Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Gaddi mi fece; il Ponte Vecchio sono;
    Cinquecent' anni gia sull' Arno pianto
    Il piede, come il suo Michele Santo
    Pianto sul draco.    Mentre ch' io ragiono
Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono
    Le rilucenti scaglie.    Ha questi affranto
    Due volte i miei maggior.    Me solo intanto
    Neppure muove, ed io non l' abbandono.
Io mi rammento quando fur cacciati
    I Medici; pur quando Ghibellino
    E Guelfo fecer pace mi rammento.
Fiorenza i suoi giojelli m' ha prestati;
    E quando penso ch' Agnolo il divino
    Su me posava, insuperbir mi sento.

In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
    No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
    But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
    And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
    The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us?    No one speaks;
No color shoots into those cheeks,
    Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
    By those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?--And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
    To find her failings...

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 multiplied.
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.

Becalmed upon the sea of Thought,
Still unattained the land it sought,
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails,
Lies waiting the auspicious gales.

On either side, behind, before,
The ocean stretches like a floor,--
A level floor of amethyst,
Crowned by a golden dome of mist.

Blow, breath of inspiration, blow!
Shake and uplift this golden glow!
And fill the canvas of the mind
With wafts of thy celestial wind.

Blow, breath of song! until I feel
The straining sail, the lifting keel,
The life of the awakening sea,
Its motion and its mystery!

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,
    The cup of water in His name.

No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano.
    - Spanish Proverb

The sun is bright,--the air is clear,
    The darting swallows soar and sing.
And from the stately elms I hear
    The bluebird prophesying Spring.

So blue you winding river flows,
    It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where waiting till the west-wind blows,
    The freighted clouds at anchor lie.

All things are new;--the buds, the leaves,
    That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eaves;--
    There are no birds in last year's nest!

All things rejoice in youth and love,
    The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
    The melting tenderness of night.

Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme,
   ...

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
    Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow
    Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,
    Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
    Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended,
As the vision, that lured him to follow,
    With the mist and the darkness blended,
    And the dream of his life was ended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
    The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
    The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
    To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
    It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
    Can it be death?    Alas, beside the fold
    A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
    On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name
    Was writ in water."    And was this the meed
Of his sweet singing?    Rather let me write:
    "The smoking flax before it burst to flame
    Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."

He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call,
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,
He was humming the words of some old song:
"Two red roses he had on his cap,
And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball
Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill;
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a roo...

Viswamitra the Magician,
    By his spells and incantations,
Up to Indra's realms elysian
    Raised Trisanku, king of nations.

Indra and the gods offended
    Hurled him downward, and descending
In the air he hung suspended,
    With these equal powers contending.

Thus by aspirations lifted,
    By misgivings downward driven,
Human hearts are tossed and drifted
    Midway between earth and heaven.

Witlaf, a king of the Saxons,
    Ere yet his last he breathed,
To the merry monks of Croyland
    His drinking-horn bequeathed,--

That, whenever they sat at their revels,
    And drank from the golden bowl,
They might remember the donor,
    And breathe a prayer for his soul.

So sat they once at Christmas,
    And bade the goblet pass;
In their beards the red wine glistened
    Like dew-drops in the grass.

They drank to the soul of Witlaf,
    They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
    Who had preached his holy word.

They drank to the Saints and Martyrs
    Of the dismal days of yore,
And as soon as the horn was empty
    They remembered one Saint more.

And the reader droned from th...

Ye voices, that arose
After the Evening's close,
And whispered to my restless heart repose!

Go, breathe it in the ear
Of all who doubt and fear,
And say to them, "Be of good cheer!"

Ye sounds, so low and calm,
That in the groves of balm
Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!

Go, mingle yet once more
With the perpetual roar
Of the pine forest dark and hoar!

Tongues of the dead, not lost
But speaking from deaths frost,
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!

Glimmer, as funeral lamps,
Amid the chills and damps
Of the vast plain where Death encamps!

As the birds come in the Spring,
    We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
    From depths of the air;

As the rain comes from the cloud,
    And the brook from the ground;
As suddenly, low or loud,
    Out of silence a sound;

As the grape comes to the vine,
    The fruit to the tree;
As the wind comes to the pine,
    And the tide to the sea;

As come the white sails of ships
    O'er the ocean's verge;
As comes the smile to the lips,
    The foam to the surge;

So come to the Poet his songs,
    All hitherward blown
From the misty realm, that belongs
    To the vast unknown.

His, and not his, are the lays
    He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
    And the p...

    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
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?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
    The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

TRAVELLER
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,
    Mad River, O Mad River?
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er
    This rocky shelf forever?

What secret trouble stirs thy breast?
    Why all this fret and flurry?
Dost thou not know that what is best
In this too restless world is rest
    From over-work and worry?

THE RIVER
What wouldst thou in these mountains seek,
    O stranger from the city?
Is it perhaps some foolish freak
Of thine, to put the words I speak
    Into a plaintive ditty?

TRAVELLER
Yes; I would learn of thee thy song,
    With all its flowing number;
And in a voice as fresh and strong
As thine is, sing it all day long,
    And hear it in my slumbers.

MAIDEN
O weathercock on the village spire,
With your golden feathers all on fire,
Tell me, what can you see from your perch
Above there over the tower of the church?

WEATHERCOCK.
I can see the roofs and the streets below,
And the people moving to and fro,
And beyond, without either roof or street,
The great salt sea, and the fisherman's fleet.

I can see a ship come sailing in
Beyond the headlands and harbor of Lynn,
And a young man standing on the deck,
With a silken kerchief round his neck.

Now he is pressing it to his lips,
And now he is kissing his finger-tips,
And now he is lifting and waving his hand
And blowing the kisses toward the land.

MAIDEN.
Ah, that is the ship from over the sea,
That is bringing my lover...

Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!

Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That ...

Oft I remember those whom I have known
    In other days, to whom my heart was led
    As by a magnet, and who are not dead,
    But absent, and their memories overgrown
With other thoughts and troubles of my own,
    As graves with grasses are, and at their head
    The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,
    Nothing is legible but the name alone.
And is it so with them?    After long years,
    Do they remember me in the same way,
    And is the memory pleasant as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
    Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
    And yet the root perennial may be.