The fruit to the tree; 10
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, 15
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. 20
His, and not his, are the lays
He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
And the pride of a name.
For voices pursue him by day, 25
And haunt him by night,
And he listens, and needs must obey,
When the Angel says, “Write!”
IN THE HARBOR
CONTENTS
Becalmed
The Poet’s Calendar
Autumn Within
The Four Lakes of Madison
Victor and Vanquished
Moonlight
The Children’s Crusade
Sundown
Chimes
Four by the Clock
Auf Wiedersehen
Elegiac Verse
The City and the Sea
Memories
Hermes Trismegistus
To the Avon
President Garfield
My Books
Mad River
Possibilities
Decoration Day
A Fragment
Loss and Gain
Inscription on the Shanklin Fountain
The Bells of San Blas
Becalmed
Shortly after Mr. Longfellow’s death, the collection entitled In the Harbor, Ultima Thule, Part II., was published, bearing upon the title-page for a motto the final stanza in the dedicatory poem which introduces Ultima Thule.
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, 5
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! 10
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, 15
Its motion and its mystery!
The Poet’s Calendar
JANUARY
JANUS am I; oldest of potentates;
Forward I look, and backward, and below
I count, as god of avenues and gates,
The years that through my portals come and go.
I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow; 5
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.
FEBRUARY
I am lustration; and the sea is mine!
I wash the sands and headlands with my tide; 10
My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;
Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.
By me all things unclean are purified,
By me the souls of men washed white again;
E’en the unlovely tombs of those who died 15
Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.
MARCH
I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!
To lead the Year was my appointed place;
A mortal dispossessed me by a word,
And set there Janus with the double face. 20
Hence I make war on all the human race;
I shake the cities with my hurricanes;
I flood the rivers and their banks efface,
And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.
APRIL
I open wide the portals of the Spring 25
To welcome the procession of the flowers,
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing
Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
I soften with my sunshine and my showers
The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide 30
Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours
Upon the Bull with wreathèd horns I ride.
MAY
Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim
My coming, and the swarming of the bees.
These are my heralds, and behold! my name 35
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;
I waft o’er all the land from far away
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides,
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May. 40
JUNE
Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights; 45
The mower’s scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.
JULY
My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe
The breath of Libyan deserts o’er the land; 50
My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,
And bent before me the pale harvests stand.
The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,
And there is thirst and fever in the air;
The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand; 55
I am the Emperor whose name I bear.
AUGUST
The Emperor Octavian, called the August,
I being his favorite, bestowed his name
Upon me, and I hold it still in trust,
In memory of him and of his fame. 60
I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame
Burns less intensely than the Lion’s rage;
Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim
The golden Harvests as my heritage.
SEPTEMBER
I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise 65
The night and day; and when unto my lips
I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise
Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;
The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;
Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight; 70
The hedges are all red with haws and hips,
The Hunter’s Moon reigns empress of the night.
OCTOBER
My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,
Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;
I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves, 75
O’er orchards and o’er vineyards I preside.
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,
The dreamy air is full, and overflows
With tender memories of the summer-tide,
And mingled voices of the doves and crows. 80
NOVEMBER
The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,
Born of Ixion’s and the cloud’s embrace;
With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,
A steed Thessalian with a human face.
Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase 85
The leaves, half dead already with affright;
I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.
DECEMBER
Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair,
I come, the last of all. This crown of mine 90
Is of the holly; in my hand I bear
I celebrate the birth of the Divine,
And the return of the Saturnian reign; —
My songs are carols sung at every shrine, 95
Proclaiming “Peace on earth, good will to men.”
Autumn Within
IT is autumn; not without,
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
Birds are darting through the air, 5
Singing, building without rest;
Life is stirring everywhere,
Save within my lonely breast.
There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still; 10
Beats no flail upon the sheaves,
Comes no murmur from the mill.
The Four Lakes of Madison
FOUR limpid lakes, — four Naiades
Or sylvan deities are these,
In flowing robes of azure dressed;
Four lovely handmaids, that uphold
Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold, 5
To the fair city in the West.
By day the coursers of the sun
Drink of these waters as they run
Their swift diurnal round on high;
By night the constellations glow 10
Far down the hollow deeps below,
And glimmer in another sky.
Fair lakes, serene and full of light,
Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,
How visionary ye appear! 15
All like a floating landscape seems
In cloud-land or the land of dreams,
Bathed in a golden atmosphere!
Victor and Vanquished
AS one who long hath fled with panting breath
Before his foe, bleeding and near to fall,
I turn and set my back against the wall,
And look thee in the face, triumphant Death.
I call for aid, and no one answereth; 5
I am alone with thee, who conquerest all;
Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall,
For thou art but a phantom and a wraith.
Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,
With armor shattered, and without a shield, 10
I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;
I can resist no more, but will not yield.
This is no tournament where cowards tilt;
The vanquished here is victor of the field.
Moonlight
AS a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruin’s haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
Mysterious chambers of the air.
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed, 5
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendor of her light, 10
She walks the terraces of cloud,
Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door 15
Is an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed. One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
I walk as in a foreign town. 20
The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with a diviner air;
While marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion! Underneath there lies 25
The common life of every day;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober gray.
In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind; 30
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.
The Children’s Crusade
[A Fragment]
I
WHAT is this I read in history,
Full of marvel, full of mystery,
Difficult to understand?
Is it fiction, is it truth?
Children in the flower of youth, 5
Heart in heart, and hand in hand,
Ignorant of what helps or harms,
Without armor, without arms,
Journeying to the Holy Land!
Who shall answer or divine? 10
Never since the world was made
Such a wonderful crusade
Started forth for Palestine.
Never while the world shall last
Will it reproduce the past; 15
Never will it see again
Such an army, such a band,
Over mountain, over main,
Journeying to the Holy Land.
Like a shower of blossoms blown 20
From the parent trees were they;
Like a flock of birds that fly
Through the unfrequented sky,
Holding nothing as their own,
Passed they into lands unknown, 25
Passed to suffer and to die.
O the simple, child-like trust!
O the faith that could believe
What the harnessed, iron-mailed
Knights of Christendom had failed, 30
By their prowess, to achieve,
They, the children, could and must!
Little thought the Hermit, preaching
Holy Wars to knight and baron,
That the words dropped in his teaching, 35
His entreaty, his beseeching,
Would by children’s hands be gleaned,
And the staff on which he leaned
Blossom like the rod of Aaron.
As a summer wind upheaves 40
The innumerable leaves
In the bosom of a wood, —
Not as separate leaves, but massed
All together by the blast, —
So for evil or for good 45
His resistless breath upheaved
All at once the many-leaved,
Many-thoughted multitude.
In the tumult of the air
Rock the boughs with all the nests 50
Cradled on their tossing crests;
By the fervor of his prayer
Troubled hearts were everywhere
Rocked and tossed in human breasts.
For a century, at least, 55
His prophetic voice had ceased;
But the air was heated still
By his lurid words and will,
As from fires in far-off woods,
In the autumn of the year, 60
An unwonted fever broods
In the sultry atmosphere.
II
In Cologne the bells were ringing,
In Cologne the nuns were singing
Hymns and canticles divine; 65
Loud the monks sang in their stalls,
And the thronging streets were loud
With the voices of the crowd; —
Underneath the city walls
Silent flowed the river Rhine. 70
From the gates, that summer day,
Clad in robes of hodden gray,
With the red cross on the breast,
Azure-eyed and golden-haired,
Forth the young crusaders fared; 75
While above the band devoted
Consecrated banners floated,
Fluttered many a flag and streamer,
And the cross o’er all the rest!
Singing lowly, meekly, slowly, 80
“Give us, give us back the holy
Sepulchre of the Redeemer!”
On the vast procession pressed,
Youths and maidens.…
III
Ah! what master hand shall paint 85
How they journeyed on their way,
How the days grew long and dreary,
How their little feet grew weary,
How their little hearts grew faint!
Ever swifter day by day 90
Flowed the homeward river; ever
More and more its whitening current
Broke and scattered into spray,
Till the calmly-flowing river
Changed into a mountain torrent, 95
Rushing from its glacier green
Down through chasm and black ravine.
Like a phœnix in its nest,
Burned the red sun in the West,
Sinking in an ashen cloud; 100
In the East, above the crest
Of the sea-like mountain chain,
Like a phœnix from its shroud,
Came the red sun back again.
Now around them, white with snow, 105
Closed the mountain peaks. Below,
Headlong from the precipice
Down into the dark abyss,
Plunged the cataract, white with foam;
And it said, or seemed to say: 110
“Oh return, while yet you may,
Foolish children, to your home,
There the Holy City is!”
But the dauntless leader said:
“Faint not, though your bleeding feet 115
O’er these slippery paths of sleet
Move but painfully and slowly;
Other feet than yours have bled;
Other tears than yours been shed.
Courage! lose not heart or hope; 120
On the mountains’ southern slope
Lies Jerusalem the Holy!”
As a white rose in its pride,
By the wind in summer-tide
Tossed and loosened from the branch, 125
Showers its petals o’er the ground,
From the distant mountain’s side,
Scattering all its snows around,
With mysterious, muffled sound,
Loosened, fell the avalanche. 130
Voices, echoes far and near,
Roar of winds and waters blending,
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 85
