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 87

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


  Thou seest the day is past its prime;

  I can no longer waste my time;

  The mills are tired of waiting. 60

  Possibilities

  WHERE are the Poets, unto whom belong

  The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent

  Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,

  But with the utmost tension of the thong?

  Where are the stately argosies of song, 5

  Whose rushing keels made music as they went

  Sailing in search of some new continent,

  With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?

  Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught

  In schools, some graduate of the field or street, 10

  Who shall become a master of the art,

  An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,

  Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet

  For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

  Decoration Day

  SLEEP, comrades, sleep and rest

  On this Field of the Grounded Arms,

  Where foes no more molest,

  Nor sentry’s shot alarms!

  Ye have slept on the ground before, 5

  And started to your feet

  At the cannon’s sudden roar,

  Or the drum’s redoubling beat.

  But in this camp of Death

  No sound your slumber breaks; 10

  Here is no fevered breath,

  No wound that bleeds and aches.

  All is repose and peace,

  Untrampled lies the sod;

  The shouts of battle cease, 15

  It is the truce of God!

  Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!

  The thoughts of men shall be

  As sentinels to keep

  Your rest from danger free. 20

  Your silent tents of green

  We deck with fragrant flowers;

  Yours has the suffering been,

  The memory shall be ours.

  A Fragment

  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.

  Awake! arise! the athlete’s arm 5

  Loses its strength by too much rest;

  The fallow land, the untilled farm

  Produces only weeds at best.

  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 5

  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? 10

  Defeat may be victory in disguise;

  The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

  Inscription on the Shanklin Fountain

  O TRAVELLER, stay thy weary feet;

  Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet;

  It flows for rich and poor the same.

  Then go thy way, remembering still

  The wayside well beneath the hill, 5

  The cup of water in his name.

  The Bells of San Blas

  The last poem written by Mr. Longfellow. The last verse but one is dated March 12, 1882. The final verse was added March 15. Mr. Longfellow died March 24. The poem was suggested by an article in Harper’s Magazine, which the poet had just read.

  WHAT say the Bells of San Blas

  To the ships that southward pass

  From the harbor of Mazatlan?

  To them it is nothing more

  Than the sound of surf on the shore, — 5

  Nothing more to master or man.

  But to me, a dreamer of dreams,

  To whom what is and what seems

  Are often one and the same, —

  The Bells of San Blas to me 10

  Have a strange, wild melody,

  And are something more than a name.

  For bells are the voice of the church;

  They have tones that touch and search

  The hearts of young and old; 15

  One sound to all, yet each

  Lends a meaning to their speech,

  And the meaning is manifold.

  They are a voice of the Past,

  Of an age that is fading fast, 20

  Of a power austere and grand;

  When the flag of Spain unfurled

  Its folds o’er this western world,

  And the Priest was lord of the land.

  The chapel that once looked down 25

  On the little seaport town

  Has crumbled into the dust;

  And on oaken beams below

  The bells swing to and fro,

  And are green with mould and rust. 30

  “Is, then, the old faith dead,”

  They say, “and in its stead

  Is some new faith proclaimed,

  That we are forced to remain

  Naked to sun and rain, 35

  Unsheltered and ashamed?

  “Once in our tower aloof

  We rang over wall and roof

  Our warnings and our complaints;

  And round about us there 40

  The white doves filled the air,

  Like the white souls of the saints.

  “The saints! Ah, have they grown

  Forgetful of their own?

  Are they asleep, or dead, 45

  That open to the sky

  Their ruined Missions lie,

  No longer tenanted?

  “Oh, bring us back once more

  The vanished days of yore, 50

  When the world with faith was filled;

  Bring back the fervid zeal,

  The hearts of fire and steel,

  The hands that believe and build.

  “Then from our tower again 55

  We will send over land and main

  Our voices of command,

  Like exiled kings who return

  To their thrones, and the people learn

  That the Priest is lord of the land!” 60

  O Bells of San Blas, in vain

  Ye call back the Past again!

  The Past is deaf to your prayer;

  Out of the shadows of night

  The world rolls into light; 65

  It is daybreak everywhere.

  CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY

  In the last phase of the poet’s long career, Longfellow worked on this major project, which he intended to be regarded as his masterpiece, though it has been somewhat neglected compared to his earlier works. Completed in 1872, this poetic drama explores various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle and Modern Ages. It is formed of three related works: The Divine Tragedy, The Golden Legend and The New England Tragedies, which were later placed in the order suggested by the author’s notebook. The New England Tragedies deals with Puritan themes and The Divine Tragedy is concerned with the life of Christ.

  CONTENTS

  Introductory Note

  Introitus

  Christus: Part I. The Divine Tragedy.

  The First Passover.

  Vox Clamantis

  Mount Quarantania

  The Marriage in Cana

  In the Cornfields

  Nazareth

  The Sea of Galilee

  The Demoniac of Gadara

  Talitha Cumi

  The Tower of Magdala

  The House of Simon the Pharisee

  The Second Passover.

  Before the Gates of Machærus

  Herod’s Banquet-Hall

  Under the Walls of Machærus

  Nicodemus at Night

  Blind Bartimeus

  Jacob’s Well

  The Coasts of Cæsarea Philippi

  VIII. The Young Ruler
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  At Bethany

  Born Blind

  Simon Magus and Helen of Tyre

  The Third Passover.

  The Entry into Jerusalem

  Solomon’s Porch

  Lord, is it I?

  The Garden of Gethsemane

  The Palace of Caiaphas

  Pontius Pilate

  Barabbas in Prison

  Ecce Homo

  Aceldama

  The Three Crosses

  The Two Maries

  The Sea of Galilee

  Part I. The Divine Tragedy.

  Epilogue

  Symbolum Apostolorum

  First Interlude

  The Abbot Joachim

  Christus: Part II. The Golden Legend

  Prologue

  The Spire of Strasburg Cathedral

  I.

  The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine

  II. Court-Yard of the Castle

  II.

  I. A Farm in the Odenwald

  II. A Room in the Farm-House

  III. Elsie’s Chamber

  IV. The Chamber of Gottlieb and Ursula

  V. A Village Church

  VI. A Room in the Farm-House

  VII. In the Garden

  III.

  I. A Street in Strasburg

  II. Square in Front of the Cathedral

  In the Cathedral

  The Nativity: A Miracle-Play.

  Introitus.

  Heaven

  Mary at the Well

  The Angels of the Seven Planets Bearing the Star of Bethlehem

  The Wise Men of the East

  The Flight into Egypt

  The Slaughter of the Innocents

  Jesus at Play with His Schoolmates

  The Village School

  Crowned with Flowers

  Epilogue

  IV.

  I. The Road to Hirschau

  II. The Convent of Hirschau in the Black Forest

  III. The Scriptorium

  IV. The Cloisters

  V. The Chapel

  VII. The Neighboring Nunnery

  V.

  I. A Covered Bridge at Lucerne

  II. The Devil’s Bridge

  III. The St. Gothard Pass

  IV. At the Foot of the Alps

  V. The Inn at Genoa

  VI.

  I. The School of Salerno

  II. The Farm-House in the Odenwald

  III. The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine

  Epilogue

  The Two Recording Angels Ascending

  Second Interlude

  Martin Luther

  Christus: Part III. The New England Tragedies

  JOHN ENDICOTT

  Prologue

  Act I

  Act II

  Act III

  Act IV

  Act V

  GILES COREY OF THE SALEM FARMS

  Prologue

  Act I

  Act II

  Act III

  Act IV

  Act V.

  Finale

  St. John

  Introductory Note

  THE READER is referred for a consideration of the place which Christus held in the poet’s scheme of work to the biographical sketch prefixed to this edition.

  There is no one of Mr. Longfellow’s writings which may be said to have so dominated his literary life. The study of Dante and the translation of the Divina Commedia subtended a wider arc in time, but from the nature of things the interpretation of a great work was subordinate to the development of a theme which was interior to the poet’s thought and emotion. Yet even in point of time, that which elapsed between the first conception of Christus and its final accomplishment was scarcely less than that which extended from the day when Mr. Longfellow opened Dante to the end of his life, — for so long did he live in companionship with the great seer.

  The first indication of actual work upon the subject does not appear until the end of 1849, when he seems to have decided to take up first the second division. He had dismissed his volume of poems, The Seaside and the Fireside, “another stone rolled over the hilltop!” and proceeded in his diary, November 19: “And now I long to try a loftier strain, the sublimer Song whose broken melodies have for so many years breathed through my soul in the better hours of life, and which I trust and believe will ere long unite themselves into a symphony not all unworthy the sublime theme, but furnishing ‘some equivalent expression for the trouble and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery.’” On December 10th, he wrote: “A bleak and dismal day. Wrote in the morning The Challenge of Thor as Prologue or Introitus to the second part of Christus.” This he laid aside, taking it up again ten years later, when he proposed to write the Saga of King Olaf. It is probable that he had in mind the opposition of northern paganism to the Christianity of sacerdotalism, and the supremacy of the latter. But the theme of the drama was constantly before him in one shape or another. In his diary, under date of January 10, 1850, he records: “In the evening, pondered and meditated upon sundry scenes of Christus. In such meditation one tastes the delight of the poetic vision, without the pain of putting it into words.” The scheme of his first venture had evidently been more or less determined upon, for a few weeks later he notes: “February 28. And so ends the winter and the vacation. Not quite satisfactorily to me. Yet something I have done. Some half dozen scenes or more are written of The Golden Legend, which is Part Second of Christus; and the whole is much clearer in my mind as to handling, division, and the form and pressure of the several parts.” It is to be noted that already in 1839 there had crossed his mind the notion of writing a drama based upon the legend of Der Arme Heinrich, and that he had perceived the value of Elsie. “I have a heroine,” he says, “as sweet as Imogen, could I but paint her so.”

  The Golden Legend was published near the close of 1851, but the author gave no intimation of the relation which the work held to a larger plan. He had taken for the core of his poem the story of Der Arme Heinrich as told by Hartmann von der Aue, a minnesinger of the twelfth century, to be found in Mailáth’s Altdeutsche Gedichte, published in Stuttgart in 1809, and it was not till after the book was issued that he caught sight of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea. His own account of his work may be read in brief in a letter which he wrote to an English correspondent at this time. “I am glad to know,” he says, “that you find something to like in The Golden Legend. I have endeavored to show in it, among other things, that through the darkness and corruption of the Middle Ages ran a bright, deep stream of Faith, strong enough for all the exigencies of life and death. In order to do this I had to introduce some portion of this darkness and corruption as a background. I am sure you will be glad to know that the monk’s sermon is not wholly of my own invention. The worst passage in it is from a sermon of Fra Gabriella Barletta, an Italian preacher of the fifteenth century. The Miracle Play is founded on the Apocryphal Gospels of James and the Infancy of Christ. Both this and the sermon show how sacred themes were handled in ‘the days of long ago.’”

  It is a strong illustration of the importance which Mr. Longfellow attached to The Golden Legend as a portion of a larger, more inclusive work, that we find him regretting, while his book was in full tide of success, that he had not taken a theme more fit to his purpose which had been chosen by another poet. “We stayed at home,” he writes, April 2, 1852, “reading The Saint’s Tragedy, the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary put into dramatic form with great power. I wish I had hit upon this theme for my Golden Legend, the mediæval part of my Trilogy. It is nobler and more characteristic than my obscure legend. Strange that while I was writing a dramatic poem illustrating the Middle Ages, Kingsley should have been doing the same, and that we should have chosen precisely the same period, about 1230. His poem was published first, but I never saw it, or a review of it, till two days ago.” Whether or not Mr. Longfellow would have wrought at the other theme with any more satisfaction to himself, The Golden Legend has taken its place as a faithful exponent of t
he phase of Christianity which it described. “Longfellow,” says a competent authority, “in his Golden Legend has entered more closely into the temper of the monk, for good and for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian, though they may have given their life’s labor to the analysis.”

  Christus was, however, pressing upon the poet’s mind; the completion of the second division only made him more desirous of fulfilling the noble theme. The Golden Legend had been published a few weeks when he wrote in his diary one Sunday: “Dec. 28, 1851. The weather, which has been intensely cold, suddenly changes to rain; and avalanches of snow thunder from the college-roofs all sermon-time. A grand accompaniment to Mr. Ellis, who was preaching about the old prophets, — an excellent discourse. Ah me! how many things there are to meditate upon in this great world! And all this meditation, — of what avail is it, if it does not end in some action? The great theme of my poem haunts me ever; but I cannot bring it into act.”

  It was nearly a score of years before another number of the Trilogy was ready, though it is probable that Mr. Longfellow was in the neighborhood of The New England Tragedies when he was diverted for the time by the attractive theme of The Courtship of Miles Standish. As far back as 1839 he had thought of a drama on Cotton Mather. It is curious that he should have mentioned that and a drama on “the old poetic legend of Der Arme Heinrich” in the same sentence as possible themes, a couple of years before the conception of Christus came to him. In the spring of 1856 he was contemplating a tragedy which should take in the Puritans and the Quakers, and preparing for it by looking over books on the two sects, “particularly,” he says, “Besse’s Sufferings of the Quakers, — a strange record of violent persecution for merest trifles.” He notes on April 2d of that year: “Wrote a scene in my new drama, The Old Colony, just to break ground,” and a month later: “May 1. At home all day pondering the New England Tragedy, and writing notes and bits of scenes.” He was still experimenting on it in July and in November, but then he seems to have made a new start and to have begun The Courtship of Miles Standish as a drama.

 

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