The scholar and the world! The endless strife, 230

The discord in the harmonies of life!
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books;
The market-place, the eager love of gain,
Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is
pain!

But why, you ask me, should this tale be told

To men grown old, or who are growing old?
It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles 240
Wrote his grand Edipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his com-
peers,

When each had numbered more than four

Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.

What then? Shall we sit idly down and say

The night hath come; it is no longer day? The night hath not yet come; we are not

quite

Cut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Edipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn, 280
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

1874.

1875.

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD1 WARM and still is the summer night,

As here by the river's brink I wander; White overhead are the stars, and white The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.

''Elmwood' was the home of James Russell Lowell in Cambridge, about a half mile distant from the Long fellow home.

IN THE CHURCHYARD AT TARRYTOWN1

HERE lies the gentle humorist, who died
In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
A simple stone, with but a date and name,
Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
Here in the autumn of his days he came,
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
With tints that brightened and were multi-
plied.

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

O YE dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and
red

From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,

Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
Have something in them so divinely sweet,
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
(1878.)

1876.

NATURE

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the
floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,

1 The burial-place of Washington Irving. On Longfellow's great admiration for Irving, see the Life, vol i, p. 12.

The second of desire, the third of thought; This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.

These Silences, commingling each with each,

Made up the perfect Silence that he sought And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught

Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.

O thou, whose daily life anticipates
The life to come, and in whose thought and
word

The spiritual world preponderates,
Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred !
(1878.)

1877.

WAPENTAKE &

TO ALFRED TENNYSON

POET! I come to touch thy lance with mine; Not as a knight, who on the listed field

2 Written for Whittier's seventieth birthday.

3 When any came to take the government of the Hundred or Wapentake in a day and place appointed, as they were accustomed to meete, all the better sort met him with lances, and he alighting from his horse, all rise up to him, and he setting or holding his lance upright, all the rest come with their lances, according to the auncient custome in confirming league and publike peace and obedience, and touch his lance or weapon, and thereof called Wapentake, for the Saxon or

old English wapun is weapon, and tac, tactus, a touching, thereby this meeting called Wapentake, or touching of weapon, because that by that signe and ceremonie of touching weapon or the lance, they were sworne and confederate. Master Lamberd in Minshew. (LONGFELLOW.)

1 After the capture of Louisburg in 1745 by the Massachusetts colonists, the French in revenge sent a large fleet against Boston the next year; but it was so disabled by storms that it had to put back.

Mr Thomas Prince was the pastor of the Old South Meeting-house.

In 1877, when the Old South was in danger of being destroyed, Rev. Edward Everett Hale wrote to Longfellow: You told me that if the spirit moved, you would try to sing us a song for the Old South Meeting-house. I have found such a charming story that I think it will really tempt you. I want at least to tell it to you.. The whole story of the fleet is in Hutchinson's Massachusetts, ii. 384, 385. The story of Prince and the prayer is in a tract in the College Library, which I will gladly send you, or Mr. Sibley will. I should think that the assembly in the meetinghouse in the gale, and then the terror of the fleet when the gale struck them, would make a ballad-if the spirit moved!'

Compare Whittier's In the Old South' and 'The Landmarks,' and Holmes's 'An Appeal for the Old South.'

There were rumors in the street, In the houses there was fear Of the coming of the fleet,

And the danger hovering near. And while from mouth to mouth Spread the tidings of dismay, I stood in the Old South,

Saying humbly: 'Let us pray!

'O Lord! we would not advise; But if in thy Providence

A tempest should arise

To drive the French Fleet hence, And scatter it far and wide, Or sink it in the sea,

We should be satisfied,

And thine the glory be.'

This was the prayer I made,

For my soul was all on flame, And even as I prayed

The answering tempest came; It came with a mighty power,

Shaking the windows and walls, And tolling the bell in the tower, As it tolls at funerals.

The lightning suddenly

Unsheathed its flaming sword, And I cried: Stand still, and see The salvation of the Lord!' The heavens were black with cloud, The sea was white with hail, And ever more fierce and loud Blew the October gale.

The fleet it overtook,

And the broad sails in the van Like the tents of Cushan shook, Or the curtains of Midian. Down on the reeling decks Crashed the o'erwhelming seas; Ah, never were there wrecks So pitiful as these !

Like a potter's vessel broke

The great ships of the line; They were carried away as a smoke, Or sank like lead in the brine. O Lord! before thy path

They vanished and ceased to be, When thou didst walk in wrath With thine horses through the sea!

1877.

1877.