Frances Appleton in 1843. After a seven-year courtship with Longfellow, she agreed to be his wife and they married shortly after the publication of this collection.
CONTENTS
To William E. Channing
The Slave’s Dream
The Good Part, that shall not be taken away
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp
The Slave Singing at Midnight
The Witnesses
The Quadroon Girl
The Warning
The original title page
To William E. Channing
In the spring of 1842 Mr. Longfellow obtained leave of absence from college duties for six months and went abroad to try the virtues of the water-cure at Marienberg on the Rhine. When absent in Europe in the summer of 1842 Mr. Longfellow made an acquaintance with Ferdinand Freiligrath, the poet, which ripened into a life-long friendship. It was to this friend that he wrote shortly after his return to America [on leaving Bristol for New York]: “We sailed (or rather, paddled) out in the very teeth of a violent west wind, which blew for a week,— ‘Frau die alte sass gekehrt rückwärts nach Osten’ with a vengeance. We had a very boisterous passage. I was not out of my berth more than twelve hours for the first twelve days. I was in the forward part of the vessel, where all the great waves struck and broke with voices of thunder. There, ‘cribbed, cabined, and confined,’ I passed fifteen days. During this time I wrote seven poems on slavery; I meditated upon them in the stormy, sleepless nights, and wrote them down with a pencil in the morning. A small window in the side of the vessel admitted light into my berth, and there I lay on my back and soothed my soul with songs. I send you some copies.”
He had published the poems at once on his arrival in America in December, 1842, in a thin volume of thirty-one pages in glazed paper covers, adding to the seven an eighth, previously written, poem, The Warning. It is possible that his immediate impulse to write came from his recent association with Dickens, whose American Notes, with its “grand chapter on slavery,” he speaks of having read in London.
The book naturally received attention out of all proportion to its size. It was impossible for one at that time to range himself on one side or other of the great controversy without inviting criticism, not so much of literary art as of ethical position. To his father, Mr. Longfellow wrote: “How do you like the Slavery Poems? I think they make an impression; I have received many letters about them, which I will send to you by the first good opportunity. Some persons regret that I should have written them, but for my own part I am glad of what I have done. My feelings prompted me, and my judgment approved, and still approves.” The poem on Dr. Channing was written when the poet was ignorant of the great preacher’s death.
“Since that event,” he says in his prefatory note to the volume, “the poem addressed to him is no longer appropriate. I have decided, however, to let it remain as it was written, in testimony of my admiration for a great and good man.”
THE PAGES of thy book I read,
And as I closed each one,
My heart, responding, ever said,
“Servant of God! well done!”
Well done! Thy words are great and bold; 5
At times they seem to me,
Like Luther’s, in the days of old,
Half-battles for the free.
Go on, until this land revokes
The old and chartered Lie, 10
The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes
Insult humanity.
A voice is ever at thy side
Speaking in tones of might,
Like the prophetic voice, that cried 15
To John in Patmos, “Write!”
Write! and tell out this bloody tale;
Record this dire eclipse,
This Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail,
This dread Apocalypse! 20
The Slave’s Dream
BESIDE the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, 5
He saw his Native Land.
Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode; 10
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain road.
He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks, 15
They held him by the hand! —
A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids
And fell into the sand.
And then at furious speed he rode
Along the Niger’s bank: 20
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion’s flank.
Before him, like a blood-red flag, 25
The bright flamingoes flew;
From morn till night he followed their flight,
O’er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
And the ocean rose to view. 30
At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums, 35
Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free, 40
That he started in his sleep and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver’s whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep, 45
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!
The Good Part, that shall not be taken away
SHE dwells by Great Kenhawa’s side,
In valleys green and cool;
And all her hope and all her pride
Are in the village school.
Her soul, like the transparent air 5
That robes the hills above,
Though not of earth, encircles there
All things with arms of love.
And thus she walks among her girls
With praise and mild rebukes; 10
Subduing e’en rude village churls
By her angelic looks.
She reads to them at eventide
Of One who came to save;
To cast the captive’s chains aside 15
And liberate the slave.
And oft the blessed time foretells
When all men shall be free;
And musical, as silver bells,
Their falling chains shall be. 20
And following her beloved Lord,
In decent poverty,
She makes her life one sweet record
And deed of charity.
For she was rich, and gave up all 25
To break the iron bands
Of those who waited in her hall,
And labored in her lands.
Long since beyond the Southern Sea
Their outbound sails have sped, 30
While she, in meek humility,
Now earns her daily bread.
It is their prayers, which never cease,
That clothe her with such grace;
Their blessing is the light of peace 35
That shines upon her face.
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp
IN dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted Negro lay;
He saw the fire of the midnight camp,
&nbs
p; And heard at times a horse’s tramp
And a bloodhound’s distant bay. 5
Where will-o’-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,
In bulrush and in brake;
Where waving mosses shroud the pine,
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine
Is spotted like the snake; 10
Where hardly a human foot could pass,
Or a human heart would dare,
On the quaking turf of the green morass
He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,
Like a wild beast in his lair. 15
A poor old slave, infirm and lame;
Great scars deformed his face;
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,
And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,
Were the livery of disgrace. 20
All things above were bright and fair,
All things were glad and free;
Lithe squirrels darted here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoing air
With songs of Liberty! 25
On him alone was the doom of pain,
From the morning of his birth;
On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth! 30
The Slave Singing at Midnight
LOUD he sang the psalm of David!
He, a Negro and enslavèd,
Sang of Israel’s victory,
Sang of Zion, bright and free.
In that hour, when night is calmest, 5
Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,
In a voice so sweet and clear
That I could not choose but hear,
Songs of triumph, and ascriptions,
Such as reached the swart Egyptians, 10
When upon the Red Sea coast
Perished Pharaoh and his host.
And the voice of his devotion
Filled my soul with strange emotion;
For its tones by turns were glad, 15
Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.
Paul and Silas, in their prison,
Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen.
And an earthquake’s arm of might
Broke their dungeon-gates at night. 20
But, alas! what holy angel
Brings the Slave this glad evangel?
And what earthquake’s arm of might
Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?
The Witnesses
IN Ocean’s wide domains,
Half buried in the sands,
Lie skeletons in chains,
With shackled feet and hands.
Beyond the fall of dews, 5
Deeper than plummet lies,
Float ships, with all their crews,
No more to sink nor rise.
There the black Slave-ship swims,
Freighted with human forms, 10
Whose fettered, fleshless limbs
Are not the sport of storms.
These are the bones of Slaves;
They gleam from the abyss;
They cry, from yawning waves, 15
“We are the Witnesses!”
Within Earth’s wide domains
Are markets for men’s lives;
Their necks are galled with chains,
Their wrists are cramped with gyves. 20
Dead bodies, that the kite
In deserts makes its prey;
Murders, that with affright
Scare school-boys from their play!
All evil thoughts and deeds; 25
Anger, and lust, and pride;
The foulest, rankest weeds,
That choke Life’s groaning tide!
These are the woes of Slaves;
They glare from the abyss; 30
They cry, from unknown graves,
“We are the Witnesses!”
The Quadroon Girl
THE SLAVER in the broad lagoon
Lay moored with idle sail;
He waited for the rising moon,
And for the evening gale.
Under the shore his boat was tied, 5
And all her listless crew
Watched the gray alligator slide
Into the still bayou.
Odors of orange-flowers, and spice,
Reached them from time to time, 10
Like airs that breathe from Paradise
Upon a world of crime.
The Planter, under his roof of thatch,
Smoked thoughtfully and slow;
The Slaver’s thumb was on the latch, 15
He seemed in haste to go.
He said, “My ship at anchor rides
In yonder broad lagoon;
I only wait the evening tides,
And the rising of the moon.” 20
Before them, with her face upraised,
In timid attitude,
Like one half curious, half amazed,
A Quadroon maiden stood.
Her eyes were large, and full of light, 25
Her arms and neck were bare;
No garment she wore save a kirtle bright,
And her own long, raven hair.
And on her lips there played a smile
As holy, meek, and faint, 30
As lights in some cathedral aisle
The features of a saint.
“The soil is barren, — the farm is old,”
The thoughtful planter said;
Then looked upon the Slaver’s gold, 35
And then upon the maid.
His heart within him was at strife
With such accursèd gains:
For he knew whose passions gave her life,
Whose blood ran in her veins. 40
But the voice of nature was too weak;
He took the glittering gold!
Then pale as death grew the maiden’s cheek,
Her hands as icy cold.
The Slaver led her from the door, 45
He led her by the hand,
To be his slave and paramour
In a strange and distant land!
The Warning
BEWARE! The Israelite of old, who tore
The lion in his path, — when, poor and blind,
He saw the blessed light of heaven no more,
Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind
In prison, and at last led forth to be 5
A pander to Philistine revelry, —
Upon the pillars of the temple laid
His desperate hands, and in its overthrow
Destroyed himself, and with him those who made
A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; 10
The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,
Expired, and thousands perished in the fall!
There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,
Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel,
Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 15
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,
Till the vast Temple of our liberties
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.
THE BELFRY OF BRUGES AND OTHER POEMS
CONTENTS
Carillon
The Belfry of Bruges
A Gleam of Sunshine
The Arsenal at Springfield
Nuremberg
The Norman Baron
Rain in Summer
To a Child
The Occultation of Orion
The Bridge
To the Driving Cloud
Longfellow, close to the time of publication
Introductory Note
The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems was published December 23, 1845, but the greater part of the volume had already appeared in the illustrated edition of Mr. Longfellow’s poems published earlier in the year in Philadelphia, as well as in the pages of Graham’s Magazine, which at this time was the most frequent vehicle of his writing. 1 The poem which gives the title t
o the volume was the product of his excursion in Europe in the summer of 1842. While on his way to the watercure at Marienberg on the Rhine, he spent a few days in Belgium, and here is the entry which he makes in his diary: — 2 May 30. In the evening took the railway from Ghent to Bruges. Stopped at La Fleur de Blé attracted by the name, and found it a good hotel. It was not yet night; and I strolled through the fine old streets and felt myself a hundred years old. The chimes seemed to be ringing incessantly; and the air of repose and antiquity was delightful.… Oh, those chimes, those chimes! how deliciously they lull one to sleep! The little bells, with their clear, liquid notes, like the voices of boys in a choir, and the solemn bass of the great bell tolling in, like the voice of a friar! 3 May 31. Rose before five and climbed the high belfry which was once crowned by the gilded copper drag-on now at Ghent. The carillon of forty-eight bells; the little chamber in the tower; the machinery, like a huge barrel-organ, with keys like a musical instrument for the carilloneur; the view from the tower; the singing of swallows with the chimes; the fresh morning air; the mist in the horizon; the red roofs far below; the canal, like a silver clasp, linking the city with the sea, — how much to remember! 4 From some expressions in a letter to Freiligrath it would seem that this poem and Nuremberg formed part of a plan which the poet had designed of a series of travel-sketches in verse, a plan which in a desultory way he may be said to have been executing all his days and to have carried out systematically in another shape in his collection of Poems of Places. 5 The contents of this division are the same as in the volume so entitled, except that a group of six translations has been withheld, to be placed with the other translated pieces at the end of the volume; except also that to the Sonnets is added the personal one entitled Mezzo Cammin, written at this time and first printed in the Life.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 8
