(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

1877.

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40

50

With thine horses through the sea! 1877.

INTO the darkness and hush of night Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away, And with it fade the phantoms of the day, The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the light.

The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,

The unprofitable splendor and display,
The agitations, and the cares that prey
Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.
The better life begins; the world no more
Molests us; all its records we erase
From the dull commonplace book of our
lives,

That like a palimpsest is written o'er
With trivial incidents of time and place,
And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.

1879.

L'ENVOI

THE POET AND HIS SONGS

As the birds come in the spring,
We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening

From depths of the air;

(1880.)

As the rain comes from the cloud, And the brook from the ground;

1 See the note on Divina Commedia,' p. 240.

1880.

For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts of young and old;
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,

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
On the little seaport town

Has crumbled into the dust;

And on oaken beams below
The bells swing to and fro,

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And are green with mould and rust. 30

'Is, then, the old faith dead,' They say, 'and in its stead

1 Longfellow's last poem, written (except the concluding stanza) on March 12, 1882. The subject was suggested by a few lines of an article on Mexico, in Harper's Magazine for March, telling of the destroyed convent of San Blas (on the Pacific Coast) and its bells.