Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these.
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow, 75
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon 80
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o’er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down, 85
Into caverns cool and deep!
Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white
And the river cased in ice, 90
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.
The Sermon of St. Francis
UP soared the lark into the air,
A shaft of song, a wingèd prayer,
As if a soul released from pain
Were flying back to heaven again.
St. Francis heard: it was to him 5
An emblem of the Seraphim;
The upward motion of the fire,
The light, the heat, the heart’s desire.
Around Assisi’s convent gate
The birds, God’s poor who cannot wait, 10
From moor and mere and darksome wood
Come flocking for their dole of food.
“O brother birds,” St. Francis said,
“Ye come to me and ask for bread,
But not with bread alone to-day 15
Shall ye be fed and sent away.
“Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,
With manna of celestial words;
Not mine, though mine they seem to be,
Not mine, though they be spoken through me. 20
“Oh, doubly are ye bound to praise
The great Creator in your lays;
He giveth you your plumes of down,
Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.
“He giveth you your wings to fly 25
And breathe a purer air on high,
And careth for you everywhere,
Who for yourselves so little care!”
With flutter of swift wings and songs
Together rose the feathered throngs, 30
And singing scattered far apart;
Deep peace was in St. Francis’ heart.
He knew not if the brotherhood
His homily had understood;
He only knew that to one ear 35
The meaning of his words was clear.
Belisarius
I AM poor and old and blind;
The sun burns me, and the wind
Blows through the city gate,
And covers me with dust
From the wheels of the august 5
Justinian the Great.
It was for him I chased
The Persians o’er wild and waste,
As General of the East;
Night after night I lay 10
In their camps of yesterday;
Their forage was my feast.
For him, with sails of red,
And torches at mast-head,
Piloting the great fleet, 15
I swept the Afric coasts
And scattered the Vandal hosts,
Like dust in a windy street.
For him I won again
The Ausonian realm and reign, 20
Rome and Parthenope;
And all the land was mine
From the summits of Apennine
To the shores of either sea.
For him, in my feeble age, 25
I dared the battle’s rage,
To save Byzantium’s state,
When the tents of Zabergan
Like snow-drifts overran
The road to the Golden Gate. 30
And for this, for this, behold!
Infirm and blind and old,
With gray, uncovered head,
Beneath the very arch
Of my triumphal march, 35
I stand and beg my bread!
Methinks I still can hear,
Sounding distinct and near,
The Vandal monarch’s cry,
As, captive and disgraced, 40
With majestic step he paced, —
“All, all is Vanity!”
Ah! vainest of all things
Is the gratitude of kings;
The plaudits of the crowd 45
Are but the clatter of feet
At midnight in the street,
Hollow and restless and loud.
But the bitterest disgrace
Is to see forever the face 50
Of the Monk of Ephesus!
The unconquerable will
This, too, can bear; — I still
Am Belisarius!
Songo River
Songo River is a winding stream which connects Lake Sebago with Long Lake in Cumberland County, Maine. Among the early literary plans of Mr. Longfellow was one for a prose tale, the scene of which was to be laid near Lake Sebago. This poem was written September 18, 1875, after a visit to the river in the summer then closing.
NOWHERE such a devious stream,
Save in fancy or in dream,
Winding slow through bush brake,
Links together lake and lake.
Walled with woods or sandy shelf, 5
Ever doubling on itself
Flows the stream, so still and slow
That it hardly seems to flow.
Never errant knight of old,
Lost in woodland or on wold, 10
Such a winding path pursued
Through the sylvan solitude.
Never school-boy, in his quest
After hazel-nut or nest,
Through the forest in and out 15
Wandered loitering thus about.
In the mirror of its tide
Tangled thickets on each side
Hang inverted, and between
Floating cloud or sky serene. 20
Swift or swallow on the wing
Seems the only living thing,
Or the loon, that laughs and flies
Down to those reflected skies.
Silent stream! thy Indian name 25
Unfamiliar is to fame;
For thou hidest here alone,
Well content to be unknown.
But thy tranquil waters teach
Wisdom deep as human speech, 30
Moving without haste or noise
In unbroken equipoise.
Though thou turnest no busy mill,
And art ever calm and still,
Even thy silence seems to say 35
To the traveller on his way: —
“Traveller, hurrying from the heat
Of the city, stay thy feet!
Rest awhile, nor longer waste
Life with inconsiderate haste! 40
“Be not like a stream that brawls
Loud with shallow waterfalls,
But in quiet self-control
Link together soul and soul.”
KÉRAMOS AND OTHER POEMS
CONTENTS
Kéramos.
Birds of Passage: Flight the Fifth.
The Herons of Elmwood
A Dutch Picture
Castles in Spain
Vittoria Colonna
The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face
To the River Yvette
The Emperor’s Glove
A Ballad of the French Flee
The Leap of Roushan Beg
Haroun al Raschid
King Trisanku
A Wraith in the Mist
The Three Kings
Song: “Stay, stay at home my heart, and rest”
The White Czar
Delia
A Book of Sonnets: Part II.
Nature
In the Churchyard at Tarrytown
Eliot’s Oak
The Descent of the Muses
Venice
The Poets
Parker Cleaveland
The Harvest Moon
To the River Rhone
The Three Silences of Molinos
The Two Rivers
Boston
St. John’s, Cambridge
Moods
Woodstock Park
The Four Princesses at Wilna
Holidays
Wapentake
The Broken Oar
The Cross of Snow
Kéramos.
Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round
Without a pause, without a sound:
So spins the flying world away!
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,
Follows the motion of my hand; 5
For some must follow, and some command,
Though all are made of clay!
Thus sang the Potter at his task
Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree,
While o’er his features, like a mask, 10
The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade
Moved, as the boughs above him swayed,
And clothed him, till he seemed to be
A figure woven in tapestry,
So sumptuously was he arrayed 15
In that magnificent attire
Of sable tissue flaked with fire.
Like a magician he appeared,
A conjurer without book or beard;
And while he plied his magic art — 20
For it was magical to me —
I stood in silence and apart,
And wondered more and more to see
That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay
Rise up to meet the master’s hand, 25
And now contract and now expand,
And even his slightest touch obey;
While ever in a thoughtful mood
He sang his ditty, and at times
Whistled a tune between the rhymes, 30
As a melodious interlude.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane, 35
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.
Thus still the Potter sang, and still,
By some unconscious act of will, 40
The melody and even the words
Were intermingled with my thought,
As bits of colored thread are caught
And woven into nests of birds.
And thus to regions far remote, 45
Beyond the ocean’s vast expanse,
This wizard in the motley coat
Transported me on wings of song,
And by the northern shores of France
Bore me with restless speed along. 50
What land is this that seems to be
A mingling of the land and sea?
This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes?
This water-net, that tessellates
The landscape? this unending maze 55
Of gardens, through whose latticed gates
The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;
Where in long summer afternoons
The sunshine, softened by the haze,
Comes streaming down as through a screen; 60
Where over fields and pastures green
The painted ships float high in air,
And over all and everywhere
The sails of windmills sink and soar
Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore? 65
What land is this? Yon pretty town
Is Delft, with all its wares displayed;
The pride, the market-place, the crown
And centre of the Potter’s trade.
See! every house and room is bright 70
With glimmers of reflected light
From plates that on the dresser shine;
Flagons to foam with Flemish beer,
Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine,
And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis, 75
And ships upon a rolling sea,
And tankards pewter topped, and queer
With comic mask and musketeer!
Each hospitable chimney smiles
A welcome from its painted tiles; 80
The parlor walls, the chamber floors,
The stairways and the corridors,
The borders of the garden walks,
Are beautiful with fadeless flowers,
That never droop in winds or showers, 85
And never wither on their stalks.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;
What now is bud will soon be leaf,
What now is leaf will soon decay;
The wind blows east, the wind blows west; 90
The blue eggs in the robin’s nest
Will soon have wings and beak and breast,
And flutter and fly away.
Now southward through the air I glide,
The song my only pursuivant, 95
And see across the landscape wide
The blue Charente, upon whose tide
The belfries and the spires of Saintes
Ripple and rock from side to side,
As, when an earthquake rends its walls, 100
A crumbling city reels and falls.
Who is it in the suburbs here,
This Potter, working with such cheer,
In this mean house, this mean attire,
His manly features bronzed with fire, 105
Whose figulines and rustic wares
Scarce find him bread from day to day?
This madman, as the people say,
Who breaks his tables and his chairs
To feed his furnace fires, nor cares 110
Who goes unfed if they are fed,
Nor who may live if they are dead?
This alchemist with hollow cheeks
And sunken, searching eyes, who seeks,
By mingled earths and ores combined 115
With potency of fire, to find
Some new enamel, hard and bright,
His dream, his passion, his delight?
O Palissy! within thy breast
Burned the hot fever of unrest; 120
Thine was the prophet’s vision, thine
The exultation, the divine
Insanity of noble minds,
That never falters nor abates,
But labors and endures and waits, 125
Till all that it foresees it finds,
Or what it cannot find creates!
Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar
A touch can make, a touch can mar;
And shall it to the Potter say, 130
What makest thou? Thou hast no hand?
As men who think to understand
A world by their Creator planned,
Who wiser is than they.
Still guided by the dreamy song, 135
As in a trance I float along
Above the Pyrenean chain,
Above the fields and farms of Spain,
Above the bright Majorcan isle
That lends its softened name to art, — 140
A spot, a dot upon the chart,
Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile,
Are ruby-lustred with the light
Of blazing furnaces by night,
And crowned by day with wreaths of smoke 145
Then eastward, wafted in my flight
On my enchanter’s magic cloak,
I sail across the Tyrrhene Sea
Into the land of Italy,
And o’er the windy Apennines, 150
Mantled and musical with pines.
/> The palaces, the princely halls,
The doors of houses and the walls
Of churches and of belfry towers,
Cloister and castle, street and mart, 155
Are garlanded and gay with flowers
That blossom in the fields of art.
Here Gubbio’s workshops gleam and glow
With brilliant, iridescent dyes,
The dazzling whiteness of the snow, 160
The cobalt blue of summer skies;
And vase and scutcheon, cup and plate,
In perfect finish emulate
Faenza, Florence, Pesaro.
Forth from Urbino’s gate there came 165
A youth with the angelic name
Of Raphael, in form and face
Himself angelic, and divine
In arts of color and design.
From him Francesco Xanto caught 170
Something of his transcendent grace,
And into fictile fabrics wrought
Suggestions of the master’s thought.
Nor less Maestro Giorgio shines
With madre-perl and golden lines 175
Of arabesques, and interweaves
His birds and fruits and flowers and leaves
About some landscape, shaded brown,
With olive tints on rock and town.
Behold this cup within whose bowl, 180
Upon a ground of deepest blue
With yellow-lustred stars o’erlaid,
Colors of every tint and hue
Mingle in one harmonious whole!
With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze, 185
Her yellow hair in net and braid,
Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze
With golden lustre o’er the glaze,
A woman’s portrait; on the scroll,
Cana, the Beautiful! A name 190
Forgotten save for such brief fame
As this memorial can bestow, —
A gift some lover long ago
Gave with his heart to this fair dame.
A nobler title to renown 195
Is thine, O pleasant Tuscan town,
Seated beside the Arno’s stream;
For Luca della Robbia there
Created forms so wondrous fair,
They made thy sovereignty supreme. 200
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 79
