

  A mingling of the land and sea?

  This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes?

  This water-net, that tessellates

  The landscape? this unending maze 55

  Of gardens, through whose latticed gates

  The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;

  Where in long summer afternoons

  The sunshine, softened by the haze,

  Comes streaming down as through a screen; 60

  Where over fields and pastures green

  The painted ships float high in air,

  And over all and everywhere

  The sails of windmills sink and soar

  Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore? 65

  What land is this? Yon pretty town

  Is Delft, with all its wares displayed;

  The pride, the market-place, the crown

  And centre of the Potter’s trade.

  See! every house and room is bright 70

  With glimmers of reflected light

  From plates that on the dresser shine;

  Flagons to foam with Flemish beer,

  Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine,

  And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis, 75

  And ships upon a rolling sea,

  And tankards pewter topped, and queer

  With comic mask and musketeer!

  Each hospitable chimney smiles

  A welcome from its painted tiles; 80

  The parlor walls, the chamber floors,

  The stairways and the corridors,

  The borders of the garden walks,

  Are beautiful with fadeless flowers,

  That never droop in winds or showers, 85

  And never wither on their stalks.

  Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;

  What now is bud will soon be leaf,

  What now is leaf will soon decay;

  The wind blows east, the wind blows west; 90

  The blue eggs in the robin’s nest

  Will soon have wings and beak and breast,

  And flutter and fly away.

  Now southward through the air I glide,

  The song my only pursuivant, 95

  And see across the landscape wide

  The blue Charente, upon whose tide

  The belfries and the spires of Saintes

  Ripple and rock from side to side,

  As, when an earthquake rends its walls, 100

  A crumbling city reels and falls.

  Who is it in the suburbs here,

  This Potter, working with such cheer,

  In this mean house, this mean attire,

  His manly features bronzed with fire, 105

  Whose figulines and rustic wares

  Scarce find him bread from day to day?

  This madman, as the people say,

  Who breaks his tables and his chairs

  To feed his furnace fires, nor cares 110

  Who goes unfed if they are fed,

  Nor who may live if they are dead?

  This alchemist with hollow cheeks

  And sunken, searching eyes, who seeks,

  By mingled earths and ores combined 115

  With potency of fire, to find

  Some new enamel, hard and bright,

  His dream, his passion, his delight?

  O Palissy! within thy breast

  Burned the hot fever of unrest; 120

  Thine was the prophet’s vision, thine

  The exultation, the divine

  Insanity of noble minds,

  That never falters nor abates,

  But labors and endures and waits, 125

  Till all that it foresees it finds,

  Or what it cannot find creates!

  Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar

  A touch can make, a touch can mar;

  And shall it to the Potter say, 130

  What makest thou? Thou hast no hand?

  As men who think to understand

  A world by their Creator planned,

  Who wiser is than they.

  Still guided by the dreamy song, 135

  As in a trance I float along

  Above the Pyrenean chain,

  Above the fields and farms of Spain,

  Above the bright Majorcan isle

  That lends its softened name to art, — 140

  A spot, a dot upon the chart,

  Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile,

  Are ruby-lustred with the light

  Of blazing furnaces by night,

  And crowned by day with wreaths of smoke 145

  Then eastward, wafted in my flight

  On my enchanter’s magic cloak,

  I sail across the Tyrrhene Sea

  Into the land of Italy,

  And o’er the windy Apennines, 150

  Mantled and musical with pines.

/>   The palaces, the princely halls,

  The doors of houses and the walls

  Of churches and of belfry towers,

  Cloister and castle, street and mart, 155

  Are garlanded and gay with flowers

  That blossom in the fields of art.

  Here Gubbio’s workshops gleam and glow

  With brilliant, iridescent dyes,

  The dazzling whiteness of the snow, 160

  The cobalt blue of summer skies;

  And vase and scutcheon, cup and plate,

  In perfect finish emulate

  Faenza, Florence, Pesaro.

  Forth from Urbino’s gate there came 165

  A youth with the angelic name

  Of Raphael, in form and face

  Himself angelic, and divine

  In arts of color and design.

  From him Francesco Xanto caught 170

  Something of his transcendent grace,

  And into fictile fabrics wrought

  Suggestions of the master’s thought.

  Nor less Maestro Giorgio shines

  With madre-perl and golden lines 175

  Of arabesques, and interweaves

  His birds and fruits and flowers and leaves

  About some landscape, shaded brown,

  With olive tints on rock and town.

  Behold this cup within whose bowl, 180

  Upon a ground of deepest blue

  With yellow-lustred stars o’erlaid,

  Colors of every tint and hue

  Mingle in one harmonious whole!

  With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze, 185

  Her yellow hair in net and braid,

  Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze

  With golden lustre o’er the glaze,

  A woman’s portrait; on the scroll,

  Cana, the Beautiful! A name 190

  Forgotten save for such brief fame

  As this memorial can bestow, —

  A gift some lover long ago

  Gave with his heart to this fair dame.

  A nobler title to renown 195

  Is thine, O pleasant Tuscan town,

  Seated beside the Arno’s stream;

  For Luca della Robbia there

  Created forms so wondrous fair,

  They made thy sovereignty supreme. 200

 

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