Thou seest the day is past its prime;
I can no longer waste my time;
The mills are tired of waiting. 60
Possibilities
WHERE are the Poets, unto whom belong
The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent
Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,
But with the utmost tension of the thong?
Where are the stately argosies of song, 5
Whose rushing keels made music as they went
Sailing in search of some new continent,
With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
In schools, some graduate of the field or street, 10
Who shall become a master of the art,
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,
Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet
For lands not yet laid down in any chart.
Decoration Day
SLEEP, comrades, sleep and rest
On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
Nor sentry’s shot alarms!
Ye have slept on the ground before, 5
And started to your feet
At the cannon’s sudden roar,
Or the drum’s redoubling beat.
But in this camp of Death
No sound your slumber breaks; 10
Here is no fevered breath,
No wound that bleeds and aches.
All is repose and peace,
Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease, 15
It is the truce of God!
Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free. 20
Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.
A Fragment
AWAKE! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.
Awake! arise! the athlete’s arm 5
Loses its strength by too much rest;
The fallow land, the untilled farm
Produces only weeds at best.
Loss and Gain
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 5
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? 10
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
Inscription on the Shanklin Fountain
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, 5
The cup of water in his name.
The Bells of San Blas
The last poem written by Mr. Longfellow. The last verse but one is dated March 12, 1882. The final verse was added March 15. Mr. Longfellow died March 24. The poem was suggested by an article in Harper’s Magazine, which the poet had just read.
WHAT say the Bells of San Blas
To the ships that southward pass
From the harbor of Mazatlan?
To them it is nothing more
Than the sound of surf on the shore, — 5
Nothing more to master or man.
But to me, a dreamer of dreams,
To whom what is and what seems
Are often one and the same, —
The Bells of San Blas to me 10
Have a strange, wild melody,
And are something more than a name.
For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts of young and old; 15
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, 20
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 25
On the little seaport town
Has crumbled into the dust;
And on oaken beams below
The bells swing to and fro,
And are green with mould and rust. 30
“Is, then, the old faith dead,”
They say, “and in its stead
Is some new faith proclaimed,
That we are forced to remain
Naked to sun and rain, 35
Unsheltered and ashamed?
“Once in our tower aloof
We rang over wall and roof
Our warnings and our complaints;
And round about us there 40
The white doves filled the air,
Like the white souls of the saints.
“The saints! Ah, have they grown
Forgetful of their own?
Are they asleep, or dead, 45
That open to the sky
Their ruined Missions lie,
No longer tenanted?
“Oh, bring us back once more
The vanished days of yore, 50
When the world with faith was filled;
Bring back the fervid zeal,
The hearts of fire and steel,
The hands that believe and build.
“Then from our tower again 55
We will send over land and main
Our voices of command,
Like exiled kings who return
To their thrones, and the people learn
That the Priest is lord of the land!” 60
O Bells of San Blas, in vain
Ye call back the Past again!
The Past is deaf to your prayer;
Out of the shadows of night
The world rolls into light; 65
It is daybreak everywhere.
CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY
In the last phase of the poet’s long career, Longfellow worked on this major project, which he intended to be regarded as his masterpiece, though it has been somewhat neglected compared to his earlier works. Completed in 1872, this poetic drama explores various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle and Modern Ages. It is formed of three related works: The Divine Tragedy, The Golden Legend and The New England Tragedies, which were later placed in the order suggested by the author’s notebook. The New England Tragedies deals with Puritan themes and The Divine Tragedy is concerned with the life of Christ.
CONTENTS
Introductory Note
Introitus
Christus: Part I. The Divine Tragedy.
The First Passover.
Vox Clamantis
Mount Quarantania
The Marriage in Cana
In the Cornfields
Nazareth
The Sea of Galilee
The Demoniac of Gadara
Talitha Cumi
The Tower of Magdala
The House of Simon the Pharisee
The Second Passover.
Before the Gates of Machærus
Herod’s Banquet-Hall
Under the Walls of Machærus
Nicodemus at Night
Blind Bartimeus
Jacob’s Well
The Coasts of Cæsarea Philippi
VIII. The Young Ruler
/>
At Bethany
Born Blind
Simon Magus and Helen of Tyre
The Third Passover.
The Entry into Jerusalem
Solomon’s Porch
Lord, is it I?
The Garden of Gethsemane
The Palace of Caiaphas
Pontius Pilate
Barabbas in Prison
Ecce Homo
Aceldama
The Three Crosses
The Two Maries
The Sea of Galilee
Part I. The Divine Tragedy.
Epilogue
Symbolum Apostolorum
First Interlude
The Abbot Joachim
Christus: Part II. The Golden Legend
Prologue
The Spire of Strasburg Cathedral
I.
The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine
II. Court-Yard of the Castle
II.
I. A Farm in the Odenwald
II. A Room in the Farm-House
III. Elsie’s Chamber
IV. The Chamber of Gottlieb and Ursula
V. A Village Church
VI. A Room in the Farm-House
VII. In the Garden
III.
I. A Street in Strasburg
II. Square in Front of the Cathedral
In the Cathedral
The Nativity: A Miracle-Play.
Introitus.
Heaven
Mary at the Well
The Angels of the Seven Planets Bearing the Star of Bethlehem
The Wise Men of the East
The Flight into Egypt
The Slaughter of the Innocents
Jesus at Play with His Schoolmates
The Village School
Crowned with Flowers
Epilogue
IV.
I. The Road to Hirschau
II. The Convent of Hirschau in the Black Forest
III. The Scriptorium
IV. The Cloisters
V. The Chapel
VII. The Neighboring Nunnery
V.
I. A Covered Bridge at Lucerne
II. The Devil’s Bridge
III. The St. Gothard Pass
IV. At the Foot of the Alps
V. The Inn at Genoa
VI.
I. The School of Salerno
II. The Farm-House in the Odenwald
III. The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine
Epilogue
The Two Recording Angels Ascending
Second Interlude
Martin Luther
Christus: Part III. The New England Tragedies
JOHN ENDICOTT
Prologue
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V
GILES COREY OF THE SALEM FARMS
Prologue
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V.
Finale
St. John
Introductory Note
THE READER is referred for a consideration of the place which Christus held in the poet’s scheme of work to the biographical sketch prefixed to this edition.
There is no one of Mr. Longfellow’s writings which may be said to have so dominated his literary life. The study of Dante and the translation of the Divina Commedia subtended a wider arc in time, but from the nature of things the interpretation of a great work was subordinate to the development of a theme which was interior to the poet’s thought and emotion. Yet even in point of time, that which elapsed between the first conception of Christus and its final accomplishment was scarcely less than that which extended from the day when Mr. Longfellow opened Dante to the end of his life, — for so long did he live in companionship with the great seer.
The first indication of actual work upon the subject does not appear until the end of 1849, when he seems to have decided to take up first the second division. He had dismissed his volume of poems, The Seaside and the Fireside, “another stone rolled over the hilltop!” and proceeded in his diary, November 19: “And now I long to try a loftier strain, the sublimer Song whose broken melodies have for so many years breathed through my soul in the better hours of life, and which I trust and believe will ere long unite themselves into a symphony not all unworthy the sublime theme, but furnishing ‘some equivalent expression for the trouble and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery.’” On December 10th, he wrote: “A bleak and dismal day. Wrote in the morning The Challenge of Thor as Prologue or Introitus to the second part of Christus.” This he laid aside, taking it up again ten years later, when he proposed to write the Saga of King Olaf. It is probable that he had in mind the opposition of northern paganism to the Christianity of sacerdotalism, and the supremacy of the latter. But the theme of the drama was constantly before him in one shape or another. In his diary, under date of January 10, 1850, he records: “In the evening, pondered and meditated upon sundry scenes of Christus. In such meditation one tastes the delight of the poetic vision, without the pain of putting it into words.” The scheme of his first venture had evidently been more or less determined upon, for a few weeks later he notes: “February 28. And so ends the winter and the vacation. Not quite satisfactorily to me. Yet something I have done. Some half dozen scenes or more are written of The Golden Legend, which is Part Second of Christus; and the whole is much clearer in my mind as to handling, division, and the form and pressure of the several parts.” It is to be noted that already in 1839 there had crossed his mind the notion of writing a drama based upon the legend of Der Arme Heinrich, and that he had perceived the value of Elsie. “I have a heroine,” he says, “as sweet as Imogen, could I but paint her so.”
The Golden Legend was published near the close of 1851, but the author gave no intimation of the relation which the work held to a larger plan. He had taken for the core of his poem the story of Der Arme Heinrich as told by Hartmann von der Aue, a minnesinger of the twelfth century, to be found in Mailáth’s Altdeutsche Gedichte, published in Stuttgart in 1809, and it was not till after the book was issued that he caught sight of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea. His own account of his work may be read in brief in a letter which he wrote to an English correspondent at this time. “I am glad to know,” he says, “that you find something to like in The Golden Legend. I have endeavored to show in it, among other things, that through the darkness and corruption of the Middle Ages ran a bright, deep stream of Faith, strong enough for all the exigencies of life and death. In order to do this I had to introduce some portion of this darkness and corruption as a background. I am sure you will be glad to know that the monk’s sermon is not wholly of my own invention. The worst passage in it is from a sermon of Fra Gabriella Barletta, an Italian preacher of the fifteenth century. The Miracle Play is founded on the Apocryphal Gospels of James and the Infancy of Christ. Both this and the sermon show how sacred themes were handled in ‘the days of long ago.’”
It is a strong illustration of the importance which Mr. Longfellow attached to The Golden Legend as a portion of a larger, more inclusive work, that we find him regretting, while his book was in full tide of success, that he had not taken a theme more fit to his purpose which had been chosen by another poet. “We stayed at home,” he writes, April 2, 1852, “reading The Saint’s Tragedy, the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary put into dramatic form with great power. I wish I had hit upon this theme for my Golden Legend, the mediæval part of my Trilogy. It is nobler and more characteristic than my obscure legend. Strange that while I was writing a dramatic poem illustrating the Middle Ages, Kingsley should have been doing the same, and that we should have chosen precisely the same period, about 1230. His poem was published first, but I never saw it, or a review of it, till two days ago.” Whether or not Mr. Longfellow would have wrought at the other theme with any more satisfaction to himself, The Golden Legend has taken its place as a faithful exponent of t
he phase of Christianity which it described. “Longfellow,” says a competent authority, “in his Golden Legend has entered more closely into the temper of the monk, for good and for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian, though they may have given their life’s labor to the analysis.”
Christus was, however, pressing upon the poet’s mind; the completion of the second division only made him more desirous of fulfilling the noble theme. The Golden Legend had been published a few weeks when he wrote in his diary one Sunday: “Dec. 28, 1851. The weather, which has been intensely cold, suddenly changes to rain; and avalanches of snow thunder from the college-roofs all sermon-time. A grand accompaniment to Mr. Ellis, who was preaching about the old prophets, — an excellent discourse. Ah me! how many things there are to meditate upon in this great world! And all this meditation, — of what avail is it, if it does not end in some action? The great theme of my poem haunts me ever; but I cannot bring it into act.”
It was nearly a score of years before another number of the Trilogy was ready, though it is probable that Mr. Longfellow was in the neighborhood of The New England Tragedies when he was diverted for the time by the attractive theme of The Courtship of Miles Standish. As far back as 1839 he had thought of a drama on Cotton Mather. It is curious that he should have mentioned that and a drama on “the old poetic legend of Der Arme Heinrich” in the same sentence as possible themes, a couple of years before the conception of Christus came to him. In the spring of 1856 he was contemplating a tragedy which should take in the Puritans and the Quakers, and preparing for it by looking over books on the two sects, “particularly,” he says, “Besse’s Sufferings of the Quakers, — a strange record of violent persecution for merest trifles.” He notes on April 2d of that year: “Wrote a scene in my new drama, The Old Colony, just to break ground,” and a month later: “May 1. At home all day pondering the New England Tragedy, and writing notes and bits of scenes.” He was still experimenting on it in July and in November, but then he seems to have made a new start and to have begun The Courtship of Miles Standish as a drama.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 87
