SELECT^EMS 
 
 OF Coleridge. 
 Wordsworth, 
 Campbell, Longfkllow 
 
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SELECT POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 COLERIDGE, WORDSWORTH, CAMP- 
 BELL, LONGFELLOW 
 
 EDITED FROM A UTHORS' EDITIONS, 
 WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND ANNOTATIONS 
 
 FREDERICK HENRY SYKES, A.M., Ph.D. 
 
 Sometivie Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University 
 
 THE W. J. GAGE COMPANY (LTD.) 
 1895 
 
?^- m-ST, ^- 
 
 Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the office of tlie 
 Minister of Agriculture, by The W. J. Gage Company (Limited), in 
 the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This edition of Select Poems of Coleridge, Wordsworth, 
 Campbell, and Longfellow is designed as an aid to the study 
 of literature in High Schools, more especially the Literature 
 prescribed for Matriculation and Departmental Examina- 
 tions, 1896, in Ontario and Manitoba. The present volume, 
 like its predecessor, the Select Poems of Tennyson, endea- 
 vours, by bringing together from many quarters whatever 
 critical apparatus elementary students will require, to make 
 possible for such as use it the thoroiigh study of the poetry 
 it contains. 
 
 The text of these Selections has been drawn in every case 
 from the authoritative editions issued by the authors them- 
 selves. Wherever possible, each poem has been followed 
 from earliest edition till latest, in the hope that the text 
 might be made trustworthy in every detail. The variant 
 readings have been carefully noted, and will be found of 
 interest to readers as well as useful for instruction in liter- 
 ary expression. For similar reasons, care has been taken to 
 cite the sources of poetical passages, not only that a clearer 
 sense of poetic excellence may be attained, but also that an 
 insight may be afforded into some phases of poetical com- 
 position. 
 
 The Appendix contains many poems that furnish interest- 
 ing comparisons with the prescribed Selections, but in the 
 main it is designed merely as a collection of poetry suitable 
 for literary study without the aid of notes or other critical 
 .apparatus. 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 It is a pleasure to acknowledge here the kindness of the 
 Librarian of Harvard University in giving the editor oppor- 
 tunity to photograph from its MS. collections the letters of 
 Coleridge and Campbell and the original draft of Longfel- 
 low's Uxcehior, facsimiles of which find place in this volume. 
 To Dr. Fred. Eobinson, of Harvard, the editor is like- 
 wise indebted for the use of his precious 1798 edition of 
 Lyrical Ballads, which has associations not possessed by Mr. 
 Dowden's reprint. 
 
 Now on thy mission, haply of usefulness, go, Little Book I 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductions : 
 
 Coleridge ix 
 
 Wordsworth xx 
 
 Campbell xxvii 
 
 Longfellow xxxiv 
 
 Texts : 
 
 Coleridge, Ancient Mariner . : 1 
 
 Youth and Age 29 
 
 Wordswortli, Three Years She Greio [ Education of 
 
 Nature ] 31 
 
 Written in London, 1802 33 
 
 "O Friend, I know not which way I must look. " 
 
 London, 1802 34 
 
 "Milton ! thou shouldst be living- at this hour." 
 
 To the Daisy 35 
 
 The Sviall Celandine [ A Lesson ] . . . . 37 
 
 To Sleep 38 
 
 " A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by." 
 
 Inside of King's College Chapel, Cam- 
 bridge 39 
 
 " Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense. " 
 
 To a Skylark 40 
 
 Why art thou Silent? [ To a Distant 
 Friend ] 41 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Campbell, Hohenlinden 42 
 
 Ye Mariners of JEngland 44 
 
 Battle of the Baltic 46 
 
 A Thought Suggested by the Nevj Year 
 
 [ The River of Life ] 49 
 
 Longfellow, A Psalm of Life 5a 
 
 A Gleam of Sunshine 52 
 
 The Day is Done 55 
 
 The Old Clock on the Stairs 57 
 
 The Fire of Drift-Wood 60 
 
 Resignation ?2 
 
 The Builders 65 
 
 The Ladder of St. Augustine . . . . 67 
 
 The Warden of the Cinque Ports . . 69 
 
 Evangeline 71 
 
 Notes 177 
 
 Appendix . . . . 331 
 
INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
INTRODUOTION'S. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 [Coleridge's Biographia Literaria ; De Quincey's Lake Poela ; Haz- 
 litt, First Acquaintance with Poets ; Cottle, Reminiscences of Coleridge 
 and Southey ; Traill, Coleridge (E.M.L.); Caine, Coleridge {G.W.S.); 
 Brandl, Coleridge and the English Romantic Movement. Essays of 
 Pater, Sarrazin, Shairp, Swinburne, etc. The best editions are Mac- 
 millan's, 1880, tour vols., and J. Dykes Campbell's, one vol.) 
 
 The Romantic Movement, which has given us all the 
 great literature of this century, has two names that 
 definitely mark the beginning of its glory, Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge. Others prepared the way ; others revealed 
 more or less tentatively some of the characteristics of the 
 Movement ; traces of it may be found as early as Gray, who 
 died in 1771, and whose Journal in the Lakes displays 
 a spirit kindred to that of the poet of Grasmere ; traces 
 of it may be found in Burns, in whom tender feeling and 
 passion join with appreciation of the beauty possible in 
 the meanest flower and the humblest life. Cowper, too, 
 felt the thrill of communion with Nature, and had a 
 heart that went out to all weak and helpless creatures. 
 Oray, Burns, and Cowper, then, all felt the impulse of a 
 new life ; but this new life was manifested clearly and 
 unmistakably first in two names, Coleridge and Words- 
 worth. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Cderidge, S.T.C., as he was fond of 
 calling himself was born on the 21st of October, 1772, 
 youngest son of a kindly pedantic man, priest and peda- 
 
INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 gogue in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, on whom the scrip- 
 tural blessing of many children had already been bestowed. 
 The future poet and metaphysician was remarkable even 
 in boyhood. His life had no childhood, and none of the 
 sports of children. The spirit of the boy was withdrawn 
 into reading or meditation, ' driven from life in motion 
 to life in thought and sensation,' as he himself says. 
 He began writing poetry before he was ten years old. 
 When the death of his father broke his home ties, the 
 boy passed to Christ's Hospital (School), London, to be- 
 clad in blue coat and yellow stockings, and turned loose- 
 among some hundreds of boys dressed in similar coats 
 and stockings, underfed, overflogged. Coleridge made 
 his mark as a scholar, and yet, tradition says, had 
 many an extra lash from the headmaster 'because he Avas 
 so ugly.' The discipline was severe and the life unsym- 
 pathetic, to an extent that the boy was once tempted to 
 escape and learn shoemaking from a friendly cobbler- 
 Yet the school could not restrain the spirit — 
 
 On the leaden roof 
 Of that wide edifice, thy school and home, 
 Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds 
 Moving in heaven ; or, of that pleasure tired, 
 To shut thine eyes, and by internal light 
 See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream. 
 
 Here are six lines written before Coleridge was fifteen 
 
 years old, the last one especially noteworthy as showing 
 
 how early the gift of imaginative expression had come: 
 
 to him. 
 
 O fair is love's first hope to gentle mind ! 
 
 As Eve's first star through fleecy cloudlet peeping ; 
 
 And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind 
 
 O'er willowy meads, and shadowed waters creeping ;. 
 
 And Ceres' golden fields \—the sultry hhul 
 
 Meets it with hrow uplift, and stays his reaping. 
 
COLERIDGE. 
 
 In 1788 he wrote TiTne, Real and Imaginary, which we- 
 quote elsewhere, which exhibits the abstract and philoso- 
 phic turn that even at this early period his mind had 
 taken. Lamb, who entered the school in 1782, records the 
 general admiration of his fellows for a boy who was * logi- 
 cian, metaphysician, bard' : — "How have I seen," says the 
 genial Elia, " the casual passer through the cloister stand 
 still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the dis- 
 proportion between the speech and garb of the j^oung Miran- 
 dula), to hear thee unfold in thy deep and sweet intona- 
 tions the mysteries of lamblicus or Plotinvis (for even 
 in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philosophic 
 drafts), or reciting Homer in the Greek, or Pindar, while 
 the walls of old Grey Friars re-echoed with the accents of 
 the inspired charity-boy.''^ 
 
 The last years of his schooldays are marked by various 
 passions, — for Voltaire, for medicine (his brother was a 
 student in London Hospital), for Miss Evans, a neigh- 
 bouring dressmaker, and for the poetry of William Lisle 
 Bowles. This last exercised a permanent influence, con- 
 firming his poetic taste in the principles of the new liter- 
 ary movement. It is interesting to know that Words- 
 worth likewise, as early as 1783, read Bowles' sonnets, 
 and that Southey took him for a model. 
 
 In February, 1791, Coleridge entered Cambridge, just 
 as Wordsworth was leaving. His university life was not 
 a success. He won a medal for a Greek ode, it is true, but 
 what pleased him most was to fill his rooms with students 
 enthusiastic over the great times that were then dawn- 
 ing gloriously upon the world. The liberty of man, the 
 doctrines of Priestly, Frend, Godwin, the new poetry;, 
 that general renaissance of the human spirit, when 
 
INTROD UCTIONS. 
 
 Bliss was it In that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was heaven I 
 
 These were the topics that then fired young men's minds, 
 and were the themes of the rapt monologue of the under- 
 graduate Coleridge. Suddenly, no one knows why, the 
 enthusiast disappeared. When he was discovered, or 
 when his Latinity betrayed him, he was Silas Titus 
 Oomberback, trooper in the awkward squad of Elliott's 
 Light Dragoons. 
 
 Returning to Cambridge, Coleridge found a new object 
 for his enthusiasm in Wordsworth's Descriptive Sketches, 
 which had just been published and which he alone was 
 ;able to appreciate. "Seldom, if ever," he said, "was the 
 •emergence of an original poetic genius above the horizon 
 more evidently announced." Then a vacation ramble 
 gave him the company and friendship of Southey, the 
 most heterodox and republican spirit in Oxford. When 
 Coleridge returned from a trip to Wales, the two friends 
 met at Bristol, and in Bristol their scheme to bring about 
 a regenerate world was debated, planned, and — not car- 
 ried out. They were to found a society in America 
 on conditions of ideal equality, Pantisocracy. The Miss 
 Frickers were willing to go, and as Lovell had married 
 one, and Southey was about to marry another, Coleridge 
 ■concluded it was but proper to engage himself to a third. 
 Burnet proposed to a fourth, but she concluded to wait. 
 Wives, however, were easier to procure than money, and 
 they needed £2,000 to realize their ideal. Cottle, the 
 warm-hearted bookseller, offered Coleridge thirty guineas 
 for his poems, and made the same offer to Southey. The 
 Pantisocrats immediately married, and Southey, having a 
 tempting chance to go to Portugal, departed for Lisbon ; 
 Lovell left for a longer journey; while Coleridge, with 
 
COLERIDGE. xiii 
 
 the mists of pantisocracy vanishing in the past, settled 
 down in a £5-a-year cottage at Clevedon, near Bristol, to 
 enjoy his married life ; — " send me a riddle slice, a candle- 
 box, two glasses for the wash-hand stand, one dustpan, 
 one small tin tea-kettle, one pair of candlesticks, a Bible, 
 a keg of porter," — 
 
 Writing for periodicals, lectures, tutoring, founding of 
 a new magazine, whose weekly numbers should ' cry the 
 state of the political atmosphere,' but which the servant 
 used for starting the editor's fire, — ' La, Sir, why it's only 
 WatchmenV — such were the labours of these early years 
 of married life. A first volume of Poems on Various 
 Subjects was published in 1796, but secured no special 
 attention. It was immediately followed by the Ode to 
 the Departing Year. Early in the following summer 
 Coleridge removed to Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, 
 where he had a rich friend and patron in Thomas Poole, 
 and where Charles Lloyd became his lodger. 
 
 Nether Stowey lies at the foot of the Quantocks, a few 
 miles from the Bristol Channel, in a country of clear 
 brooks and wooded hills. At Raced own, in the neigh- 
 bouring shire of Dorset, Wordsworth and his sister had 
 found a home, and there the two poets read their compo- 
 sitions to each other, — Coleridge his tragedy of Osorio, 
 and Wordsworth his tragedy of The Borderers. Thus, 
 began the friendship of these two men, a friendship that 
 meant much for themselves, much for English literature. 
 Charmed by the scenery of the Quantocks and the oppor- 
 tunity of being near Coleridge, Wordsworth took up his 
 abode in Alfoxden, not three miles distant from Stowey. 
 The period of companionship and mutual stimulus that 
 ensued was marked by the production of poems that are 
 
■xiv INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 the earliest unmistakeable manifestations of the presence 
 ■of a new spirit of poetry that was to dominate the first 
 half of the century to come. 
 
 The origin and publication of Lyrical Ballads have 
 ■been spoken of elsewhere (see p. 177ff.). Its immediate 
 influence was very slight. The Monthly Review considered 
 tlie Ancient Mariner the strangest cock and bull story, a 
 xapsody of unintelligible wildness and incoherence, though 
 admitting exquisite poetical touches, and in general called 
 upon the author of the volume to write on more elevated 
 •subjects and in a more cheerful disposition. Cottle parted 
 with most of his five hundred copies at a loss, and on going 
 •out of business returned the copyright to Wordsworth as 
 valueless. De Quincey and John Wilson were perhaps 
 alone in recognizing the value of the volume. Originality, 
 it is said, must create the taste by which it is to be appre- 
 'Ciated, and it was some years before taste for the new 
 poetry was created. 
 
 The close of the eighteenth century was a period of fer- 
 ment and uncertain impulse. "Monk" Lewis and Mrs. 
 Radcliffe were producing their tales of mystery, spectral 
 ■romances where the imagination revels in midnight, wild 
 heaths, lonely towers, groans and the tolling of castle-bell, 
 ■muffled strangers, spectre bridegrooms, blue flames, death's 
 heads, where 
 
 The ■worms crept in, and the worms crept out. 
 And sported his eyes and his temples about. 
 
 In strange disaccord existed, side by side with this ten- 
 dency to the grotesque and supernatural, a strong ten- 
 dency to realism, in which the dailj^ life of common folk 
 was depicted with the fidelity of Dutch art, as in Crabbe's 
 Village. 
 
COLERIDGE. xv 
 
 I trace 
 The poor laborious natives of the place, 
 And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray, 
 On their bare heads and dewy temples play. 
 
 There was also a steady and increasing attention paid to 
 tlie older writers, chiefly Spenser, and to the traditional 
 ballad poetry of England and Scotland. Collections of this 
 ballad poetry were issued and eagerly read, Percy's Reliqiies 
 of Ancient English Poetry, 1765, being the most influential. 
 Finally a growing sympathy with Nature as well in its 
 ■wild aspects as in scenes of cultivated beauty can be traced 
 in Gray, Burns, and Cowper. But all this lay for the 
 most part below an obdurate literary tradition that lacked 
 rsensitiveness of ear and tenderness of emotion, and idol- 
 ized the heroic couplet, set phrases, and polished anti- 
 theses. What Lyrical Ballads did was to show that 
 •imagination free from grotesqueness could join with a 
 realism free from triteness ; that the literature of the 
 ■past could afford inspiration and models to all who sought 
 refuge from the monotony of the accepted literary forms ; 
 that for man, long pent in dusty towns, there was a new 
 -spirit of communion, — 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something- far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air. 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. 
 
 Coleridge's share in Lyrical Ballads was limited to four 
 pieces in which the imagination deals with the superna- 
 tural, the chief being the Ancient Mariner. This poem 
 stands amid the fragments and wrecks of greater under- 
 takings as the one great finished achievement of its author. 
 The story of a half insane g^ilor, by sheer effort of ima- 
 
xvi INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 gination, rises into regions of subtlest feeling and tli ought ;• 
 scene after scene flashes past in ever-changing beauty ; the' 
 whole range of human emotion is gone through : it is the 
 world and human life in miniature, and as it unrolls be- 
 fore our eyes, an undercurrrent of tender feeling charms 
 the heart, and an itndertone of music, with cadences subtle 
 as of a hidden brook in sleeping woods, takes captive the- 
 ear. 
 
 The other poems of the Nether Stowey period are- 
 scarcely less remarkable than the Ancient Mariner. 
 Christabel, a fragment, was composed in part there, and 
 is a most effective union of beauty with the fascination 
 of terror and mystery. Kubia KJian, likewise a fragment, 
 recollected from a dream, is characterized by an almost un- 
 equalled rhythm, while the Ode to France has the lofty^ 
 organ-music that at times brings Coleridge within reacK 
 of Milton. 
 
 Before the Lyrical Ballads were actually issued, Cole- 
 ridge had sought occupation as a Unitarian preacher in 
 Shrewsbury. There the Wedgwoods, sons of the great, 
 potter, came to his aid, gave him an annuity, and enabled 
 the poet to carry out a long-cherished project of a pilgrim- 
 age to Germany. Through the same benevolent source, 
 Wordsworth and his sister drew the means of accom- 
 panying him. 
 
 Coleridge parted company with the Wordsworth s on 
 their arrival in Germany, passed on to Eatzeburg, where- 
 for five months he studied German ; then went to Gottin- 
 gen to attend lectures in philosophy and metaphysics. 
 He returned to London in November, 1779, with a com- 
 mand of German that enabled him in six weeks to produce- 
 his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein. It is the great- 
 
COLERIDGE. xvii 
 
 est translation in English, but German literature was still 
 of doubtful market value, and the copies sold as waste 
 paper. From translating he passed to journalism, in 
 which he was decidedly successful ; then threw up flatter- 
 ing offers, and left London for Greta Hall, Keswick, 
 twelve miles from Grasmere. 
 
 From this time, with trifling exceptions, Coleridge 
 ceased to write poetry. The Ode to Defection in 1802, 
 and a few patlietic lyrics of the later years of his life, 
 such as Youth and Age., Work without Hope, which are 
 for the most part laments over lost opportunities and talents 
 ill spent, virtually complete his poetic career. 
 
 Coleridge arrived in Keswick in 1800. Four years later 
 he left England for Malta, wrecked in body and spirit. 
 Exposure in a Scottish outing brought on rheumatism. 
 To relieve this he had recourse to a mysterious black drop, 
 which he learnt later, when under its power, consisted 
 chiefly of opium, and like other great Englishmen of his 
 time he became a slave to the drug. He drifted about 
 from London to Malta, to Sicily, to Rome, back to Eng- 
 land, and Keswick. 
 
 Ah ! piteous sight was it to see this man, 
 
 When he came bacli to us a withered flower, 
 
 Or, like a sinful creature, pale and wan. 
 
 Down would he sit ; and without strength and power 
 
 Look at the common grass from hour to hour. 
 
 Coleridge went back to London in 1806 to write for The 
 Courier. He lectured likewise at the Royal Institution, 
 till his health and his audience failed him. In 1809 he 
 started The Friend, which was mismanaged and after 
 twenty-seven numbers collapsed. In 1811-12 he lectured 
 again with wonderful interpretative insight on Shakspere 
 and Milton. There was a gleam of success when his old 
 tragedy of Osorio was acted, but his new Zapolyta was 
 
xviii INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 refused by the players. In 1816 Coleridge put himself 
 under the care of Dr. Gillman, of the Grove, Highgate, 
 London, and slowly won his way back from the depths of 
 opium bondage to liberty and health. 
 
 Those Highgate days were essentially days of philo- 
 sophy. The printed works of this period however are 
 only a small part of the fructifying influence which Cole- 
 ridge, chiefly by his conversation, exercised on contem- 
 porary thought. The records of his life and literary 
 opinions he gathered into his 'Biogra'phia Literaria, 1817. 
 With the publication of Aids to Reflection., 1825, the 
 world began to appreciate this neglected genius, and the 
 sage of Highgate became the oracle of men like Maurice, 
 Hallam, and even Carlyle. In November^ 1838, feeling 
 his end was approaching, he wrote his epitaph : — 
 
 Stop, Christian Passer-by ! — Stop, child of God, 
 And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod 
 A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he. — 
 O, lift one thought in praj'er for S.T.C. ; 
 That he who many a year with toil of breath 
 Found death in life, may here find life in death t 
 Mercy for praise— to be forgiven for fame- 
 He ask'd and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the sama. 
 
 On the 25th of July. 1834, he died. They praised him in 
 death, but it was too late. 
 
 Carlyle's picture of Coleridge, as he appeared in his old 
 age (see page 213), is set o£E by the portrait Dorothy 
 Wordsworth drew of him in June, 1797: 
 
 ' ' He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with 
 soul, mind, and spirit. At first I thought him very plain, 
 that is, about three minutes ; he is pale, thin, has a wide 
 mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, loose- 
 growing half-curling rough black hair. But if you hear 
 him speak for five minutes, you think no more of them. 
 
COLERIDGE. xix 
 
 His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey, 
 such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest 
 ■expression; but it speaks every emotion of his animated 
 mind, it has more of ' the poet's eye in a fine frenzy 
 roiling' than I ever witnessed. He has dark eyebrows, 
 and an overhanging forehead." 
 
 Wordsworth's description, 
 
 A noticeable man with larj^e grey eyes, 
 is proverbial. 
 
 Coleridge's poetry is in great part fragmentary. The 
 work he wrote with full power of his genius could be 
 printed, it has been said, on twenty pages, but it should 
 •be hound in pure gold. His special gift, which he shares 
 with no other English writer, is the power of clear 
 spiritual imagination in the regions of the supernatural, 
 which he is still able to humanize. He was one with the 
 Lake School in their subtle insight into the spiritual 
 aspects of nature, and had the same power as Words- 
 worth of giving expression to the finest shades of loftiest 
 emotion. 
 
INTRO D UCTIONS. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 [Wordsworth's PreJ«c?e and Autobioj/rajjhy ; C. Wordsworth, Mcriohs 
 of W. TF., 1851 ; Coleridg-e, Biogr. Lit. ; De Quincey, Lake Poets ; Haz- 
 litt, First Acquaintance witii Poets ; Knight, Life of W. W. (vols. i;^.. x., 
 xi. of Works), Memoirs of Colecrton, 1887, Proceed. Words. Soc. (six vols., 
 selections of which are in) Wordsicorlhiana ; Meyers, Wordsworth {E. 
 M.L.); Symington, William Wordsworth, 1881; Sutherland, William 
 Wordsworth, 2nd ed., 189:J ; Elizabeth Wordsworth, William Words- 
 ivorth, 1S9J. Essays and criticisms by Arnold (Elections of W. W., 
 Stopford Brooke, Church (Dante, etc.), Dowden (Studies in Literature), 
 Morley {Works), Pater {Appreciations), Sarraziu (Renaissance de la 
 poesie anc/laise), Scherer (tr. Saintsbury), Shairp, etc. The best editions 
 are Knight, eleven vols., 1887-1889; Dowden, seven vols., 1892-3; Mor- 
 ley, one vol., 1891.1 
 
 William Worclswortli was born at Cockermoutli, Cum- 
 berland, April 7tli, 1770, the second son of Jolm Words- 
 worth, solicitor to Sir James Lowther, and of Anne 
 Wordsworth, daughter of William Cookson, mercer of 
 Penrith. His childhood truly showed that in hiin at 
 least the boy was fatner to tne man. (JocKermonth is 
 near the Derwent, that blent 
 
 A murmur with my nurse's song, 
 And .... sent a voice 
 That flowed along my dreams. 
 
 Bathing in the mill-race, plundering the raven's 
 nest, skating, nutting, fishing, such were the golden 
 days of happy boyhood ; and the activities of boyhood 
 lived on in the man. Wordsworth, Elizabeth Words- 
 worth says, could cut his name in the ice when quite an 
 elderly man. The efEect on his spirits of this free open life 
 lighted by a passion for the open air, may be read in his 
 early Lines on Leaving /School. 
 
 His schooldaj's at Hawkeshead, Lancashire, Avere happy 
 
WORDSWORTH. xxi 
 
 though he describes himself as being ' of a stiff, moody, 
 violent temper. ' Fielding, Cervantes, Le Sage, Swift were 
 his first favourite authors. His father interested himself 
 in his training, and through his guidance Wordsworth 
 as a boy could repeat by heart much of Spenser, Shak- 
 spere, and Milton. 
 
 His father having died in 1783, Wordsworth was sent 
 to Cambridge by his uncles. He entered St. John's Col- 
 lege in October, 1787, and graduated in January, 1791. 
 On the whole he took little interest in academic pursuits, 
 yet read classics diligently, studied Italian and the older 
 English poets, and ' sauntered, played, or rioted ' with 
 his fellow-students. His vacations were spent in the 
 country; in one of them he traversed on foot France, 
 Switzerland, and Northern Italy. 
 
 During another of these vacation rambles, returning at 
 early dawn from some frolic. 
 
 The momiing rose, in memorable pomp ; 
 The sea lay laughing at a distance ; near 
 The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds ; 
 And in the meadows and the lower grounds 
 Was all the sweetness of a common dawn — 
 Dews, vapours, and the melodies of birds, 
 And labourers going forth to till the fields. 
 Ah ! need I say, dear Friend ! that to the brim 
 My heart was full ; I made no vows, but vows 
 Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me 
 Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, 
 A dedicated spirit. On I walked 
 In thankful blessedness, which yet sm-vives. 
 
 Wordsworth's first long poem. An Evening WaUc. 1789, 
 shows the spirit of nature striving against the bondage 
 of Pope. 
 
 Unable to decide on a profession, Wordsworth went to 
 France in November, 1791, where he stayed thirteen 
 
xxii INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 months studying French and watching with beating 
 heart the emancipation of human life and spirit in the 
 Revolution. He returned to England with his choice of 
 a profession yet unmade, and in 1793 published his first 
 volumes of verses, An Evening Walk and Descriptive 
 Sketches, the value of which no one but Coleridge appre- 
 ciated. He spent a month in the Isle of Wight, wan- 
 dered about Salisbury Plain, and along the Wye to North 
 Wales. One of his rambles with his sister Dorothy led 
 him from Kendal to Grasmere. and from G-rasmere to Kes- 
 wick, — " the most delightful country we have ever seen,"' 
 she said. He projected a monthly miscellany, and was 
 completely out of money when his good friend Eaisley 
 Calvert died, leaving him a legacy of £900. This was the 
 turning point of his life. Inspired by his sister, Words- 
 worth resolved to take up that plain life of high thought 
 which was to result in a pure and lasting fame. Words- 
 worth never was ungrateful to that noblest of women, 
 his sister Dorothy. In the midst of troubles she never 
 flagged, in the moments of literary aspiration she was- 
 by his side with sympathetic heart and equal mind. 
 
 She whispered still that brightness would return, 
 She, in the midst of all, preserved me still 
 A poet, made me seek beneath that name, 
 And that alone, my office upon earth. 
 
 She gave me eyes, she gave me ears ; 
 And humble cares, and delicate fears ; 
 A heart, tlie fountain of sweet tears ; 
 And love, and thought, and joy. 
 
 The brother and sister settled in Racedown Lodge, 
 Crewkerne, Dorset, in a delightful country, with "charm- 
 ing walks, a good garden, and a pleasant home." There 
 Wordsworth wrote his Imitations of Juvenal, Salishunj 
 
WORDSWORTH. xxiii 
 
 Plain, and commenced the Borderet\s. Henceforth he was 
 dedicated to poetry. 
 
 Coleridge, as we saw, visited the Wordsworths in Race- 
 down in June, 1797, and such was his charm that they 
 removed the next month to Alfoxden, three miles from 
 Stowey, and two from the Bristol Channel. Here the 
 Lyi^ical Ballads were written, and the Borderers finished. 
 The latter was Wordsworth's one effort at dramatic com- 
 position. It was rejected by the Covent Garden Theatre ; 
 upon which the poet remarked that ' '■ the moving accident 
 is not my trade." Lamb and Hazlltt, who came down to 
 see Coleridge, were taken of course to see Wordsworth. 
 Hazlitt, hearing Coleridge read some of his friend's 
 poems, "felt the sense of a new style and a new spirit 
 of poetry come over him." 
 
 Wordsworth's sojourn in Germany, which was marked 
 by the composition of many of his best lyrics, such as 
 Lucy Gray and the poems of Lucy (see p. 217), ended in 
 July, 1799. In the autumn the brother and sister made 
 excursions through Cumberland and Westmoreland, and 
 were so taken with the natural beauty of these shires that 
 they settled in Grasmere, December, 1799. 
 
 Gray has described the Grasmere scenery and De Quin- 
 cey.the Wordsworth cottage — a little white cottage, shel- 
 tered in trees, overhung by the lofty mountain ascending 
 behind it ; below the broad basin of Grasmere water and 
 the low promontory on which rests the village with its 
 embowered houses : all about the encircling eternal hills, 
 and in their bosom, in those days, quiet peace. 
 
 During 1800 the poet wrote Poems on the Naming of 
 Places, The Brothers, The Pet Lamb, Michel, etc. In 
 1802 lie paid a short visit to France that resulted in the 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 Calais sonnets, and the sonnets written at London. The 
 same year lie married Mary Hutchinson, a schoolmate of 
 his childhood, a wife worthy of her husband and his 
 sister, and of the poem, Slie was a Phantom of Delight, 
 depicting that perfect woman nobly planned. 
 
 In Dove Cottage until 1813, then in a larger house at 
 Rydal Mount, but always by Grrasmere lake, Wordsworth 
 lived his long life. Friends were about him. Coleridge 
 was at times in Keswick, fifteen miles away (they loved 
 to walk such distances in those days), where Southey 
 also was living ; De Quincey took the Dove Cottage 
 when Wordsworth moved to Rydal Mount ; ' ' Christopher 
 North " was at Elleray, nine miles distant ; Dr. Arnold 
 built himself a house at Ambleside, an hour's walk from 
 Rydal Mount. Occasionally the poet left home to make 
 long trips on the Continent or to Scotland and Wales, 
 steadily composing under the influences of suggestive 
 scenes. Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1814), on the 
 Continent (lb20), in Italy (1831), are collections of poems 
 due to these excursions. His sonnets, many of which are 
 gems of lyrical beauty unsurpassed, are chiefly in three 
 series, Ecclesiastical Sketches, On the River Dudd on, and 
 Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty. Of his other chief works, 
 Peter Bell, written in 1798, was not published till 1819; 
 the Excursion, composed in 1795-1814, was published in 
 1814 ; The White Doe of Rylstone, written in 1807, was 
 issued in 1815 ; while the Prelude, begun in 1799 and 
 finished in 1805, was printed only after his death. 
 
 About 1830 the years of neglect and ridicule that 
 Wordsworth had borne with sei-ene mind changed for 
 years of honour and faine. Oxford bestowed on him a 
 doctor's degree ; the nation, with one voice, on the death 
 
WORDS IVOR TH. xxv 
 
 of Southey in 1843, crowned him with the laurel, "as the 
 just due of the first of living poets " ; and the best minds 
 of England, such as Arnold, George Eliot, Mill, acknow- 
 ladged the strength and blessedness of his influence. When 
 he died, April 23rd, 1850, the greatest English poet of this 
 century, greatest in original force, sinceritj^, and beauty of 
 thought, greatest as the interpretative voice of Nature, 
 greatest in its power of transfiguring human life with the 
 gloi-y of imagination, had passed away from the world 
 and from the G-rasmere that guards his grave. 
 
 The best personal sketch of the poet is that of Henry 
 Taylor, written about 1840: — "He talked well in his 
 way ; with veracity^ easy brevity, and force. His voice 
 was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, 
 ■distinct, forcible rather than melodious ; the tone of him 
 business-like, sedately confident, no discourtesy, yet no 
 .anxiety about being courteous ; a fine wholesome rus- 
 ticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat well on the 
 stalwart veteran, and on all he said and did. You would 
 liave said he was a usually tacitiirn man, glad to unlock 
 liimself, to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when 
 .such offei'ed itself. His face bore marks of much, not 
 always peaceful, meditation ; the look of it not bland or 
 benevolent, so much as close, impregnable, and hard ; a 
 man multa tacere loquive parattis, in a world where he 
 had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode 
 along ! The eyes were not brilliant, but they had a quiet 
 <;learness ; there was enough of brow, and well shaped ; 
 rather too much cheek ('horse-faced,' I have heard satir- 
 ists say), face of a squarish shape and decidedly longish 
 .as I think the head itself was (its length, going hori- 
 zontal) : he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 and strong-looking when he stood ; a right good old 
 steel-gray figure, a veracious strength looking through 
 him which might have suited one of the old steel-gray 
 Margrafs.'''' 
 
 Wordsworth's genius has had no finer interpreter than. 
 Coleridge. It is not the friend merely, hut the keen: 
 critic of literature who^ in dark days of neglect, could 
 bravely stand forth to proclaim his friend's greatr.ess. 
 Wordsworth's excellences are, he says: — "First, an 
 austere purity of language .... Second, a corresponding 
 weight and sanity of the thoughts and sentiments — won, 
 not from books, but from the poet's own meditative obser- 
 vation. They are fresh^ and have the dew upon them. . 
 . . Even throughout his smaller poems there is scarcelj' 
 one which is not rendered valuable by some just and 
 original reflection .... Third, the sinewy strength and 
 originality of single lines and paragraphs ; the frequent 
 curiosa felicitas of his diction. .. .Foui-th, the perfect 
 truth of nature in his images and descriptions, as taken 
 immediately from nature. . . .Fifth, a meditative pathos, a 
 union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility ; a sym- 
 pathy with man as man ; the sympathy indeed of a con- 
 templator rather than a fellow-sufferer or co-mate.... 
 Last, and preeminently, I challenge for this poet the gift 
 of imagination. . . .In the play of fancy, Wordsworth, to my 
 feelings, is not always graceful, and is sometimes recon- 
 dite. The likeness is occasionally too strange. . . .But in 
 imaginative power he stands nearest of a modern writers. 
 to Shakespeare and Milton. To employ his own words. > 
 . . he does indeed, to all thoughts and to all objects — 
 
 add the g-leam, 
 The light that never was on sea or land, 
 The consecration, and the poet's dream.' 
 
CAMl'BELL, 
 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 [ The ctiief authorities for a biography of Camphell are the Life and 
 Letters of Thomas Qamphell, edited by William Beattie, M.D., Lend., 
 1849, and the Literary Remimscences and Memoirs of Thomas Cam})bell, 
 by Cyrus Redding, Lend., 1859; on these have been founded the me- 
 moirs in the Aldine ed. of his Poems, and the Clarendon Press ed. of 
 Gertrude of Wyoming, etc.] 
 
 Thomas Campbell* was of the race of Campbells of Kir- 
 nan, who as late as the time of the poet's gTandfather lived 
 on the family estate in the vale of Glassary on the southern 
 frontier of the West Highlands. At the time of the poet's 
 birth, the house of Kirnan had fallen into ruin, and its 
 lands passed into the possession of strangers. Alexander 
 Campbell, son of its last owner, was a merchant in Glas- 
 gow, a man of honour and education. The youngest of 
 his eleven children was the poet, born on the 27th of July, 
 1777. The boy Campbell was an affectionate, sensitive, 
 delicate child, with an early liking for Scotch ballad' 
 poetry and song which he owed to his mother. The gift 
 of numbers came early to him ; lines of his are preserved; 
 that were written at the age of ten. He early showed, 
 likewise, a keen enthusiasm for Greek and Latin, which 
 he was fond of rendering into English verse. In 1771 he 
 entered Glasgow University, there to win prizes and 
 scholarships as well as an enviable reputation for his 
 genial nature and poetic ability. The poets he read most 
 in those early years were Pope, Gray, and Goldsmith. 
 Their influence and the influence of his admired classics 
 gave to his mind that bent towards ' correct taste ' which, 
 while it secured him an immediate popularity with his. 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 age, ctit him ofE from the new movement that was to 
 ■shatter the idol he worshipped. 
 
 His father fell into financial difficulties. Campbell 
 spent his last college vacation as tutor at Mull, in the 
 house of Mrs. Campbell of Sunipol. On graduation in 
 1795 he became tutor in the family of General Napier of 
 Downie, on the Sound of Jura. At Sunipol he had been 
 within reach of lona and Staffa and the wild scenes of 
 -the Hebrides ; at Downie there was a milder but stUl 
 beautiful scenery : memories of these places were to pass 
 later into his poems of Gertrude of Wyoming and the 
 Pilgrim of Glencoe. 
 
 In 1797 he was back in Glasgow, with nothing to do. 
 Not the Church, he was resolved, nor tutoring. Not law 
 he concluded, after a few months in an Edinburgh law- 
 office, nor medicine, after a slighter experience in Glasgow. 
 He would have 'gone to America' probably, as a solution 
 to the difficulty of bread-and-butter, but some hack-work 
 for an Edinburgh publisher, and his own literary tastes 
 ikept him hanging on. His main present capital was 
 Hope, and with some drafts on that and some classical 
 translations, he went again to Edinburgh. Dr. Anderson, 
 •one of the literary chiefs of the city, gave the young poet 
 encouragement, advice, admonition. Under his severe 
 judgment he rewrote, revised, cut away, extended, pol- 
 ished, till some four hundred lines — the number was soon 
 doubled— took shape in the Pleasures of Hope, which was 
 published in 1799. 
 
 Burns had been three years dead. Scott was not for 
 ,six years to begin his wonderful series of romantic epics. 
 The times were propitious for a new poet, and Campbell 
 -who had the good fortune to charm the taste of all ortho- 
 
CAMPBELL. xxix 
 
 dox readers, was the litei-ary hero of the liour. Not yet 
 twenty-two, handsome, genial, he was carried everj^- 
 where in society, and edition after edition of his poem 
 went off in a blaze of glory. The Edinburgh Review 
 praised it, the Quarterly praised it, and in short the 
 whole reading public that a year befoi'e neglected or 
 decried the Lyrical Ballads were filled with inexpressible- 
 delight at the splendid phrases and polished eloquence of 
 the Pleasures of Hope. Fourteen years later Mme. de 
 Stael could write to its author that his poem had never 
 left her, and that parts of it she could read twenty time& 
 without weakening their impression. 
 
 To-day the Plea.sures of Hope has ceased to please. 
 Its ahstract and formal elements, its didactic tenden- 
 cies, its stilted heroics do not take hold on our sym- 
 pathies, while the historical allusions that appealed 
 with living force to contemporaries have to us become 
 faint and unimpressive. Lines of it have attained a just 
 ' immortality of quotation, ' such as those referring to the 
 enchantment of distance, angel- visits, and the passage on 
 unhappy Poland. 
 
 Departed spirits of the migJity dead ! 
 Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled ! 
 li'riends of the world ! restore your swords to man- 
 Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van 1 
 Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, 
 And make her arm as puissant as your own 1 
 Oh ! once again to Freedom's cause return 
 The patriot Tell— the Bkuce of Bakkockbuen. 
 
 Historically the poem is memorable as the last sunset 
 glow of the correct and elegant versification that was the 
 glory of the school of Pope. 
 
 The literary influence of Germany was, as we have seen, 
 at this time in the first blush of its greatness in England. 
 
-XXX INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 'Campbell longed to make the customary literary pilgrim- 
 age, to see its famous authors and to gather the liter- 
 ary material that he felt sure of finding abundantly on the 
 Continent. He set off in 1801 hoping to visit Hamburg, 
 'Gottingen, and Weimar where dwelt the deities of Par- 
 nassus, Goethe and Schiller. He saw Klopstock in Ham- 
 burg, but had no sooner reached Eatisbon in Bavaria than 
 the French invested and captured the city. There was a 
 ;glimiDse of war for him when the Klenau's Austrian cav- 
 alry met Grenier French horse withotit the city walls. 
 But Ratisbon was too near the scene of hostilities, and the 
 poet returned in October to Alt on a (on the Elbe, near 
 Hamburg). There he found Irish refugees of 1798, whom 
 he commemorates in the Exile of Erin. There too the 
 daily talk was of the imminent war of England and the 
 Northern Neutral League. Campbell's patriotism beat 
 high at the prospect, and its inspiration bore him on to 
 -complete a song he had already in part composed, Ye 
 Mariners of England. These lyrics, the Beech Tree's 
 Petition and the Ode to Winter are the onlj^ permanent 
 fruits of his Continental trij). He wrote much else, how- 
 ever, and vainly agonized over a Queen of the North, an 
 «pic of Edinburgh. 
 
 On the appearance of an English fleet in the Baltic, 
 Campbell went home. Lord Minto gave him quarters as a 
 sort of private secretarj^, and in the patron's home the poet 
 wrote two of his best poems, Hohtnlindvn and Lochiel. 
 In 1803 he married, and after a short sojourn in Pimlico. 
 settled at Sydenham Common, near London, where he 
 dwelt for seventeen following years. In tlie early years 
 of his married life he composed Lord Ullin's Daughter 
 The Soldier's Dream, The Battle of the Baltic, and the 
 
CAMPBELL. xxxi 
 
 %)est of his longer poems Gertrude of Wyoming, an idyll 
 •of Pennsylvania that redeems its inaccuracies by a roman- 
 tic charm, a freshness of poetic imagery and feeling, and 
 some exquisite pictures of nature and domestic love. 
 To these must be added another poem that appeared in 
 liis volume of 1809, 0'Connor''s Child, the tenderest of 
 •elegiac love poems. 
 
 With these, Campbell, though only thirty-two, virtually 
 ■completed his poetical career. It is true he published in 
 the Nexo Monthly Magazine, of which he was editor, a 
 number of short poems — The Evening Star is not bad 
 and The Last Man is decidedly good — and wrote in 1824 
 Theodric, a mournful tale of disappointed affection. 
 Concerning this last work the author hopefully remarked : 
 — "I know very well' what will be its fate ; there will be 
 an outcry that there is nothing grand or romantic in the 
 poem, and that it is too humble and too familiar. But I 
 am prepared for this ; and I know that, when it recovers 
 from the first buzz of such criticism, it will attain a 
 ■steady popular it5^" It received the reception the poet 
 was prepared for, but failed to fulfil his expectations. 
 ■Campbell felt that he could no longer equal his earlier 
 productions, while the public agreed with Byron that his 
 hippocrene was somewhat drouthy. He did not cease 
 from work, but it was chiefly lectures or compilations, — 
 lives of Petrarch and Mrs. Siddons, Specimens of the 
 British Poets, etc. His last effort in poetry. The Pilgrim 
 of Glencoe, 1842, found no readers. 
 
 Honours, however, did not fail. The Government in 
 1805 gave him first £200, then £400 a year, as a pension. 
 In 1827, the students of Glasgow elected him Lord Eector 
 of the University, an honour that became glory, when it 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 was twice repeated. When he died, on the 18th of June^ 
 1844, it was amidst a large concourse of sincere mourners- 
 that his remains were interred in the Poet's Corner of 
 Westminster Abbey. No mourners were there more sin- 
 cere than the Poles, who in Campbell's death had lost a. 
 steadfast friend. It was on their behalf that with the- 
 words "dust to dust," Colonel Szyrma sprinkled into the- 
 grave a handful of earth from the tomb of Kosciusko. 
 
 Byron has left a description of Campbell as he was in 
 1813: — He "looks well, seems pleased, and dressed to 
 spicery. A blue coat becomes him, so does his new wig. 
 He really looks as if Apollo has sent him a birthday suit, 
 or a wedding garment ; and was wittj^ and lively." Long- 
 fellow, who met him the year before his death, noted a 
 great change : ' ' Campbell's outward man disappointed 
 me. He is small and shrunken, frost-nipped by unkindly 
 age, and wears a fancy wig. But I liked his inner man 
 exceedingly. He is simple, frank, cordial, and withai 
 very sociable." 
 
 Campbell's popularity as a poet has forever passed. It- 
 depended in the main on a literary taste that is now extinct 
 and on temporal causes that no longer exist. With the- 
 poets who felt the rising life of a new poetry, Campbell 
 had little communion. "In avoiding tinsel/' he wrote, 
 in 1805 of his Copenhagen lyric, "I do not mean inten- 
 tionally to get foul of those lyrical balladists, those- 
 detestable heretics against orthodox taste, who, if they 
 durst would turn the temple of Apollo into the temple- 
 of Cloacina." He mellowed a little, no doubt, as his 
 later poems show, but never thoroughly abandoned his 
 early principles. Unfortunately lor Campbell, the heretics 
 were right, and with the robust romanticism of Scott, the. 
 
CAMPBELL. xxxiii 
 
 melancholy heroics of Byron, and the growing popularity 
 of Wordsworth, the star of Campbell's glory rapidly 
 waned. It did not and probably will not, go out utterly. 
 He has achieved the immortality of quotation and of the. 
 school- reader. He had a genuine lyrical gift, the trumpet- 
 tone that stirs the blood in every man that has a country 
 to love and die for. For such lyrics as Ye Mariners and 
 the Battle of the Baltic, we may, with Moore, think grate- 
 fully of Thomas Campbell, as 
 
 " oire whose hand 
 Hath shed a new and deathless ray 
 Around the lyre of this great land ; 
 
 In whose sea-odes — as in those shells 
 
 Where Ocean's voice of majesty 
 Seems still to sound — immortal dwells. 
 
 Old Albion's Spirit of the Sea." 
 
INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 [ S. Longfellow. Life of H. W. Longfellow (contains extracts from hia 
 Journal), Final Memorials of II. W. Longfellow ; Underwood, H. W. 
 Longfellow, 1882 ; Kennedy, H. W. Longfellow, 1882 ; Austin, Life, etc.. 
 1883; Robertson, Life, etc., 1887 {Q.W.S.). His work.s are published in 
 eleven vols., Boston, 1886. The best one vol. ed. of his poems is the 
 Cambridge ed., Boston, 1895.] 
 
 The literature of Puritan America is no cheerful field 
 of reading. Its very subjects, — elegies, lessons, judg- 
 ments, prospects of death, obituaries, days of doom, — 
 are depi'essing. Quotations from Holy Writ abound in 
 the text and scriptural annotations cover the margins. 
 Rarely does a smile creep over the face of this lantern- 
 visaged Muse. The poverty of her metrical art is hidden 
 with the broad mantle of godliness, as when the com- 
 piler of the Bay Psalm Book remarks, "If the verses are 
 not alwayes so smooth and elegant as some may desire 
 and expect ; let them consider that God's Altar needs not 
 our pollishihgs." It is only toward the end of the eight- 
 eenth century that a mellowing influence appears, and 
 we are conscious that it has ceased to be a crime to 
 smile. Influenced no doubt by the new poetry of England, 
 the working of a poetic spirit grows more manifest, 
 but the Columbian muse has still more patriotism than 
 poetry. With the new century, however, what names 
 crowd upon us — Irving, Cooper, Halleck, Lydia Sigour- 
 ney, Bryant, Emerson, Hawthorne, Willis, Longfellow, 
 Whittier, Poe. Among these, as pre-eminently the poet 
 of his time, stands Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 
 
 Longfellow was born, of good Puritan stock, in Port- 
 land, Maine, on February 27th, 1807. His native town 
 
LONGFELLOW. xxxv 
 
 and its pictured memories are recorded by the poet in 
 some of his best lyrics, My Lost Youth, The Rope- Walk, 
 and Keramos. In 1822 he left home for Bowdoin 
 ■College, Brunswick, where he distinguished himself as a 
 poet and as a student. A translation of his from 
 Horace so favorably impressed the trustees of the Col- 
 lege that he was called to the chair of Modern Lang- 
 uages, and given permission to make all due preparation 
 at his own expense abroad. This preparation he made 
 by residence and travel in France, Spain, and Italy, 
 and in September, 1827, returned to America a well- 
 equipped professor of modern languages. He taught 
 with interest and enthusiasm, diiJusing a precious literary 
 oharm throughout his class-work that raised instruction 
 into culture. In 1834, when Mr. Ticknor resigned his 
 professorship in Harvard College, Mr. Longfellow was 
 called to his chair, and was again offered the privilege of 
 European travel in further preparation for his position. 
 
 Up to this time, Longfellow's only published works, 
 ■other than poems in magazines, were school-books, a 
 translation of Capias de Manrique^ and Outre-Mer. In 
 this last work, published in its complete form in 1835, 
 many of the characteristics of his genius are clearly 
 manifested, — his love of the older lands rich in 
 literary and historical associations, a generous optimism 
 that falls like sunlight upon whatever objects he sees or 
 persons he encountex's. In Outre-Mer he definitely en- 
 tered upon what perhaps was the great mission of his 
 life, the interpretation of the Old World to the New. 
 
 In April of 1835 Longfellow and his wife — he had 
 married happily four years before — set out beyond seas. 
 They visited London, Sweden, and wei'e in the midst of 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 their experiences in Holland when Mrs. Longfellow died, 
 — a gentle, beautiful nature whose memoi-y will live 
 in the lines of The, Footsteps of Angels, — 
 
 All my fears are laid aside 
 If I but remember only 
 Such as these have lived and died. 
 
 The professor continued his labours in Heidelberg, in 
 the Tyrol, and in Switzerland, where his heavy heart was 
 lightened by association with Miss Frances Appleton. 
 In December, 1836, he entered on his work in Harvai'd. 
 
 Longfellow's life in Cambridge had about it something 
 of ideal perfection. Craigie House, which was first his 
 lodging, and after his marriage to Miss Appleton in 1843, 
 his home, stands amid elms and hedges, a roomy, many- 
 windowed house from which you see the salt marshes 
 and winding stream of the Charles. The professors 
 among whom Longfellow found himself were genial able 
 men, bound together by lofty sympathies and hearty 
 love and respect for each other and each other's work. 
 Felton, Sumner, Hillard, Cleveland, and Longfellow 
 were especially drawn together by the delightful dining 
 and talking association of the " Five of Clubs." If one 
 wrote anything, the others admired it. When Felton 
 reviewed Evangeline in the North American Review, some 
 one underscored the poet's name in a copy of the 
 article, 'Insured in the Mutual.' Good-health, a happy 
 marriage, worldly prosperity, friends, congenial work, — 
 Longfellow might have feared the fate of Polycrates. 
 
 Almost immediately with his entry into Craigie House 
 begins the long series of poems that made his name 
 everywhei'e honoured and beloved. The Psalm of Life, 
 Footsteps of Ayigels, The Reaper and the Flowers, Midnight 
 
LONGFELLO W. xxxvii 
 
 Mass^ The Beleaguered City, etc., all appeal* in Longfel- 
 low's first volume of verse, Voices of the Night, 1839. 
 Two yeai's later followed Ballads and Other Poems, con- 
 taining other of the poet's best known pieces — The Wreck 
 of the Hesperus, The Village Blacksmith, Maidenhood, Ex- 
 celsior. How familiar these names are to everybody, 
 every child even ! What better proof could be of the 
 universal charm he has exercised over this age. Then 
 came Evangeline and Miles Standish, and the various 
 collections of poems in Seaside and Fireside, Birds of 
 Passage, and Tales of a Wayside Inn, Hiawatha, the epic 
 of the Indian, and The Oolden Legend, the epic of medi- 
 evalism, which finally formed with Christus and the New 
 Englaiid Tragedies a Divine Tragedy portraying three 
 aspects of Christianity. There are also two more 
 volumes of prose, Hyperion and Kavenagh, which by no 
 means equal Longfellow's poetry. 
 
 One great soi-row overcast the poet's later life. The 
 sonnet, 
 
 In the long sleepless watches of the night, 
 depicts at once the martyrdom of fire by which his wife 
 died and the cross of snow that her death laid upon his 
 breast. In 1880, Ultima Thule announced that the poet 
 was reaching the goal of all human steps. On March 
 24:th, 1882, he died, with these words fresh from his pen: 
 
 Out of the shadow of night 
 The world rolls into light ; 
 It is daybreak everywhere. 
 
 It is this spirit of light that pervades all Longfellow's 
 
 work. He was essentially an intei'pretative genius, the 
 
 apostle of old-world culture preaching in the midst 
 
 of a new, vigorous, but on the whole unlettered com- 
 
 mupity. Yet his translations, exquisite as they are, hi* 
 
xxxvili INTRODUCTIONS. 
 
 books of travel, sunny as the lands they depict, are 
 only the most evident part of his mission. More than 
 any other poet he has made the thoughts and feelings 
 born of a wide acquaintance with literature the daily 
 possession of most English readers. The people found 
 in Longfellow one who reached their hearts by appeals 
 to a common elemental nature. For these Longfellow has 
 written poems which inspire and console, and through the 
 power of tender sympathy help to I'efine and elevate and 
 temper. Most readers have found a peculiar charm 
 in those poems of Longfellow's that take hold of the 
 commonplace and I'aise it, idealize it, and with a fancy 
 skyborn yet shining about them, present it in a new 
 light, beautiful with a beauty not too fine for simple 
 and good hearts. To diffuse and popularize the truths of 
 poetry, to bring strength, sunshine, and the stirrings of 
 a better life to multitudes of men and women, this is 
 Longfellow's mission. His honoured place among lyric 
 poets is incontestable, and by at least one extensive poem 
 he has found a place among our best descriptive poets. 
 The succession of lovely pictures, — the peaceful village, 
 the primeval forest, the autumnal landscape, the silent 
 aisles of Southern bayous, the limitless prairies, the 
 inaccessible mountains where sing the silver cords of 
 mighty torrents, the ocean moaning hoarsely among its 
 rocky caverns, — these will be held in loving memory 
 while Time with unfading laurel crowns the idyll of 
 Evangeline. 
 
COLEEIDGE. 
 
 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINEE. 
 
 IN SEVEN PARTS. 
 
 Facu.e credo, plures esse Naturas in visi biles quam visibiles in 
 rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit, 
 et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid 
 agunt ? quae loca habitant ? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit 
 ingenium liumanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, 
 quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula,, majoris et melioris mundi 
 iraaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta hodiernEC vitas minutiis se 
 contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati 
 Interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem 
 a nocte, distinguamus.— T. Burnet. Aech^ol. Phil. p. 68. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 It is an ancient Mariner, 
 And he stoppetli one of three. 
 
 An ancient 
 Mariner 
 meeteth 
 three gal- 
 
 ' ' By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, to'a wedding 
 
 in ) ^ i.1 o ^"efist, and 
 
 Now wherefore stopp'st thou me .'' detaineth 
 
 The bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
 And I am next of kin ; 
 The guests are met, the feast is set : 
 May'st hear the merry din." 
 
2 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 
 He holds liim with liis skinny hand, 
 
 
 "There was a ship," quoth he. lo 
 
 
 "Hold off ! unhand me, gray-beard loon ! " 
 
 
 Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 
 
 The wed- 
 ding-guest is 
 spell-bound 
 by the eye ot 
 
 He holds him with his glittering eye— 
 The wedding-guest stood still, 
 
 the old sea- 
 faring man, 
 
 And listens like a three j'ears' child : 15 
 
 and con- 
 strained to 
 hear his 
 tale. 
 
 The Mariner hath his will. 
 
 
 The wedding-guest sat on a stone : 
 
 
 He cannot choose but hear ; 
 
 
 And thus spake on that ancient man, 
 
 
 The bright-eyed Mariner. 20 
 
 
 The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared. 
 
 
 Merrily did we drop 
 
 
 Below the kirk, below the hill, 
 
 
 Below the lighthouse top. 
 
 The ]\Iariner 
 tells how the 
 ship sailed 
 southward 
 with a good 
 wind and fair 
 weather, till 
 it reached 
 the line. 
 
 The sun came up upon the left, 25 
 Out of the sea came he ! 
 And he shone bright, and on the right 
 Went down into the sea. 
 
 
 Higher and higher every day, 
 
 
 Till over the mast at noon — 30 
 
 
 The wedding-guest here beat his breast. 
 
 
 For he heard the loud bassoon. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 3 
 
 The bride hath paced into the hall, 
 
 Hed as a rose is she ; 
 
 ]S[odding their heads before her goes 
 
 35 
 
 The wed- 
 fling-guest 
 heareth the 
 bridal music ; 
 but the ma- 
 riner COII- 
 
 The merry minstrelsy. 
 
 
 tinueth his 
 tale. 
 
 The wedding-gnest he beat his breast, 
 
 
 
 Tet he cannot choose but hear ; 
 
 
 
 And thus spake on the ancient man. 
 
 
 
 The bright-eyed Mariner. 
 
 40 
 
 
 And now the storm-blast came, and he 
 
 
 Tlie ship 
 
 Was tyrannous and strong : 
 
 He struck with his o'ertaking wings. 
 
 
 drawn by a 
 .storm toward 
 the south 
 pole. 
 
 And chased us south along. 
 
 
 
 With sloping mast and dipping prow. 
 
 45 
 
 
 As who pursued with yell and blow 
 
 
 
 Still treads the shadow of his foe, 
 
 
 
 And forward bends his head, 
 
 
 
 The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 
 
 
 
 And southward aye we fled. 
 
 50 
 
 
 And now there came both mist and snow, 
 
 
 
 And it grew wondrous cold : 
 
 
 
 And ice, mast-high, came floating by. 
 
 
 
 As green as emerald. 
 
 
 
 And through the drifts the snowy clifts 
 
 55 
 
 The land of 
 ice and of 
 
 Did send a dismal sheen : 
 
 
 fearful 
 sounds, 
 
 JS[or shapes of men nor beasts we ken— 
 
 
 where no 
 living thing- 
 
 The ice was all between. 
 
 
 was to be 
 seen. 
 
COLERIDGE. 
 
 The ice was here, the ice was there, 
 The ice was all around : sa- 
 
 lt cracked and growled, and roared and 
 
 howled, 
 Like noises in a s wound ! 
 
 Till a great 
 sea-bird, 
 called the 
 Albatross, 
 came 
 through 
 the snow-fog 
 and was re- 
 ceived with 
 great joy 
 and hospi- 
 tality. 
 
 At length did cross an albatross^ 
 Through the fog it came ; 
 As if it had been a Christian soul, 
 We hailed it in God's name. 
 
 It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
 And round and round it flew. 
 The ice did split with a thunder-fit ; 
 The helmsman steered iis through ! 
 
 And lo ! the 
 albatross 
 proveth a 
 bird of good 
 omen, and 
 foUoweth 
 the ship as 
 it returned 
 northwai'd 
 through fog 
 and floating 
 ice. 
 
 And a good south wind sprung up behind ;. 
 
 The albatross did follow, 
 
 And every day, for food or play. 
 
 Came to the mariner's hollo ! 
 
 In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 7o' 
 
 It perched for vespers nine ; 
 Whiles all the nighty through fog-smoke white,. 
 Glimmered the white moon-shine. 
 
 ' ' Grod save thee, ancient Mariner ! 
 
 The ancient 
 Mariner 
 
 imeffie^^ From the fiends, that plague thee thus !— 8» 
 gMd' omen!'^ Why look'st thou so ? "-With my crossbow 
 I shot the albatross. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 5 
 
 PART II. 
 
 
 
 The sun now rose upon the right ; 
 
 
 
 Out of the sea came he, 
 
 
 
 Still hid in mist, and on the left 
 
 85 
 
 
 Went down into the sea. 
 
 
 
 And the good south wind still blew behind, 
 
 
 
 Bnt no sweet bird did follow, 
 
 
 
 Nor any day for food or play 
 
 
 
 Came to the mariner's hollo ! 
 
 90 
 
 
 And I had done an hellish thing, 
 
 
 His ship- 
 
 And it would work 'em woe : 
 
 
 mates cry 
 out ag-aiiist 
 
 For all averred, I had killed the bird 
 That made the breeze to blow. 
 
 
 the ancient 
 Mariner for 
 Idlling the 
 hird of good 
 hick. 
 
 Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay, 
 
 95 
 
 
 That made the breeze to blow ! 
 
 
 
 Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, 
 
 
 But when 
 the fog 
 cleared off 
 they justify 
 the same, 
 and thus 
 
 The glorious sun uprist : 
 
 
 Then all averred, I had killed the bird 
 
 
 That brought the fog and mist. 
 
 100 
 
 make them- 
 selves ac- 
 
 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, 
 
 
 complices itt 
 the crime. 
 
 That bring the fog and mist. 
 
 
 
6 
 
 COLE/?IDG£. 
 
 The fair 
 breeze con- 
 
 The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 
 
 tinues ; the 
 ship enters 
 
 The furrow followed free ; 
 
 the Pacitic 
 Ocean, and 
 sails north- 
 ward, even 
 till it reaches 
 the Line. 
 
 We were the first that ever burst 105 
 Into that silent sea. 
 
 The ship 
 hath been 
 suddenly 
 
 Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 
 
 'Twas sad as sad could be ; 
 
 MC^J-ctum-zU t 
 
 And we did speak only to break 
 
 
 The silence of the sea ! no 
 
 
 All in a hot and copper sky. 
 
 
 The bloody sun, at noon, 
 
 
 Right up above the mast did stand, 
 
 
 No bigger than the moon. 
 
 
 Day after day, day after day, 115 
 
 
 We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
 
 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 
 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 And the al- 
 batross be- 
 gins to be 
 avenged. 
 
 Water, water, everj'' whei'e, 
 
 And all the boards did shrink ; 120 
 
 Water, water, every where. 
 
 
 Nor any drop to drink. 
 
 
 The very deep did rot : Christ ! 
 
 
 That ever this should be ! 
 
 
 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 125 
 
 
 Upon the slimy sea. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 About, about, in reel and rout 
 
 The death-fires danced at night ; 
 
 The water, like a witch's oils. 
 
 Burnt green and blue and white. iso 
 
 And some in dreams assured were 
 Of the spirit that plagued us so ; 
 Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
 From the land of mist and snow. 
 
 whom the learned Jew, Josephns, and the Platonic 
 Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very 
 is no climate or element ■without one or more. 
 
 A spirit had 
 followed 
 them ; one of 
 the invisible 
 inhabitants 
 of this planet, 
 neither de- 
 parted souls 
 nor ans:els ; 
 concerning 
 Constantinopolitan, 
 immerous, and there 
 
 And every tongue, through utter drought 
 Was withered at the root ; 
 We could not speak, no more than if 
 We had been choked with soot. 
 
 Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks 
 Had I from old and young ! 
 Instead of the cross, the albatross 
 About my neck was hving. 
 
 The ship- 
 mates, in 
 their sore 
 distress, 
 would fain 
 throw the 
 whole guilt 
 on the 
 ancient 
 Mariner: in 
 sign whereof 
 they hang 
 the dead sea- 
 bird round 
 his neck. 
 
COLERIDGE. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The ancient 
 Mariner be- 
 holdeth a 
 sign In the 
 element afar 
 oif. 
 
 There passed a weary time. Each throat 
 
 Was parched, and glazed each eye. 
 
 A weary time ! a weary tim.e ! 145 
 
 How glazed each weary ej^e, 
 
 When looking westward, I heheld 
 
 A something in the sky. 
 
 At first it seemed a little speck, 
 
 And then it seemed a mist ; 150 
 
 It moved and moved, and took at last 
 
 A certain shape, I wist. 
 
 A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ! 
 
 And still it neared and neared : 
 
 As if it dodged a water-sprite, 155 
 
 It plunged and tacked and veered. 
 
 At Its nearer 
 approach, it 
 seemeth him 
 to he a ship ; 
 and at a dear 
 ransom he 
 freeth his 
 speech from 
 the bonds of 
 ithlrst. 
 
 With throats unslaked, with hlack lips baked, 
 We could nor laugh nor wail ; 
 Through utter drought all dumb we stood ! 
 I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 160 
 
 And cried, A sail ! a sail ! 
 
 With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, 
 Agape they heard me call : 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 9 
 
 Ci-ramercy ! they for joy did grin, 
 And all at once their breath drew in, 
 -As they were drinking all. 
 
 See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more ! 
 Hither to work us weal ; 
 Without a breeze, without a tide. 
 She steadies with upright keel ! 
 
 The western wave was all a-flame. 
 
 The day was well nigh done ! 
 
 Almost upon the western wave 
 
 Rested the broad bright sun ; 
 
 When that strange shape drove suddenly 175 
 
 Betwixt us and the sun. 
 
 And straight the sun was flecked with bars, 
 (Heaven's Mother send us grace !) 
 As if through a dungeon-grate he peered 
 With broad and burning face. i8o 
 
 Alas ! (thought \, and my heart beat loud) 
 How fast she nears and nears ! 
 Are those her sails that glance in the sun, 
 Like restless gossameres ? 
 
 Are those her ribs through which the sun 185 
 Did peer, as through a grate ? 
 And is that woman all her crew ? 
 Is that a Death ? and are there two ? 
 Is Death that woman's mate ? 
 
 A flash of 
 
 joy; 
 
 And hoiTor 
 follows. For 
 can it be a 
 ship that 
 comes on- 
 ward without 
 wind or tide ? 
 
 It seemeth 
 him hut the 
 skeleton of a 
 ship. 
 
 And its ribs 
 are seen as 
 bars on the 
 face of the 
 setting sun . 
 The spectre- 
 woman and 
 her death- 
 mate, and no 
 other on 
 board the 
 skeleton- 
 ship. 
 
10 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 
 Like vessel, 
 like crew ! 
 
 Her lips were red, her looks were free^ 
 Her locks were yellow as gold : 
 Her skin was as M'liite as leprosy, 
 The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, 
 Who thicks man's blood with cold. 
 
 lOfn 
 
 Death and 
 Life-in- 
 
 The naked hulk alongside came, 
 
 19.T 
 
 Death have 
 diced for the 
 
 And the twain were casting dice ; 
 
 
 ship's crew, 
 and she (the 
 
 "The game is done ! I've won ! I've won 
 
 )). 
 
 latter) wiu- 
 iieth the 
 ancient 
 Mariner. 
 
 Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 
 
 
 No twilight 
 Avithin the 
 courts of the 
 sun. 
 
 The sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out ; 
 At one stride comes the dark ; 
 With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea. 
 Off shot the spectre-bark. 
 
 20(»' 
 
 At the risinsf 
 of the moon.' 
 
 We listened and looked sideways up ! 
 Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 
 
 
 
 jNI}- life-blood seemed to sip ! 
 
 20.5 
 
 
 The stars were dim, and thick the night, 
 
 
 
 The steerman's face by his lamp gleamed 
 
 
 white ; 
 
 
 
 From the sails the dew did drip — 
 
 
 
 Till clomb above the eastern bar 
 
 
 
 The horned moon, with one bright star 
 
 210 
 
 
 Within the nether tip. 
 
 
 One after 
 another, 
 
 One after one, by the star-dogged moon, 
 
 
 Too quick for groan or sigh, 
 
 
THE RTME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 11 
 
 Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, 
 And cursed me with his eye. 215 
 
 Four times fifty living men, 
 (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) 
 With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, 
 They dropped down one by one. 
 
 The souls did from their bodies fly, 
 They fled to bliss or woe ! 
 And every soul, it passed me by, 
 Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! " 
 
 His ship- 
 mates drop 
 down dead. 
 
 220 But Life-iii- 
 Deatli begins 
 her iToi'k on 
 the ancient 
 Mariner. 
 
 ••I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner ! The wed- 
 
 ding guest 
 
 I fear thy skinny hand ! 225 feareth that 
 
 a spirit is 
 
 And thou are long, and lank, and brown, mI^™^ **^ 
 
 As is the ribbed sea-sand. ^ 
 
 I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 
 And thy skinny hand, so brown." — 
 Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest ! 
 This body dropt not down. 
 
 1 For the last two lines of this stanza, I am indebted 
 to Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from 
 Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in 
 the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned, and in 
 part composed." 
 
 But the an- 
 cient Mari- 
 ner assureth 
 liim of his 
 bodily life, 
 and pi'oceed- 
 eth to relate 
 his horrible 
 penance. 
 
12 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
 Alone on a wide wide sea ! 
 And never a saint took pity on 
 
 
 
 My soul in agony. 
 
 235 
 
 He despiseth 
 the creatures 
 of the calm. 
 
 The ixiany men, so beautiful ! 
 
 And they all dead did lie : 
 
 And a thousand thousand slimy things 
 
 Lived on ; and so did I. 
 
 
 And envieth 
 that they 
 should live, 
 and so many 
 lie dead. 
 
 I looked upon the rotting sea, 
 
 240 
 
 And drew my eyes away ; 
 
 I looked upon the rotting deck, 
 
 
 
 And there the dead men lay. 
 
 
 
 I looked to heaven, and tried to pray ; 
 
 
 
 But or ever a prayer had gusht. 
 
 245 
 
 
 A wicked whisper came, and made 
 
 
 
 My heai't as dry as dust. 
 
 
 
 I closed my lids, and kept them close. 
 
 
 
 And the balls like pulses beat ; 
 
 
 
 For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the 
 
 
 sky 
 
 250 
 
 
 Lay like a load on my weary eye, 
 
 
 
 And the dead were at my feet. 
 
 
 But the 
 curse liveth 
 for him in 
 
 The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 
 Nor rot nor reek did they : 
 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 18 
 
 The look with which they looked on me 
 Had never passed awaj-. 
 
 255 the ej'e of 
 the dead 
 men. 
 
 An orphan's curse would drag to hell 
 
 A spirit from on high ; 
 
 But oh ! more horrible than that 
 
 Is the curse in a dead man's ej'e ! 260 
 
 Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, 
 
 And yet I covild not die. 
 
 The moving moon went up the sky, 
 And no where did abide : 
 Softljr she was going up, 
 And a star or two beside — 
 
 In his loneli- 
 ness and 
 fixedness he 
 oRr yearneth to- 
 ^^^ wards the 
 
 journeying- 
 moon, and 
 the stars that 
 still sojourn, 
 yet still move onward ; and every where the blue sky belongs to them, 
 and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own 
 natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are cer- 
 tainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival. 
 
 Her beams bemocked the sultry main, 
 Like April hoar-frost spread ; 
 But where the ship's huge shadow lay. 
 The charmed water burned alway 
 A still and awful red. 
 
 Beyond the shadow of the ship, 
 
 1 watched the water-snakes : 
 
 They moved in tracks of shining white, 
 
 And when they reared, the elfish light 
 
 Pell off in hoary flakes. 
 
 By the light 
 of the moon 
 he beholdeth 
 God's crea- 
 tures of the 
 great calm. 
 
 275 
 
14 COLERIDGE. 
 
 Within the shadow of the ship 
 
 I Avatched their rich attire : 
 
 Blue, glossy green^ and velvet black, 
 
 They coiled and swam ; and every track 
 
 Was a flash of golden fire. 
 
 Tbek^beauty Q happy living things ! no tongue 
 
 liappiness. 
 
 He l>lesseth 
 them in his 
 lieart. 
 
 Their beauty might declare : 
 
 A spring of love gushed from my heart. 
 
 And I blessed them unaware : 
 
 Sure my kind saint took pity on me, 
 
 And I blessed them unawai'e. 
 
 The spell be- The selfsame moment I could pray 
 
 gins to r .1 
 
 break. And from my neck so free 
 
 The albatross fell off, and sank 
 Like lead into the sea. 
 
 290 
 
 PART V. 
 
 Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing, 
 Beloved from pole to j^ole ! 
 To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 
 She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, 
 That slid into my soul. 
 
 By ffrace of The silly buckets on the deck, 
 
 the holy 
 
 Mother, the That had so long remained, 
 
 290 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 I dreamt that they were filled with dew ; 
 And when I awoke, it rained. 
 
 My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 
 My garments all were dank ; 
 Sure I had drunken in my dreams. 
 And still my body drank. 
 
 I moved, and could not feel m^- limbs : 
 I was so light — almost 
 I thought that I had died in sleep, 
 And was a blessed ghost. 
 
 And soon I heard a roaring wind : 
 It did not come anear ; 
 But with its sound it shook the sails, 
 That were so thin and sere. 
 
 The upper air burst into life ! 
 And a hundred fire-flags sheen, 
 To and fro they were hurried about ! 
 And to and fro. and in and out, 
 The wan stars danced between. 
 
 ancient Ma- 
 riner is re- 
 3()Q freshed with 
 rain. 
 
 He heareth 
 sounds and 
 seeth str;inf,'-( 
 sights and 
 commotions 
 in the slty 
 and tlie ele- 
 ment. 
 
 And the coming wind did roar more loud, 
 And the sails did sigh like sedge ; 
 And the rain j)oured down from one black 
 cloud ; 320 
 
 The moon was at its edge. 
 
16 COLERIDGE. 
 
 The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 
 
 The moon was at its side : 
 
 Like waters shot from some high crag, 
 
 The lightning fell Avith never a jag, 3i;> 
 
 A river steep and wide. 
 
 Tlie bodies The loud wind never reached the ship, 
 of the ship's ^ ' 
 
 crew are Yet now the ship moved on ! 
 
 inspired, and ^ 
 
 mwe's^on. Beneath the lightning and the moon 
 
 The dead men gave a groan. 330 
 
 They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose. 
 Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ; 
 It had been strange, even in a dream, 
 To have seen those dead men rise. 
 
 The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; 385 
 
 Yet never a breeze up blew ; 
 
 The inariners all 'gan work the ropes. 
 
 Where they were wont to do ; 
 
 They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 
 
 We were a ghastly crew. 340 
 
 The body of my brothei''s son 
 Stood by me, knee to knee : 
 The body and I pulled at one rope, 
 But he said nou.ght to nie. 
 
 «"e*s"o^uls of ' ' I ^ear thee, ancient Mariner ! " 
 by'^d'emons*^ Be calm, thou wedding-guest ; 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT 
 
 MARINER. 17 
 
 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 
 Which to their corses came again. 
 But a troop of spirits blest : 
 
 For when it dawned— they dropped their 
 
 arms, 
 
 of earth or 
 middle air, 
 but by a 
 blessed troop 
 of angelic 
 spirits, sent 
 down by the 
 invocation of 
 the guardian 
 saint. 
 
 And clustered round the mast ; 
 
 351 
 
 
 Sweet sounds rose slowly through 
 
 their 
 
 
 mouths, 
 
 
 
 And from their bodies passed. 
 
 
 
 Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 
 
 
 
 Then darted to the sun ; 
 
 355 
 
 
 Slowly the sounds came back again, 
 
 
 
 Now mixed, now one by one. 
 
 
 
 Soraetimes a-dropping from the sky 
 
 
 
 I heard the sky-lark sing ; 
 
 
 
 Sometimes all little birds that are. 
 
 3tM 
 
 
 How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
 
 
 
 With their sweet jargoning ! 
 
 
 
 And now 'twas like all instruments. 
 
 
 
 Now like a lonely flute ; 
 
 
 
 And now it is an angel's song, 
 
 3fi5 
 
 
 That makes the heavens be mute. 
 
 
 
 It ceased ; yet still the sails made on 
 
 
 
 A pleasant noise tiU noon. 
 
 
 
 A noise like of a hidden brook 
 
 
 
 In the leafy month of Jime, 
 
 370 
 
 ' 
 
18 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 That to the sleeping woods all night 
 Singeth a quiet tune. 
 
 Till noon we quietly sailed on, 
 Yet never a breeze did breathe : 
 Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 
 Moved onward from beneath. 
 
 The lone- 
 some spirit 
 from the 
 south-pole 
 carries on 
 the ship as 
 far as the 
 line, in obe- 
 dience to the 
 angelic 
 troop, hut 
 still re- 
 quireth 
 vengeance. 
 
 Under the keel nine fathom deep, 
 
 From the land of mist and snow, 
 
 The spirit slid : and it was he 
 
 That made the ship to go. 380 
 
 The sails at noon left off their tune, 
 
 And the ship stood still also. 
 
 The sun, right up above the mast, 
 
 Had fixed her to the ocean : 
 
 Bu.t in a minute she 'gan stir, 385 
 
 With a short uneasy motion — 
 
 Backwards and forwards half her length 
 
 With a short uneasy motion. 
 
 Then like a pawing horse let go. 
 
 She made a sudden bound ; 390 
 
 It flung the blood into my head, 
 
 And I fell down in a swound. 
 
 The Polar How long in that same fit I lay, 
 spirit s fel- " s. J 1 
 
 l^hlinSe I have not to declare; 
 
 of^he'*'^"*^ But ere my living life returned, 395 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 19 
 
 I heard, and in my soul discerned 
 
 element, take 
 part in his 
 
 Two voices in the air. 
 
 wrong; and 
 two of theiu 
 relate, one 
 
 ' ' Is it he ? " quoth one, ' ' Is this the man ? 
 
 By Him who died on cross, 
 
 With his crviel bow he laid full low 400 
 
 to the other, 
 til at penanc« 
 long and 
 heavy for 
 the ancient 
 Mariner 
 hath been 
 
 The harmless Albatross. 
 
 accorded to 
 the Polar 
 
 
 spirit, who 
 
 ' ' The spirit who bideth by himself 
 
 retiirneth 
 southward. 
 
 In the land of mist and snow, 
 
 
 He loved the bird that loved the man 
 
 
 Who shot him with his bow." 405 
 
 
 The other was a softer voice. 
 
 
 As soft as honej^-dew : 
 
 
 Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, 
 
 i 
 
 And penance more will do. " 
 
 1 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 
 But tell me, tell me ! speak again, 4io 
 
 
 Thy soft response renewing — 
 
 
 What makes that ship drive on so fast ? 
 
 
 What is the ocean doing ? 
 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 
 Still as a slave before his lord, 
 
 
 The ocean hath no blast ; 4i5 
 
 
20 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 The Mariner 
 hath been 
 cast into a 
 trance; for 
 the angelic 
 power caus- 
 eth the vessel 
 to drive 
 northward 
 faster than 
 human life 
 could endure. 
 
 His great bright eye most silently 
 
 Up to the moon is cast — 
 
 If he may know which way to go ; 
 For she guides him smooth or grim. 
 See, brother, see ! how graciously 
 She looketh down on him. 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 But why drives on that ship so fast, 
 Without or wave or wind ? 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 The air is cut away before, 
 And closes from behind. 
 
 Fly, brother^ fly ! more high, more high 
 Or we shall be belated : 
 For slow and slow that ship will go. 
 When the Mariner's trance is abated. 
 
 I woke, and we were sailing on 
 As in a gentle weather : 
 
 The super- 
 natural mo- 
 tion is re- 
 tarded; the 
 
 ^vlkls! and Twas night, calm night, the moon was high ; 
 {JegFn"anew. The dead men stood together. 
 
 All stood together on the deck. 
 For a charnel-dungeon fitter : 
 All fixed on me their stony eyes. 
 That in the moon did glitter. 
 
 435 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 21 
 
 The pang, the curse, with which they died 
 
 
 Had never passed away : 
 
 
 I could not draw my ej'es from theirs, 
 
 440 
 
 Nor turn them up to pray. 
 
 
 And now this spell was suapt : once more 
 I viewed the ocean green, 
 
 The curse is 
 tinally expi- 
 ated. 
 
 And looked far forth, yet little saw 
 
 
 Of what had else been seen — 
 
 445 
 
 Like one, that on a lonesome road 
 
 
 Doth walk in fear and dread, 
 
 
 And having once turned round walks on, 
 
 
 And turns no more his head ; 
 
 
 Because he knows a frightful fiend 
 
 450 
 
 Doth close behind him tread. 
 
 
 But soon there breathed a wind on me, 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Nor sound nor motion made : 
 
 
 Its path was not upon the sea, 
 
 
 In ripple or in shade. 
 
 455 
 
 It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 
 
 
 Like a meadow-gale of spring — 
 
 
 It mingled strangely with my fears, 
 
 
 Yet it felt like a welcoming. 
 
 
 Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 
 
 46a 
 
 Yet she sailed softly too : 
 
 
22 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 
 Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 
 
 
 On me alone it blew. 
 
 
 Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed 
 
 
 The light-house top I see ? 465 
 
 And the an- 
 cient Mari- 
 ner behold- 
 etli his native 
 country. 
 
 Is this the hUl ? is this the kirk ? 
 Is this mine own countree ? 
 
 
 We drifted o'er the harbovir-bar, 
 
 
 And I with sobs did pray — 
 
 
 let me be awake, my God ! 470 
 
 
 Or let me sleep alway. 
 
 
 The harbour-bay was clear as glass, 
 
 
 So smoothly it was strewn ! 
 
 
 And on the bay the moonlight lay, 
 
 
 And the shadow of the moon. 475 
 
 
 The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, 
 
 
 That stands above the rock : 
 
 
 The moonlight steeped in silentness 
 
 
 The steady weathercock. 
 
 
 And the bay was white with silent light m> 
 
 
 Till rising from the same, 
 
 The anselic 
 spirits leave 
 the dead 
 bodies, 
 
 Full many shapes, that shadows were. 
 In crimson colours came. 
 
 And appear 
 in their own 
 
 A little distance from the prow 
 
 forms of 
 light. 
 
 Those crimson shadows were : 485 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT . 
 
 MARINER. : 
 
 >3 
 
 I turned my eyes upon the deck— 
 
 
 
 Oh, Christ ! what saw I there ! 
 
 
 
 Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 
 
 
 
 And, by the holy rood ! 
 
 
 
 A man all light, a seraph-man, 
 
 iSQ 
 
 
 On every corse there stood. 
 
 
 
 This seraph-band, each waved his hand. 
 
 
 
 It was a heavenlj^ sight ! 
 
 
 
 They stood as signals to the land 
 
 
 
 Each one a lovely light ; 
 
 *96 
 
 
 This seraph-band, each waved his hand, 
 
 
 
 No voice did they impart — 
 
 
 
 No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank 
 
 
 
 Like music on my heart. 
 
 
 
 Bvit soon I heard the dash of oars 
 
 600 
 
 
 I heard the pilot's cheer ; 
 
 
 
 My head was turned perforce away, 
 
 
 
 And I saw a boat appear. 
 
 
 
 The pilot and the pilot's boy, 
 
 
 
 I heard them coming fast : 
 
 see 
 
 
 Dear Lord in heaven ! it was a joy 
 
 
 
 The dead men could not blast. 
 
 
 
 I saw a third— I heard his voice : 
 
 
 
 It is the hermit good ! 
 
 
 
24 COLERIDGE. 
 
 He singeth loud his godly hymns 510 
 
 That he makes in the wood. 
 He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away 
 The Albatross's blood. 
 
 PART VII. 
 
 The hermit THIS hermit good lives in that wood 
 -of the wood, ^ 
 
 Which slopes down to the sea. 5i5 
 
 How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! 
 He loves to talk with marineres 
 That come from a far countree. 
 
 He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — 
 He hath a cushion plump : 520 
 
 It is the moss that wholly hides 
 The rotted old oak-stump. 
 
 The skiff -boat neared : I heard them talk, 
 ' ' Why, this is strange, I trow ! 
 Where are those lights so many and fair^ 525 
 That signal made but now ? " 
 
 Apprpachetli ' < Strange, by my faith ! " the hermit said— 
 
 the ship 
 
 with wonder. < t ^nd they answered not our cheer ! 
 
 The planks look warped ! and see those sails, 
 
 How thin they are and sere ! 530 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 I never saw auglit like to them, 
 Unless perchance it were 
 
 Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 
 
 My forest-brook along ; 
 
 When the ivj'-tod is heavy with snow, 535 
 
 And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, 
 
 That eats the she-wolf's young." 
 
 '' Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look— 
 (The pilot made reply) 
 
 1 am a-feared " — ' ' Push on, piish on ! " oio 
 •Said the hermit cheerilv. 
 
 The boat came closer to the ship, 
 
 But I nor spake nor stirred ; 
 
 The boat came close beneath the ship, 
 
 And straight a sound was heard. 545 
 
 Under the water it rumbled on, 
 Still louder and more dread : 
 It reached the ship, it split the bay ; 
 The ship went down like lead. 
 
 The ship 
 suddenly 
 sinketh. 
 
 Stiinned by that loud and dreadful sound, 55o Tiie ancient 
 
 Mariner is 
 
 Which sky and ocean smote, saved in the 
 
 pilot's boat. 
 
 Like one that hath been seven days drowned 
 
 My body lay afloat ; 
 
 But swift as dreams, myself I found 
 
 IVithin the pilot's boat. 555 
 
26 
 
 COLERIDGE, 
 
 
 Upon the whirl, where sank tlie ship^ 
 
 
 The boat spun round and round ; 
 
 
 And all was still, save that the hill 
 
 
 Was telling of the sound. 
 
 
 I moved my lips— the pilot shrieked 5flo 
 
 
 And fell down in a fit ; 
 
 
 The holy hermit raised his eyes, 
 
 
 And prayed where he did sit. 
 
 
 I took the oars : the pilot's boy. 
 
 
 "Who now doth crazy go, 565 
 
 
 Laughed loud and long, and all the while 
 
 
 His eyes went to and fro. 
 
 
 "Ha! ha!" quoth he, " full plain I see, 
 
 
 The devil knows how to row. " 
 
 
 And now, all in my own coantree, 57o 
 
 
 I stood on the firm land ! 
 
 
 The hermit stepped forth from the boat, 
 
 
 And scarcely he could stand. 
 
 The ancient 
 
 " shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man ! " 
 
 Mariner 
 earnestly 
 entreate'th 
 the hermit 
 to shrieve 
 
 The hermit crossed his brow. 575 
 ' ■ Say quick, " quoth he, "I bid thee say — 
 
 him ; and 
 the penance 
 of life falls 
 on him. 
 
 What manner of man art thou ? " 
 
 
 Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched 
 
 
 With a woful agony. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 27 
 
 AVhich forced me to begin my tale ; 
 
 580 
 
 And then it left me free. 
 
 
 Since then, at an uncertain hour 
 
 That agony returns : 
 
 And till my ghastly tale is told, 
 
 And ever 
 and anon 
 throughout 
 his future 
 life and 
 agony con- 
 
 This heart within me burns. 
 
 -s- straineth Mm 
 "'^ to travel 
 from land to 
 
 I pass, like night, from land to land ; 
 
 land ; 
 
 I have strange power of speech ; 
 
 
 The moment that his face I see, 
 
 
 I know the man that must hear me : 
 
 1 
 
 To him my tale I teach. 
 
 590 
 
 What loud uproar bursts from that door ! 
 
 
 The wedding-guests are there : 
 
 
 But in the garden-bower the bride 
 
 
 And bride-maids singing are : 
 
 
 And hark the little vesper bell, 
 
 595 
 
 Which biddeth me to prayer ! 
 
 
 wedding-guest ! this soul hath been 
 
 
 Alone on a wide wide sea : 
 
 
 So lonely 'twas, that God himself 
 
 
 Scarce seemed there to be. 
 
 o03 
 
 sweeter than the marriage-feast. 
 
 r 
 
 'Tis sweeter far to me, 
 
 
 To walk together to the kh-k 
 
 
 With a goodly company ! — 
 
 
28 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 
 
 To walk together to tlie kirk, 
 
 605 
 
 
 And all togetiier pray. 
 
 
 
 While each to his great Father bends, 
 
 
 
 Old men, and babes, and loving friends, 
 
 
 
 And youths and maidens gay ! 
 
 
 And to teach, 
 by his own 
 example, 
 love and re- 
 
 Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
 To thee, thou wedding-guest ! 
 
 610 
 
 verence to 
 all things 
 
 He prayeth well, who loveth well 
 
 
 that God 
 made and 
 
 Both man and bird and beast. 
 
 
 loveth. 
 
 He prayeth best, who loveth best 
 
 
 
 All things both great and small ; 
 
 615 
 
 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 
 
 
 He made and loveth all. 
 
 
 
 The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 
 
 
 
 Whose beard with age is hoar, 
 
 
 
 Is gone : and now the wedding-guest 
 
 620 
 
 
 Turned from the bridegroom's door. 
 
 
 
 He went like one that hath been stunned. 
 
 
 
 And is of sense forlorn : 
 
 
 
 A sadder and a wiser man, 
 
 
 
 ile rose the morrow morn. 
 
 625 
 
 
 •% 
 
 
YOUTH AND AGE, 29 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE. 
 
 Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, 
 Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — 
 3otli were mine ! Life went a maying 
 
 With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
 
 When I was j^oung ! 5 
 
 When I was j^oung? — Ah, woful ivlien ! 
 Ah ! for the change 'twixt now and then ! 
 This breathing house not built with hands. 
 This body that does me grievous wrong, 
 O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, lo 
 
 How lightly' then it flashed along : — 
 Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
 On winding lakes and rivers wide, 
 That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
 That fear no spite of wind or tide ! 15 
 
 Nought cared this body for wind or weather 
 When Youth and I liv'd in't together. 
 
 Plowers are lovelj' ; Love is flower-like ; 
 friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
 ! the joj's, that came down shower-like, 20 
 
 Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 
 
 Ere I was old ! 
 
30 COLERIDGE. 
 
 Ere I was old ? Ah woful ere, 
 
 Which tells me, Youth's no longer here ! 
 
 Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 25 
 'Tis known, that thou and I were one ; 
 
 I'll think it but a fond conceit — 
 
 It cannot be, that thou art gone ! 
 
 Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toU'd : — 
 
 And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 3o 
 
 "What strange disguise hast now put on, 
 
 To make believe, that thou art gone ? 
 
 1 see these locks in silvery slips, 
 This drooping gait, this altered size : 
 
 But springtide blossoms on thy lips, 35 
 
 And tears take sunshine from thine ej'es ! 
 Life is but thought : so think I will 
 That Youth and I are house-mates still. 
 
 Dew-drops are the gems of morning, 
 
 But the tears of mournful eve ! 40 
 
 Where no hope is, life's a warning 
 
 That only serves to make us grieve, 
 
 When we are old : 
 That only serves to makes us grieve 
 With oft and tedious taking-leave, 46 
 
 Like some poor nigh-related guest, 
 That may not rudely be dismist. 
 Yet hath outstay 'd his welcome while. 
 And tells the jest without the smile. 
 
WORDSWORTH. 
 
 TDHREE YEARS SHE GEEW IN SUN AND 
 SHOWER. 
 
 [the education of nature.] 
 
 Three years slie grew in sun and shower, 
 
 Then Nature said, ' ' A lovelier flower 
 
 On earth was never sown ; 
 
 This Child I to myself will take, 
 
 She shall be mine, and I will make 5 
 
 A Lady of my own. 
 
 Myself will to my darling be 
 
 Both law and impvilse : and with me 
 
 The Girl, in rock and plain, 
 
 In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, lo 
 
 Shall feel an overseeing power 
 
 To kindle or restrain. 
 
 She shall be sportive as the fawn 
 
 That wild with glee across the lawn 
 
 Or up the mountain springs ; , 15 
 
 And her's shall be the breathing balm. 
 
 And her's the silence and the calm 
 
 Of mute insensate things. 
 
32 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The floating clouds their state shall lend 
 
 To her ; for her the willow bend ; 2a 
 
 Nor shall she fail to see 
 
 Even in the motion of the Storm 
 
 Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form 
 
 By silent sympathy. 
 
 The stars of midnight shall be dear 25 
 
 To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
 
 In many a secret place 
 
 Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 
 And beauty born of murmuring sound 
 
 Shall pass into her face. 30 
 
 And vital feelings of delight 
 
 Shall rear her form to stately height. 
 
 Her virgin bosom swell ; 
 
 Such thoughts to Lucy I will give 
 
 While she and I together live 35 
 
 Here in this happy dell." 
 
 Thus Nature spake — The work was done — 
 
 How soon my Lucy's race was run ! 
 
 She died, and left to me 
 
 This heath, this calm, and quiet scene ; 40 
 
 The memory of what has been, 
 
 And never more will be. 
 
WRITTEN IN LONDON, S±.FTEMBER, 1802. 33 
 
 WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1802. 
 
 O Erxend ! I know not which way I must look 
 
 For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, 
 
 To think that now onr life is only drest 
 
 Eor show ; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook. 
 
 Or groom ! — "We must run glittering like a brook 5 
 In the open sunshine, or we are unblest : 
 The -wealthiest man among us is the best : 
 No grandevir now in nature or in book 
 
 Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense. 
 
 This is idolatry : and these we adore : 10 
 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more : 
 
 The homely beauty of the good old cause 
 Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence. 
 And pure religion breathing household laws. 
 
34 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 LONDON, 1802. 
 
 Milton ! thou should'st be living at this hour : 
 England hath need of thee : she is a ten 
 Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower. 
 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower .'; 
 
 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 
 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
 
 And give us manners, virtue^ freedom, power. 
 
 Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : - 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : lo 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 
 So didst thou travel on life's common way, 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 TTie lowliest duties on herself did lav. 
 
TO THE DAISY. 
 
 35 
 
 TO THE DAISY. 
 
 
 "With little here to do or see 
 
 
 Of things that in the great world be, 
 
 
 Sweet Daisy ! oft I talk to thee, 
 
 
 For thoii art worthy, 
 
 
 Thou unassuming Common-place 
 
 5 
 
 Of Nature, with that homely face, 
 
 
 And yet with something of a grace, 
 
 
 Which Love makes for thee ! 
 
 
 Oft on the dappled turf at ease 
 
 
 I sit, and play with similes. 
 
 10 
 
 Xoose types of things through all degrees. 
 
 
 Thoughts of thy raising : 
 
 
 And many a fond and idle name 
 
 
 I give to thee, for praise or blame, 
 
 
 As is the humour of the game, 
 
 15 
 
 While I am gazing. 
 
 
 A nun demure, of lowly port ; 
 
 
 Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, 
 
 
 In thy simplicity the sport 
 
 
 Of all temptations ; 
 
 20 
 
 A qtieen in crown of rubies drest : 
 
 
 A starveling in a scantj"- vest ; 
 
 
WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Are all, as seems to suit thee best, 
 Thy appellations. 
 
 A little Cyclops, with one eye ib 
 
 Staring to threaten and defy, 
 
 That thoiight comes next — and instantly 
 
 The freak is over, 
 The shape will vanish — and behold 
 A silver shield with boss of gold, 30 
 
 That spreads itself some faery bold 
 
 In fight to cover ! 
 
 I see thee glittering from afar — 
 
 And then thou art a pretty star. 
 
 Not quite so fair as many are 35 
 
 In heaven above thee ! 
 Yet like a star, with glittering crest. 
 Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest; — 
 May peace come never to his nest 
 
 Who shall reprove thee ! 40 
 
 Bright Floioer ! for by that name at last. 
 When all my reveries are past, 
 I call thee, and to that cleave fast, 
 
 Sweet silent creature ! 
 That breath'st with me in sun and air, 45 
 
 Do thou, as thou art wont, repair 
 My heart with gladness, and a share 
 
 Of thy meek natvire ! 
 
THE SMALL CELANDL^£. 37" 
 
 THE SMALL CELANDINE, 
 [a lesson.] 
 There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, 
 That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain ; 
 And, the first moment that the sun may shine, 
 Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again ! 
 
 When hailstones have been failing, swarm on swarm, 5 
 Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest. 
 Oft have I seen it mufSed up from harm. 
 In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest. 
 
 But latelj", one rough day, this Flower I passed. 
 And recognized it, though an altered form, lO' 
 
 Now standing forth an offering to the blast, 
 And buffeted at will by rain and storm. 
 
 I stopped, and said -with inly-muttered voice, 
 ' ' It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold : 
 This neither is its courage nor its choice, 15 
 
 But its necessity in being old. 
 
 The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew ; 
 
 It cannot help itself in its decay ; 
 
 Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." 
 
 And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey. 20 
 
 To be a Prodigal's Favourite— then, worse truth, 
 A Miser's Pensioner — behold our lot ! 
 O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth 
 A"-e might but take the things Youth needed not ! 
 
38 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by, 
 •One after one ; the sound of rain, and bees 
 Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, 
 Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky ; 
 
 I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie 
 Sleepless ! and soon the small birds' melodies 
 Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees ; 
 .And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 
 
 Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, 
 And could not win thee, Sleep ! by any stealth : 
 So do not let me wear to-night away : 
 
 Without Thee what is -all the morning's wealth ? 
 'Come, blessed barrier between day and daj^. 
 Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health ! 
 
INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL. 39' 
 
 INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Tax not the royal Saint with, vain expense, 
 
 With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned — 
 
 Albeit labouring for a scanty band 
 
 Of white-robed Scholars only — this immense 
 
 And gloriotis Work of fine intelligence ! 5 
 
 Give all thou canst ; high Heaven rejects the lore 
 Of nicely-calculated less or more ; 
 So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense 
 
 These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof 
 
 Self -poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, lo 
 
 Where light and shade repose, where music dwells 
 
 Lingering, and wandering on as loth to die ; 
 
 Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 
 That they were born for immortality. 
 
•40 M^ORDS WORTH. 
 
 TO A SKYLARK. 
 
 Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 
 
 Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? 
 
 Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and ej^e 
 
 Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ? 
 
 Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 5 
 
 Those quivering wings composed, that music still ! 
 
 [To the last point of vision, and beyond. 
 
 Mount, daring warbler ! that love-prompted strain, 
 
 ('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) 
 
 Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : lo 
 
 Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege ! to sing 
 
 All independent of the leafy spring. ] 
 
 Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; 
 
 A privacy of glorious light is thine ; 
 
 Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 15 
 
 Of harmony, with instinct more divine : 
 
 Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; 
 
 True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home ! 
 
WHY ART THOU SILENT? IS THY LOVE. 41 
 
 "WHY ART THOU SILENT? IS THY LOVE A 
 
 X-Jjii.I.>( J.. 
 
 [to a distant friend.] 
 
 Why art thotx silent ? Is tliy love a plant 
 Of such weak fibre that the treacherovis air 
 Of absence withers what was once so fair ? 
 Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? 
 
 Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant — 5 
 Bound to thj' service with unceasing care, 
 The mind's least generous wish a mendicant 
 For nought but what thy happiness could spare. 
 
 Speak — though this soft warm heart, once free to 
 
 hold 
 A thovTsand tender pleasures, thine and mine, lo 
 Be left more desolate, more dreary cold 
 
 Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 
 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine — 
 Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may 
 know ! 
 
CAMPBELL. 
 
 HOHENLINDEN. 
 
 On Linden, when the sun was low. 
 All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow, 
 And dark as winter was the flow 
 Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 
 
 But Linden saw another sight, 5 
 
 When the drum beat, at dead of night, 
 Commanding fires of death to light 
 The darkness of her scenery. 
 
 By torch and trumpet fast array'd, 
 Each horseman drew his battle-blade, lo 
 
 And furious every charger neigh'd, 
 To join the dreadful revelry. 
 
 Then shook the hills with thunder riven 
 Then rush'd the steed, to battle driven, 
 And louder than the bolts of heaven, is- 
 
 Far flash'd the red artillery. 
 
HOHENLINDEN. 43 
 
 But redder yet that light shall glow 
 On Linden's hills of stained snow, 
 And bloodier yet the torrent flow 
 
 Of Iser, rolling rapidlj^. 20 
 
 'Tis morn, btit scarce 5"on level sun 
 Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun. 
 Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun, 
 Shout in their sulph'rous canopy. 
 
 The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 25 
 
 Who x'ush to glorj^, or the grave ! 
 Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave, 
 And charge with all thy chivalry ! 
 
 Few^ few^ shall part, where many meet ! 
 The snow shall be their winding sheet, 30 
 
 And every turf beneath their feet 
 Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 
 
44 
 
 CAMPBELL. 
 YE MARINEES OF ENGLAND. 
 
 A NAVAL ODE, 
 I. 
 
 Ye Mariners of England ! 
 
 That guard our native seas ; 
 
 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years. 
 
 The battle and the breeze ! 
 
 
 
 Your glorious standard launch again 
 
 5 
 
 
 To match another foe ! 
 
 
 
 And sweep through the deep, 
 
 
 
 While the stormy winds do blow ; 
 
 
 
 While the battle rages loud and long, 
 
 
 
 And the stormy winds do blow. 
 
 10 
 
 
 II. 
 
 
 
 The spirits of your fathers 
 
 
 
 Shall start from every wave ! — 
 
 
 
 For the deck it was their field of fame. 
 
 
 
 And Ocean was their grave : 
 
 
 
 Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, 
 
 15 
 
 
 Your manly hearts shall glow, 
 
 
 
 As ye sweep through the deep, 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
V£ MARINERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 45 
 
 While the stormy winds do blow ; 
 
 
 While the battle rages loud and long, 
 
 
 And the stormy w^inds do blow. 
 
 20 
 
 o 
 
 
 in. 
 
 
 Britannia needs no bulwarks, ■ 
 
 
 No towers along the steep ; 
 
 
 Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, 
 
 
 Her home is on the deep. 
 
 
 With thunders from her native oak, 
 
 2.5 
 
 She quells the floods below, — 
 
 
 As they roar on the shore. 
 
 
 When the stormy winds do blow : 
 
 
 When the battle rages loud and long, 
 
 
 And the stormy winds do blow. 
 
 30 
 
 IV. 
 
 The meteor flag of England 
 
 
 Shall yet terrific burn ; 
 
 
 Till danger's troubled night depart, 
 
 
 And the star of peace return. 
 
 
 Then, then, ye ocean-warriors ! 
 
 35 
 
 Our song and feast shall flow 
 
 
 To the fame of your name, 
 
 
 When the storm has ceased to blow ; 
 
 
 When the fiery fight is heard no more. 
 
 
 And the storm has ceased to blow. 
 
 40 
 
46 CAMPBELL, 
 
 BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. 
 I. 
 
 Of Nelson and tlie North, 
 
 Sing the glorious day's renown, 
 
 When to battle fierce came forth 
 
 All the might of Denmark's crown. 
 
 And her arms along the deep proudly shone ; 5 
 
 By each'gvin the lighted brand, 
 
 In a bold determined hand^ 
 
 And the Prince of all the land 
 
 Led them on. — 
 
 11. 
 Like leviathans afloat, lo 
 
 Lay their bulwarks on the brine ; 
 While the sign of battle flew 
 On the lofty British line : 
 It was ten of April morn by the chime : 
 As they drifted on their path, 15 
 
 There was silence deep as death ; 
 And the boldest held his breath, 
 For a time. — 
 
 III. 
 But the might of England flush'd 
 To anticipate the scene ; 20 
 
 And her van the fleeter rush'd 
 O'er the deadly space between. 
 'Hearts of oak ! ' our captains cried ; when each gun 
 
BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. 
 
 47 
 
 From its adamantine lips 
 
 
 Spread a deatli-sliade round the sliips, 
 
 25 
 
 Liiie the hurricane eclipse 
 
 
 Of the sun. — 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 
 Again ! again ! again ! 
 
 
 And the havoc did not slack, 
 
 
 Till a feeble cheer the Dane 
 
 30 
 
 To our cheering sent us back ; — 
 
 
 Their shots along the deep slowlj' boom : — 
 
 
 Then ceased — and all is wail, 
 
 
 As they strike the shatter'd sail; 
 
 
 Or, in conflagration pale, 
 
 35 
 
 Light the gloom. — 
 
 
 V, 
 
 Out spoke the victor then, ' 
 
 
 As he hail'd them o'er the wave ; 
 
 
 ' Ye are brothers ! ye are men ! 
 
 
 And we conqiier but to save : — 
 
 40 
 
 So peace instead of death let us bring ; 
 
 
 But yield, proud foe, thy fleet, 
 
 
 With the crews, at England'^ feet. 
 
 
 And make submission meet 
 
 
 To our King. ' — 
 
 45 
 
 VI. 
 
 
 Then Denmark blest our chief 
 
 
 That he gave her wounds repose ; 
 
 
48 CAMPBELL. 
 
 And the sounds of joy and grief 
 
 From her people wildly rose, 
 
 As death withdrew his shades from the day, 50 
 
 "While the sun look'd smiling bright 
 
 O'er a wide and woful sight, 
 
 Where the fires of funeral light 
 
 Died away. — 
 
 VII. 
 
 Now joy, old England, raise ! 55 
 
 For the tidings of thy might. 
 
 By the festal cities' blaze, 
 
 Whilst the wine cup shines in light ; 
 
 And yet amidst that joy and uproar, 
 
 Let us think of them that sleep, 60 
 
 Full many a fathom deep, 
 
 By thy wild and stormy steep, 
 
 Elsinore ! — 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Brave hearts ! to Britain's pride 
 
 Once so faithful and so true, fin 
 
 On the deck of fame that died, 
 
 With the gallant good Riou : 
 
 Soft sigh the winds of Heaven o'er their grave ' 
 
 While the billow mournful rolls. 
 
 And the mermaid's song condoles, 'O 
 
 Singing glory to the souls 
 
 Of the brave ! — 
 
A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY THE NEJV YEAR. 49 
 
 A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY THE NEW YEAR. 
 [the kiver of life.] 
 The more we live, more brief appear 
 
 Our life's succeeding stages : 
 
 A day to childhood seems a year, 
 
 And years like passing ages. 
 
 The gladsome current of our youth, 5 
 
 Ere passion yet disorders, 
 Steals, lingering like a river smooth 
 
 Along its grassy borders. 
 
 But, as the care-v7orn cheek grows wan, 
 
 And sorrow's shafts fly thicker, lo 
 
 Ye stars, that measure life to man. 
 Why seem your courses quicker ? 
 
 When joys have lost their bloom and breath, 
 
 And life itself is vapid. 
 Why, as we reach the Falls of death, 15 
 
 Feel we its tide more rapid ? 
 
 It maj^ be strange — yet who would change 
 Time's course to slower speeding ; 
 
 When one by one our friends have gone. 
 
 And left our bosoms bleeding '? 20 
 
 Heaven gives our years of fading strength 
 
 Indemnifying fleetness ; 
 And those of youth, a seeming length, 
 
 Proportioned to their sweetness. 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 A PSALM OF LIFE. 
 
 WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE 
 PSALMIST. 
 
 Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
 
 Life is but an empty dream ! — 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
 
 And things are not what they seem. 
 
 Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 5 
 
 And the grave is not its goal ; 
 Dust thou art, to dust returnest. 
 
 Was not spoken of the soul. 
 
 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 
 Is our destined end or way ; lo 
 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 
 Find us farther than to-day. 
 
 Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 
 
 And our hearts, though stout and brave. 
 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 15 
 
 Funeral marches to the grave. 
 
A PSALM OF LIFE. 51 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In tbe bivouac of Life^ 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife ! 20 
 
 Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 
 
 Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
 Act. — act in the living Present ! 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 25 
 
 We call make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time ; 
 
 Tootprints, that perhaps another. 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 30 
 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 "With a heart for any fate ; 
 Still achieving, still piirsuing, 35 
 
 Learn to labor and to wait. 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 This is the place. Stand still, my steed, 
 
 Let me review the scene^ 
 And summon from the shadowy Past 
 
 The forms that once have been. 
 
 The Past and Present here unite 
 
 Beneath Time's flowing tide, 
 Like footprints hidden by a brook. 
 
 But seen on either side. 
 
 Here runs the highway to the town ; 
 
 There the green lane descends, 
 Through which I walked to church with thee, 
 
 O gentlest of my friends ! 
 
 The shadow of the linden-trees 
 
 Lay moving on the grass ; 
 Between them and the moving boughs, 
 
 A shadow, thou didst pass. 
 
 Thy dress was like the lilies. 
 
 And thy heart as pure as they : 
 One of God's holy messengers 
 
 Did walk with me that day. 
 
A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 53 
 
 I saw the branches of the trees 
 
 
 Bend down thy touch to meet, 
 
 
 The clover-blossoms in the grass 
 
 
 Rise np to kiss thy feet. 
 
 
 ' ' Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares. 
 
 25 
 
 Of earth and folly born ! " 
 
 
 Solemnly sang the village choir 
 
 
 On that sweet Sabbath morn. 
 
 - 
 
 Through the closed blinds the golden sun 
 
 
 Poured in a dusty beam, 
 
 30 
 
 Like the celestial ladder seen 
 
 
 By Jacob in his dream. 
 
 
 And ever and anon, the wind, 
 
 
 Sweet-scented with the hay, 
 
 
 Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves 
 
 35 
 
 That on the window lay. 
 
 
 Long was the good man's sermon, 
 
 
 Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
 
 
 For he spake of Ruth the beautiful 
 
 
 And still I thought of thee. 
 
 40- 
 
 Long was the praj'^er he uttered. 
 
 
 Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
 
 
 Tor in my heart I prayed with him, 
 
 
 And still I thought of thee. 
 
 
54 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 But now, alas ! the place seems changed ; 
 
 Thou art no longer here : 
 Part of the simshine of the scene 
 
 With thee did disappear. 
 
 Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, 
 Like pine-trees dark and high, 
 
 Subdue the light of noon, and breathe 
 A low and ceaseless sigh ; 
 
 This memory brightens o'er the past, 
 
 As when the sun, concealed 
 Behind some cloud that near us hangs, 
 
 8hines on a distant field. 
 
THE DA y IS DONE, 
 
 6& 
 
 THE DAY IS DONE, 
 
 
 The day is done, and the darkness 
 
 
 Falls from the wings of Night, 
 
 
 As a feather is wafted downward 
 
 
 From an eagle in his flight. 
 
 
 I see the lights of the village 
 
 5 
 
 Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
 
 
 And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 
 
 
 That my soul cannot resist : 
 
 
 A feeling of sadness and longing, 
 
 
 That is not akin to pain. 
 
 10 
 
 And resembles sorrow only 
 
 
 As the mist resembles the rain. 
 
 
 Come, read to me some poem, 
 
 
 Some simple and heartfelt lay, 
 
 
 That shall soothe this I'estless feeling, 
 
 15 
 
 And banish the thoughts of day. 
 
 
 Not from the grand old masters. 
 
 
 Not from the bards sublime. 
 
 
 "Whose distant footsteps echo 
 
 
 Through the corridors of Time. 
 
 20 
 
56 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 For, like strains of martial music, 
 Their mighty thoughts suggest 
 
 Life's endless toil and endeavor ; 
 And to-night I long for rest. 
 
 Read from some humbler poet, 
 
 Whose songs gushed from his heart, 
 
 As showers from the clouds of summer. 
 Or tears from the eyelids start ; 
 
 Who, through long days of labor, 
 And nights devoid of ease. 
 
 Still heard in his soul the music 
 Of wonderful melodies. 
 
 Such songs have power to quiet 
 
 The restless pulse of care. 
 And come like the benediction 
 
 That follows after prayer. 
 
 Then read from the treasured volume 
 
 The poem of thy choice. 
 And lend to the rhyme of the poet 
 
 The beauty of thy voice. 
 
 And the night shall be filled with music. 
 And the cares, that infest the day. 
 
 Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
 And as silently steal away. 
 
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STALES. 57 
 
 THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. 
 
 L'6teriiit6 est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse 
 ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! 
 jamais! Jamais ! toujours !" 
 
 Jacques Briuaine. 
 
 Somewhat back from the village street 
 Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. 
 Across its antique portico 
 Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw ; 
 And from its station in the hall 6 
 
 An ancient timepiece says to all, — 
 ' ' Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 Half-way up the stairs it stands, 
 
 And points and beckons with its hands lo 
 
 From its case of massive oak, 
 
 Like a monk, who, under his cloak. 
 
 Crosses himself, and sighs, alas ! 
 
 With sorrowful voice to all who pass, — 
 
 ' ' Forever^never ! 15 
 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 By day its voice is low and light ; 
 But in the silent dead of night. 
 Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, 
 
58 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 It echoes along the vacant hall, 20 
 
 Along the ceiling, along the floor, 
 And seems to say, at each chamber-door, — 
 "Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 Through days of sorrow and of mirth, 2& 
 
 Through days of death and days of birth, 
 Through every swift vicissitude 
 Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, 
 And as if, like God, it all things saw, 
 It calmly repeats those words of awe, — Sfr 
 
 "Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 In that mansion used to be 
 Free-hearted Hospitality ; 
 
 His great fires up the chimney roared ; 86 
 
 The stranger feasted at his board ; 
 But, like the skeleton at the feast. 
 That warning timepiece never ceased, — 
 * * Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 40- 
 
 There groups of merry children played, 
 
 There youths and maidens dreaming strayed ; 
 
 O precious hours ! O golden prime. 
 
 And affluence of love and time ! 
 
 Even as a miser counts his gold, 45- 
 
THE OLr CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. 59 
 
 Those hours the ancient timepiece told, — 
 ■ ' Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 From that chamber, clothed in white, 
 
 The bride came forth on her w^edding nigh^ ; 5o 
 
 There, in that silent room belovp-, 
 
 The dead lay in his shroud of snov\r ; 
 
 And in the hush that followed the prayer, 
 
 Was heard the old clock on the stair, — 
 
 ' ' Forever — never ! 55 
 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 All are scattered now and fled, 
 Some are married, some are dead ; 
 And when I ask, with throbs of pain, 
 ' Ah ! when shall they all meet again ? " 60 
 
 As in the days long since gone by, 
 The ancient timepiece makes reply, — 
 ' ' Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 Never here, forever there, 65 
 
 Where all parting, pain, and care. 
 And death, and time shall disappear, — 
 For ever there, but never here ! 
 The horologe of Eternity 
 
 Sayeth this incessantly, — 7o 
 
 ' ' Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
6Q LONGFELLOW, 
 
 THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 
 
 DEVEEEUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD. 
 
 We sat within tlie farm-liouse old, 
 Whose windows, looking o'er the bay. 
 
 Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold. 
 An easy entrance, night and day. 
 
 Not far away we saw the port, 
 
 The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, 
 
 The lighthouse, the dismantled fort. 
 The wooden houses, quaint and brown. 
 
 We sat and talked until the night. 
 Descending, filled the little room ; 
 
 Our faces faded from the sight. 
 Our voices only broke the gloom. 
 
 We spake of many a vanished scene. 
 Of what we once had thought and said, 
 
 Of what had been, and might have been, 
 And who was changed, and who was dead ; 
 
 And all that fills the hearts of friends. 
 When first they feel, with secret pain, 
 
 Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, 
 And never can be one again ; 
 
 The first slight swerving of the heart, 
 That words are powerless to express. 
 
THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 61 
 
 And leave it still unsaid in part^ 
 Or say it in too great excess. 
 
 The very tones in which we spake 25 
 
 Had something strange, I could but mark ; 
 
 The leaves of memory seemed to make 
 A mournful rustling in the dark. 
 
 Oft died the words upon our lips, 
 
 As suddenly, from out the fire 30 
 
 Built of the wreck of stranded ships, 
 
 The flames would leap and then expire. 
 
 And, as their splendor flashed and failed. 
 We thought of wrecks upon the main, 
 
 Of ships dismasted, that were hailed 35 
 
 And sent no answer back again. 
 
 The windows, rattling in their frames, 
 
 The ocean, roaring up the beach, 
 The gusty blast, the bickering flames, 
 
 All mingled vaguely in our speech ; lo 
 
 Until they made themselves a part 
 Of fancies floating through the brain. 
 
 The long-lost ventures of the heart, 
 That send no answers back again. 
 
 O flames that glowed ! O hearts that yearned ! 45 
 
 They were indeed too much akin. 
 The drift-wood fira without that burned, 
 
 The thoughts that burned and glowed within. 
 
62 LONGFELLOW. ' 
 
 EESIGNATION. 
 
 There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
 
 But one dead lamb is there ! 
 There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 
 
 But has one vacant chair ! 
 
 The air is full of farewells to the dying, & 
 
 And mournings for the dead ; 
 The heart of Rachel^ for her children crying, 
 
 Will not be comforted ! 
 
 Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 
 
 jSTot from the ground arise, i(> 
 
 But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
 Assume this dark disguise. 
 
 We see but dimly through the mists and vapors ; 
 
 Amid these earthly damps 
 What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers i& 
 
 May be heaven's distant lamps. 
 
 There is no Death ! What seems so is transition ; 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a, suburb of the life elysian. 
 
 Whose portal we call Death. 20 
 
RESIGN A riON. 63 
 
 She is not dead, — the child of our affection, — 
 
 But gone unto that school 
 Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 
 
 And Christ himself doth rule. 
 
 In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, 25 
 
 By guardian angels led, 
 Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, 
 
 She lives, whom we call dead. 
 
 Day after day we think what she is doing 
 
 In those bright realms of air ; 30 
 
 Year after year, her tender steps pursiiing. 
 Behold her grown more fair. 
 
 Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken 
 
 The bond which nature gives, 
 Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, 35 
 
 May reach her where she lives. 
 
 Not as a child shall we again behold her ; 
 
 For when with raptures wild 
 In OLir embraces we again enfold her, 
 
 She will not be a child ; ^ 
 
 But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion. 
 
 Clothed with celestial grace ; 
 And beautiful Avith all the soul's expansion 
 
 Shall we behold her face. 
 
64 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And though at times impetuous with emotion 45 
 
 And anguish long suppressed, 
 The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, 
 
 That cannot be at rest, — 
 
 We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 
 
 We may not wholly stay ; 5(j 
 
 By silence sanctifying,, not concealing, 
 The grief that must have way, 
 
THE BUILDERS. 
 
 65 
 
 TTTE BUILDEES. 
 
 
 ALTi are architects of Fate, 
 
 
 Working in these walls of Time ; 
 
 
 Some with massive deeds and great, 
 
 
 Some with ornaments of rhyme. 
 
 
 ^ Nothing useless is, or low ; 
 
 5 
 
 Each thing in its place is best ; 
 
 
 And what seems but idle show 
 
 
 Strengthens and supports the rest. 
 
 
 For the structure that we raise. 
 
 
 Time is with materials filled ; 
 
 10 
 
 Our to-days and yesterdays 
 
 
 Are the blocks with which we build. 
 
 
 Truly shape and fashion these ; 
 
 
 Leave no yawning gaps between ; 
 
 
 Think not, because no man sees, 
 
 15 
 
 Such things will remain unseen. 
 
 
 In the elder days of Art, 
 
 
 Builders wrought with greatest care 
 
 
 Each minute and unseen part ; 
 
 
 For the G-ods see everywhere. 
 
 20 
 
66 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Let us do our work as well, 
 Both the unseen and the seen ; 
 
 Make the house, where Gods may dwell. 
 Beautiful, entire, and clean. 
 
 
 
 
 Else our lives are incomplete. 
 Standing in these walls of Time, 
 
 Broken stairways, where the feet 
 Stumble as they seek to climb. 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 Build to-day ;, then, strong and sure. 
 
 With a firm and ample base ; so 
 
 And ascending and secure 
 
 Shall to-morrow find its place. •> 
 
 
 ' 
 
 Thus alone can we attain 
 
 To those turrets, where the eye 
 
 Sees the world as one vast plain. 
 And one boundless reach of sky. 
 
 35 
 
 ,.sii 
 
THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Saint Augustine ! well liast thou said, 
 
 That of our vices we can frame 
 A ladder, if we will but tread 
 
 Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 
 
 All common things, each day's events, 5 
 
 That with the hour begin and end, 
 Our pleasures and our discontents, 
 
 Are rounds bj^ which we may ascend. 
 
 The low desire, the base design. 
 
 That makes another's virtues less ; lo 
 
 The revel of the ruddy wine. 
 
 And all occasions of excess ; 
 
 The longing for ignoble things ; 
 
 The strife for triumph more than truth ; 
 The hardening of the heart, that brings is 
 
 Irreverence for the dreams of youth ; 
 
 All thoughts of ill ; all evil deeds. 
 
 That have their root in thoughts of ill ; 
 
 "Whatever hinders or impedes 
 
 The action of the nobler will ;— 20 
 
 All these must first be trampled down 
 Beneath our feet, if we would gain 
 
68 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 In the bright fields of fair renown 
 The right of eminent domain. 
 
 We have not wings, we cannot soar ; 25- 
 
 But we have feet to scale and climb 
 
 By slow degrees, by more and more, 
 The cloudy summits of our time. 
 
 The mighty pyramids of stone 
 
 That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, 30' 
 
 When nearer seen, and better known, 
 
 Are but gigantic flights of stairs. 
 
 The distant mountains, that uprear 
 
 Their solid bastions to the skies. 
 Are crossed by pathways, that appear 35' 
 
 As we to higher levels rise. 
 
 The heights by great men reached and kept 
 Were not attained b}^ sudden fligbt, 
 
 But they, while their companions slept, 
 
 Were toiling upward in the night. 40 
 
 Standing on what too long we bore 
 
 With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, 
 
 We may discern — vmseen before — 
 A path to higher destinies, 
 
 Nor deem the irrevocable Past 45 
 
 As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 
 If, rising on its wrecks, at last, 
 
 To something nobler we attain. 
 
THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. 69 
 
 THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. 
 
 A MIST was driving down the British Channel, 
 
 The day was just begun, 
 And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, 
 
 Streamed the red autumn sun. 
 
 It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, .■> 
 
 And the white sails of ships ; 
 And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon 
 
 Hailed it with feverish lips. 
 
 Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe, and Dover, 
 
 Were all alert that day, la 
 
 To see the French war-steamers speeding over, 
 AVhen the fog cleared away. 
 
 Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions. 
 
 Their cannon, through the night, 
 Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance. i5 
 
 The sea-coast opposite. 
 
 And now they roared at drum-beat from their statious 
 
 On every citadel ; 
 Each answering each, with morning salutations, 
 
 That all was well. 20 
 
 And down the coast, all taking up the burden, 
 Replied the distant forts. 
 
70 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 As if to summon from his sleep the Warden 
 And Lord of the Cinque Ports. 
 
 Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, 
 
 No drum-beat from the wall, 
 No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure, 
 
 Awaken with its call ! 
 
 No more, surveying with an eye impartial 
 
 The long line of the coast. 
 Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal 
 
 Be seen upon his post ! 
 
 For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, 
 
 In sombre harness mailed, 
 Dreaded of men, and surnamed the Destroyer, 
 
 The rampart wall had scaled. 
 
 He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, 
 
 The dark and silent room, 
 And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper. 
 
 The silence and the gloom. 
 
 He did not pause to parley or dissemble. 
 
 But smote the Warden hoar ; 
 Ah ! what a blow ! that made all England tremble 
 
 And groan from shore to shore. 
 
 Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited, 
 
 The sun rose bright o'erhead ; 
 Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated 
 
 That a great man was dead. 
 
EVANGELINE. 
 
 EVANGELINE. 
 
 A TALE OP ACADIE. 
 
 This is the forest primeval. The murmtiring pines 
 
 and the hemlocks, 
 Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct 
 
 in the twilight, 
 Stand like Driiids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, 
 Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
 
 bosoms. 
 Lond from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neigh- 5 
 
 boring ocean 
 Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
 
 of the forest. 
 
 This is the forest primeval ; but where are the 
 hearts that beneath it 
 
 Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland 
 the voice of the huntsman ? 
 
 Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Aca- 
 dian farmers, — 
 
 Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the lo 
 woodlands, 
 
 Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image 
 of heaven ? 
 
72 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for- 
 ever departed ! 
 
 Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts 
 of October 
 
 Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 
 far o'er the ocean. 
 
 I^aught but tradition remains of the beautiful village 15 
 of Grrand-Pre. 
 
 Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, 
 
 and is patient, 
 Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's 
 
 devotion, 
 Xiist to the mournful tradition, still sung by the pines 
 
 of the forest ; 
 List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of 20 
 
 Miuas, 
 Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
 Lay in the fruitftil valley. Vast meadows stretched to 
 
 the eastward. 
 
E VANGELINE. 73 
 
 •Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks 
 
 without number. 
 Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with 
 
 labor incessant, 
 Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons 25 
 
 the flood-gates 
 ■Opened^ and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er 
 
 the meadows. 
 "West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards 
 
 and cornfields 
 :Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; and away 
 
 to the northward 
 Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the 
 
 mountains 
 Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty so 
 
 Atlantic 
 Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their 
 
 station descended. 
 There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian 
 
 village. 
 Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and 
 
 of hemlock. 
 Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign 
 
 of the Henries. 
 Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows ; and 35 
 
 gables projecting 
 Over the basement below protected and shaded the 
 
 doorway. 
 
74 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when 
 
 brightly the sunset 
 Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on 
 
 the chimneys, 
 Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in 
 
 kirtles 
 Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the 40 
 
 golden 
 Flax for the gossiping looms, whose ncisy shuttles 
 
 within doors 
 Mingled their sounds with the whir of the wheels 
 
 and the songs of the maidens. 
 Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and 
 
 the children 
 Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended 
 
 to bless them. 
 Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose 45 
 
 matrons and maidens, 
 Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate 
 
 welcome. 
 Then came the laborers home from the field, and 
 
 serenely the sun sank 
 Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from 
 
 the belfry 
 Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of 
 
 the village 
 Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense 5» 
 
 ascending, 
 
EVANGELINE. 75 
 
 Rose fi'om a hundred hearths, the homes of peace 
 
 and contentment. 
 Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian 
 
 farmers, — 
 Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were 
 
 they free from 
 Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice 
 
 of repuhlics. 
 Neither looks had they to their doors, nor bars to their 55 
 
 windows ; 
 But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts 
 
 of the owners ; 
 There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in 
 
 abundance. 
 
 Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the 
 
 Basin of Minas, 
 Benedict Belief ontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand- 
 
 Pre, 
 Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing so 
 
 his household, 
 Gentle Evangeline lived, his chUd, and the pride of the 
 
 village. 
 Stal worth and stately in form was the man of seventy 
 
 winters ; 
 Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with 
 
 snow-flakes ; 
 
76 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as 
 
 brown as the oak-leaves. 
 Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen 65 
 
 summers. 
 Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the 
 
 thorn by the wayside, 
 Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown 
 
 shade of her tresses ! 
 Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that 
 
 feed in the meadows. 
 When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at 
 
 noontide 
 Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the 70 
 
 maiden. 
 Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell 
 
 from its turret 
 Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with 
 
 his hyssop 
 Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon 
 
 them, 
 Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of 
 
 beads and her missal, 
 Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and 75 
 
 the ear-rings. 
 Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as 
 
 an heirloom. 
 Handed down from mother to child, through long 
 
 generations. 
 
EVANGELINE. 77 
 
 BiTt a celestial briglitness — a more ethereal beauty — 
 Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after 
 
 confession. 
 Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction so 
 
 upon her. 
 When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of 
 
 exquisite music. 
 
 Firmly bu0.ded with rafters of oak, the house of the 
 
 farmer 
 Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea ; and a 
 
 shady 
 Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreath- 
 ing around it. 
 Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath ; and 85 
 
 a footpath 
 Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the 
 
 meadow. 
 Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a 
 
 penthouse, 
 Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by th<» 
 
 roadside. 
 Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of 
 
 Mary. 
 Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well 90 
 
 with its moss-grown 
 Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for 
 
 the horses. 
 
78 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were 
 
 the harns and the farm-yard. 
 There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antiqvie 
 
 ploughs and the harrows ; 
 There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his 
 
 feathered seraglio, 
 Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with 95 
 
 the selfsame 
 Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent 
 
 Peter, 
 Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a vil- 
 
 age. In each one 
 Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a 
 
 staircase, 
 Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn- 
 loft. 
 There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and inno- loo 
 
 cent inmates 
 Murmuring ever of love ; while above in the variant 
 
 breezes 
 Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of 
 
 mutation. 
 
 Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer 
 of Grand-Pr6 
 Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his 
 household. 
 
EVANGELINE. 79 
 
 Many a youtii, as he knelt in the church and opened i05 
 
 his missal, 
 Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest 
 
 devotion ; 
 Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem 
 
 of her garment ! 
 Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness 
 
 befriended. 
 And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of 
 
 her footsteps. 
 Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the no 
 
 knocker of iron : 
 Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the 
 
 village. 
 Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he 
 
 whispered 
 Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the 
 
 music. 
 But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was 
 
 welcora.e ; 
 G-abriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the black- lis 
 
 smith. 
 Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of 
 
 all men ; 
 For, since the birth of time, throughout all ages and 
 
 nations, 
 Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the 
 
 people. 
 
80 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from 
 
 earliest childhood 
 Grew up together as brother and sister; and father 120 
 
 Felician, 
 Priest and pedagogue both in the villajie, had taught 
 
 them their letters 
 Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the 
 
 church and the plain-song. 
 But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson 
 
 completed, 
 Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the 
 
 blacksmith. 
 There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to 125 
 
 behold him 
 Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a 
 
 plaything, 
 Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire 
 
 of the cart-wheel 
 Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of 
 
 cinders. 
 Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering 
 
 darkness 
 Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every v^ 
 
 cranny and crevice, 
 "Warm by the forge within they watched tlie laboring 
 
 bellows, 
 And as its panting ceased, and the sparhs expired in 
 
 tlie ashes, 
 
EVANGELINE. 81 
 
 Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into 
 
 the chapel. 
 Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the 
 
 eagle, 
 Down the hillside hounding, they glided away o'er the iss 
 
 meadow. 
 Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on 
 
 the rafters, 
 Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which 
 
 the swallow 
 
 Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of 
 
 its fledglings ; 
 Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the 
 
 swallow ! 
 Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer i40 
 
 were children. 
 He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of 
 
 the morning. 
 Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened 
 
 thought into action. 
 She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a 
 
 woman. 
 ' ' Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called ; for that 
 
 was the sunshine 
 Which, as the farmers believed, would load their 145 
 
 orchards with apples ; 
 She too would bring to her hushand's house delight 
 
 and ahundance, 
 Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 
 
82 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now had the season returned, when the nights grow 
 
 colder and longer, 
 And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters. 
 Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from i5o 
 
 the ice-bound, 
 Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical 
 
 islands. 
 Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with the winds 
 
 of September 
 Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with 
 
 the angel. 
 All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement. 
 Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded 155 
 
 their honey 
 Till the hives overflowed ; and the Indian hunters 
 
 asserted 
 Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the 
 
 foxes. 
 Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that 
 
 beautiful season, 
 Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of 
 
 All-Saints ! 
 Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light ; 160 
 
 and the landscape 
 Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood. 
 
E VANGELINE. 83 
 
 Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless 
 
 heart of the ocean 
 Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in 
 
 harmony blended. 
 Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the 
 
 farm-yards, 
 "Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of 165 
 
 pigeons, 
 All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and 
 
 the great sun 
 Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapors 
 
 around him ; 
 While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and 
 
 yellow, 
 Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree 
 
 of the forest 
 Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with i70 
 
 mantles and jewels. 
 
 Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection 
 and stillness. 
 
 Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twi- 
 light descending 
 
 Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the 
 herds to the homestead. 
 
 Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks 
 on each other, 
 
84 LONGFELLOW, 
 
 And with, their nostrils distended inhaling the fresh- 17& 
 
 ness of evening. 
 Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful 
 
 heifer, 
 Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that 
 
 waved from her collar. 
 Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human 
 
 affection. 
 Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks 
 
 from the seaside, 
 Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them iso 
 
 followed the watch-dog, 
 Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of 
 
 his instinct, 
 Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and 
 
 superbly 
 Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the 
 
 stragglers ; 
 Eegent of flocks was he when the .shepherd slept; 
 
 their protector. 
 When from the forest at night, through the starry i85 
 
 silence, the wolves howled. 
 Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from 
 
 the marshes, 
 Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its 
 
 odor. 
 Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
 
 and their fetlocks. 
 
EVANGELINE. 85"' 
 
 While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- 
 derous saddles, 
 Painted with hrilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels 190- 
 
 of crimson. 
 Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 
 
 blossoms. 
 Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
 
 udders 
 Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
 
 cadence 
 Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets 
 
 descended. 
 Lowing of cattle and peals of lavighter were heard in i9& 
 
 the farm-yard, 
 Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into 
 
 stillness ; 
 Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 
 
 barn-doors, 
 Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was 
 
 silent. 
 
 In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idlj'" 
 
 the farmer 
 Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames Wfs 
 
 and the smoke- wreaths 
 Straggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind 
 
 him, 
 
•86 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures 
 
 fantastic, 
 Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into 
 
 darkness. 
 Paces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm- 
 chair 
 Xiaughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates 205 
 
 on the dresser 
 CJaught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies 
 
 the sunshine. 
 Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of 
 
 Christmas, 
 Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before 
 
 him 
 Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian 
 
 vineyards. 
 •Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline 210 
 
 seated, 
 :Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in the corner 
 
 behind her. 
 Silent awhile ware its treadles, at rest was its diligent 
 
 shuttle, 
 While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the 
 
 drone of a bagpipe, 
 Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments 
 
 together. 
 As in a church, when the chant of the choir at inter- 215 
 
 vals ceases, 
 
EVANGELINE. 8T 
 
 Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or Avords of the priest 
 
 at the altar, 
 So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion 
 
 the clock clicked. 
 
 Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, 
 
 suddenly lifted. 
 Sounded the wooden latch, and tha door swung back 
 
 on its hinges. 
 Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil 220' 
 
 the blacksmith, 
 And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was 
 
 with him, 
 "Welcome ! " the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps 
 
 paused on the threshold, 
 ' ' Welcome, Basil, my friend ! Come, take thy place 
 
 on the settle 
 Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty 
 
 without thee ; 
 Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of 225. 
 
 tobacco ; 
 Never so much thyself art thou as when through the 
 
 curling 
 Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial 
 
 face gleams 
 Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist 
 
 of the marches." 
 
•88 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Then, with, a smile of content, thus answered Basil the 
 
 blacksmith, 
 Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire- 230 
 
 side : — 
 "Benedict Bellefontaine, thou has ever thy jest and 
 
 thy ballad ! 
 Ever in cheerfuUest mood art thou, when others are 
 
 filled with 
 Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before 
 
 them. 
 -Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up 
 
 a horseshoe." 
 Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline 235 
 
 brought him. 
 And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he 
 
 slowly continued : — 
 ' ' Four days now are passed since the English ships at 
 
 their anchors 
 Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon 
 
 pointed against us. 
 What their design may be is unknown ; but all are 
 
 commanded 
 ■On the morrow to meet in the church, where his --'u 
 
 Majesty's mandate 
 Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas ! in the 
 
 mean time 
 Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the 
 
 people. " 
 
EVANGELINE. 89 
 
 Then made answer the farmer : ' ' Perhaps some 
 
 friendlier purpose 
 Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the har- 
 vests in England 
 By vintimely rains or untimelier heat have been 245 
 
 blighted, 
 And from our bursting barns they would feed their 
 
 cattle and children." 
 ■"Not so thinketh the folk in the vUlage," said, 
 
 warmly, the blacksmith. 
 Shaking his head, as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, 
 
 he continued : — 
 ■"Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejoiir, nor 
 
 Port Royal. 
 Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 250 
 
 outskirts, 
 Waiting with anxious heart the dubious fate of to- 
 morrow. 
 Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons 
 
 of all kinds ; 
 Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the 
 
 scythe of the mower." 
 Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial 
 
 farmer : — 
 ^* Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks 255 
 
 and our cornfields. 
 Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the 
 
 ocean, 
 
90 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's- 
 
 cannon. 
 Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow 
 
 of sorrow 
 Fall on this house and hearth ; for this is the night of 
 
 the contract. 
 Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of 269 
 
 the village 
 Strongly have built them and wall ; and, breaking the 
 
 glebe round about them. 
 Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for 
 
 a twelvemonth. 
 Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and 
 
 inkhorn. 
 Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our 
 
 children ? " 
 As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 2M 
 
 her lover's. 
 Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father 
 
 had spoken, 
 And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary 
 
 entered. 
 
 ni. 
 Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the 
 
 ocean. 
 Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the 
 
 notary public; 
 
E VANGELINE. 
 
 91 
 
 Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken 
 
 floss of the 270 
 
 maize, hung 
 
 
 Over his shoulders ; his forohend was 
 
 high ; and 
 
 glasses with horn bows 
 
 
 Sat astride on his nose, with a look 
 
 of wisdom 
 
 supernal. 
 
 
 Father of twenty children was he, and 
 
 more than a 
 
 hundred 
 
 
 Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his 
 
 great watch tick. 
 
 
 Four long years in the times of the 
 
 war had he 275 
 
 languished a captive, 
 
 
 Suffering much in an old French fort as 
 
 the friend of 
 
 the English. 
 
 
 Now, thovigh warier grown^ without 
 
 all guile or 
 
 suspicion, 
 
 
 Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and 
 
 simple, and 
 
 childlike. 
 
 
 He was beloved by all, and most of 
 
 all by the 
 
 children ; 
 
 
 For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the 28O 
 
 forest, 
 
 
 And of the goblin that came in the night to water the 
 
 horses, 
 
 
 And of tho white Letiche, the ghost of 
 
 a child who 
 
 unchristened 
 
 
 Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers 
 
 of children ; 
 
 
92 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the 
 
 stable, 
 And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a 285 
 
 nutshell. 
 And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover 
 
 and horseshoes, 
 With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the 
 
 village. 
 Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the 
 
 blacksmith, 
 Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending 
 
 his right hand, 
 "Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, "thou hast heard ago 
 
 the talk in the village, 
 And, perchance, canst tell us some news of the3e ships 
 
 and their errand." 
 Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary 
 
 public, — 
 "Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never 
 
 the wiser ; 
 And what their errand may be I know not better than 
 
 others. 
 Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil inten- 295 
 
 tion 
 Brings them here, for we are at peace ; and why then 
 
 molest us ? " 
 "God's name!" shouted the liasty and somewhat 
 
 irascible blacksmith ; 
 
EVANGELINE. 93 
 
 ""Must we in all things look for the how, and the 
 
 why, and the wherefore ? 
 Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the 
 
 strongest ! " 
 But, without heeding his warmth, continued the 300 
 
 notary public, — 
 ^'Man is unjust, but God is just ; and finally justice 
 Triumphs ; and well I remember a story, that often 
 
 consoled me. 
 When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port 
 
 E,oyal." 
 This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to 
 
 repeat it 
 When his neighbors complained that any injustice 305 
 
 was done them. 
 ■"Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer 
 
 remember, 
 Raised aloft on a column^ a brazen statue of Justice 
 Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its 
 
 left hand. 
 And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice 
 
 presided 
 Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes 3io 
 
 of the people. 
 Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of 
 
 the balance, 
 Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun- 
 shine above them. 
 
94 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 But in the course of time the laws of the land were 
 
 corrvipted ; 
 Might took the place of right, and the weak wer^ 
 
 oppressed, and the mighty 
 Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 3i5 
 
 man's palace 
 That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a 
 
 suspicion 
 Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house- 
 hold. 
 She, after form of trial condemned to die on tlie 
 
 scaffold, 
 Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of 
 
 Justice. 
 As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit 3->(> 
 
 ascended, 
 Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the 
 
 thunder 
 Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from 
 
 its left hand 
 Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of 
 
 the balance, 
 And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a 
 
 magpie, 
 Into whose clay -built walls the necklace of pearls was 325 
 
 inwoven." 
 Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was 
 
 ended, the blacksmith 
 
EVANGELINE. 95 
 
 Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth 
 
 no language ; 
 AU his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, 
 
 as the vapors 
 Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the 
 
 winter. 
 
 Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the 330 
 
 table, 
 Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with 
 
 home-brewed 
 Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the 
 
 village of Grand-Pre ; 
 While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and 
 
 inkhorn. 
 Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the 
 
 parties. 
 Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and 335 
 
 in cattle. 
 Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were 
 
 completed. 
 And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the 
 
 margin. 
 Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the 
 
 table 
 Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver ; 
 And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the 340 
 
 bridegroom, 
 
96 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their 
 
 welfare. 
 Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and 
 
 departed, 
 While in silence the others sat and mused by the fire- 
 side. 
 Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its 
 
 corner. 
 Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention the 345 
 
 old men 
 Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuvre, 
 Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was 
 
 made in the king-row. 
 Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's 
 
 embrasure, 
 Sat the lovars, and whispered together, beholding the 
 
 moon rise 
 Over the pallid sea and the silvery mists of the 350 
 
 meadows. 
 Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, 
 Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the 
 
 Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from 
 the belfry 
 Kang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and 
 straightway 
 
E VANGELINE. 97 
 
 Kose the guests and departed ; and silence reigned in 355 
 
 the household. 
 Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the 
 
 door-step 
 Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with 
 
 gladness. 
 CareMly then were covered the embers that glowed on 
 
 the hearth-stone, 
 And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the 
 
 farmer. 
 Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline 360 
 
 followed. 
 Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the dark- 
 ness, 
 Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the 
 
 maiden. 
 Silent she passed the hall, and entered the door of her 
 
 chamber. 
 Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, 
 
 and its clothes-press 
 Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were care- S65 
 
 fully folded 
 Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline 
 
 woven. 
 This was the precious dower she would bring to her 
 
 husband in marriage. 
 Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill 
 
 as a housewife. 
 
98 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and 
 
 radiant moonlight 
 Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, 370 
 
 till the heart of the maiden 
 Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides 
 
 of the ocean. 
 Ah ! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she 
 
 stood with 
 Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her 
 
 chamber ! 
 Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the 
 
 orchard, 
 Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her 375 
 
 lamp and her shadow. 
 Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling 
 
 of sadness 
 Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in 
 
 the moonlight 
 Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a 
 
 moment. 
 And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely 
 
 the moon pass 
 Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow 380 
 
 her footsteps, 
 As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered 
 
 with Hagar ! 
 
EVANGELINE. 99 
 
 IV. 
 
 Pleasantly rose next morn the cun on the village of 
 
 Grand-Pre. 
 Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of 
 
 Minas, 
 Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were 
 
 riding at anchor. * 
 
 Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous 385 
 
 labor 
 Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates 
 
 of the morning. 
 Now from the country around, from the farms and 
 
 neighboring hamlets. 
 Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian 
 
 peasants. 
 Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the 
 
 young folk 
 Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous 390 
 
 meadows, 
 Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels 
 
 in the greensward, 
 Crroup after group appeared, and joined, or passed on 
 
 the highway. 
 Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were 
 
 silenced. 
 Thronged were the streets with people ; and noisy 
 
 groups at the house-doors 
 
100 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped 89& 
 
 together. 
 Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and 
 
 feasted ; 
 For with this simple people, who lived like brother& 
 
 together. 
 All things were held in common, and what one had 
 
 was another's. 
 Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more 
 
 abundant : 
 For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father ; 40O 
 Bright was her face with smiles, and words of wel- 
 come and gladness 
 Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she 
 
 gave it. 
 
 Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the 
 orchard, 
 
 Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of be- 
 troth al. 
 
 There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the 405 
 notary seated ; 
 
 There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the black- 
 smith. 
 
 Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and 
 the beehives, 
 
 Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of 
 hearts and of waistcoats. 
 
EVANGELINE. 101s 
 
 Shadow and light from the leaves alternatelj^ played 
 
 on his snow-white 
 Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the jolly face of 4io^ 
 
 the fiddler 
 Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown 
 
 from the embers. 
 Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his 
 
 fiddle, 
 Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de 
 
 Dvnquerque, 
 And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the 
 
 mnsic. 
 Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying ii&- 
 
 dances 
 Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the 
 
 meadows ; 
 Old folk and young together, and children mingled 
 
 among them. 
 Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's 
 
 daughter ! 
 Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the 
 
 blacksmith ! 
 
 So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a 420' 
 summons sonorous 
 Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows 
 a drum beat. 
 
i02 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Thronged erelong was the church with men. With- 
 out, in the churchyard, 
 Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and 
 
 hung on the headstones 
 •Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from 
 
 the forest. 
 "Then came the guard from the ships, and marching 425 
 
 proudly among them 
 Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant 
 
 clangor 
 Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling 
 
 and casement, — 
 Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous 
 
 portal 
 Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 
 
 the soldiers. 
 Then uprose their commander, and spake from the 430 
 
 steps of the altar, 
 'Holding aloft in his hands, with Its seals, the royal 
 
 commission. 
 "You are convened this day," he said, "by his Maj- 
 esty's orders. 
 "Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have 
 
 answered his kindnejs, 
 Xet your own hearts reply ! To my natural make and 
 
 my temper 
 3'ainful the task is I do, which to you I know must be 435 
 
 grievous. 
 
EVANGELINE. 10:5- 
 
 Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of oui 
 
 monarcb ; 
 Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle 
 
 of all kinds 
 Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves 
 
 from this province 
 Be transported to other lands. God grant you may 
 
 dwell there 
 Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable 440 
 
 people ! 
 Prisoners now I declare you ; for such is his Majesty's 
 
 pleasure ! " 
 As, when the air is serene in sultry solstice of 
 
 summer, 
 Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 
 
 hailstones 
 Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters 
 
 his windows, 
 Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch 445. 
 
 from the house-roofs, 
 Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their en- 
 closures ; 
 So on the hearts of the people descended the words of 
 
 the speaker. 
 Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and 
 
 then rose 
 Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and 
 
 anger, 
 
H04 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to 450 
 
 tlie door- way. 
 Yain was the hope of escape ; and cries and fierce 
 
 imprecations 
 iRang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the 
 
 heads of the others 
 Hose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the 
 
 blacksmith, 
 As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billow3. 
 Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 455 
 
 wUdly he shouted, — 
 "Down with the tyrants of England! we never have 
 
 sworn them allegiance ! 
 DeCvth to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our 
 
 homes and our harvests ! " 
 More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand 
 
 of a soldier 
 Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to 
 
 the pavement. 
 
 In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry con- 460 
 
 tention, 
 Lo ! the door of the chancel opened, and Father 
 
 Felician 
 Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of 
 
 the altar. 
 Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed 
 
 into silence 
 
EVANGELINE. 105 
 
 All that clamorous throng ; and thus he spake to his 
 people ; 
 
 Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents measured 435 
 and mournful 
 
 Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the 
 clock strikes. 
 
 •^ ' What is this that ye do, my children ? what mad- 
 ness has seized you ? 
 
 Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and 
 taught you, 
 
 ]Srot in word alone, but in deed, to love one an- 
 other ! 
 
 Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers 470 
 and privations ? 
 
 Eave you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and for- 
 giveness ? 
 
 This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would 
 you profane it 
 
 Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with 
 hatred ? 
 
 Xo ! where the crucified Christ from His cross is 
 gazing upon you ! 
 
 See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy 475 
 compassion ! 
 
 Hark ! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ' 
 Father, forgive them ! ' 
 
 Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked 
 assail us, 
 
106 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Let us repeat it now, and say, ' O Father, forgive 
 
 them ! ' " 
 Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts 
 
 of his people 
 Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the pas- 48» 
 
 sionate outbreak. 
 While they repeated his prayer, and said, ' ' Father,. 
 
 forgive them ! " 
 
 Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed 
 
 from the altar. 
 Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the 
 
 people responded, 
 Not with their lips alone, but their hearts ; and the 
 
 Ave Maria 
 Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, 485 
 
 with devotion translated, 
 Bose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to 
 
 heaven. 
 
 Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of 
 
 ill, and on all sides 
 Wandered, wailing, from house to hor.se the women 
 
 and children. 
 Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her 
 
 right hand 
 Shielding her eyes from the level raj^s of the sun, that, 400 
 
 descending, 
 
EVANGELINE. 107 
 
 Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, 
 
 and roofed each 
 Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned 
 
 its windows. 
 Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on 
 
 the table ; 
 There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant 
 
 with wild-flowers ; 
 There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh 495 
 
 brought from the dairy, 
 And, at the head of the board, the great arm-chair of 
 
 the farmer. 
 Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the 
 
 sunset 
 Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambro- 
 sial meadows. 
 Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had 
 
 fallen. 
 And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial 500 
 
 ascended, — 
 Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, 
 
 and patience ! 
 Then, all-forgetful of self, she wandered into the 
 
 village, 
 Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of 
 
 the women, 
 As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they 
 
 departed, 
 
108 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Urged by their houseliold cares, and the weary feet of 505 
 their children. 
 
 Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmer- 
 ing vapors 
 
 Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descend- 
 ing from Sinai. 
 
 Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus 
 sounded. 
 
 Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evange- 
 line lingered. 
 All was silent within ; and in vain at the door and the 5io 
 
 the windows 
 Stood she, and listened and looked, till, overcome by 
 
 emotion, 
 ' ' Gabriel ! " cried she aloud with tremulous voice ; but 
 
 no answer 
 Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier 
 
 grave of the living. 
 Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house 
 
 of her father. 
 Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was 5i5 
 
 the supper untasted, 
 Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with 
 
 phantoms of terror. 
 Sadljr echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her 
 
 chamber. 
 
EVANGELINE. 109 
 
 In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate 
 
 rain fall 
 Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-trcc Ly 
 
 the window. 
 Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice o.r the 520 
 
 echoing thnnder 
 Told her thar God was in heaven, and governed the 
 
 world he created ! 
 Then she rememhered the tale she had heard of the 
 
 justice of Heaven ; 
 Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully 
 
 slumbered till morning. 
 
 Four times the sun had risen and set ; and now on 
 the fifth day 
 
 Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the 525 
 farm-house. 
 
 Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful pro- 
 cession, 
 
 Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the 
 Acadian women, 
 
 Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to 
 the sea-shore, 
 
 Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their 
 dwellings, 
 
110 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Ere they were sTrat from sight by the winding road 530 
 and the woodland. 
 
 Close at their sides their children ran^ and urged on 
 the oxen. 
 
 "While in their little hands they clasped some frag- 
 ments of play things. 
 
 Thns to the G-aspereau's mouth they hurried ; and 
 
 there on the sea-beach 
 Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the 
 
 peasants. 
 All day long between the shore and the ships did the 535 
 
 boats ply ; 
 All day long the wains came laboring down from the 
 
 village. 
 Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his 
 
 setting, 
 Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums fx'om 
 
 the churchyard. 
 Thither the women and children thronged. On a 
 
 sudden the church-doors 
 Opened, and fortli came the guard, and marching in 540 
 
 gloomy procession 
 Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian 
 
 farmers. 
 Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes 
 
 and their country. 
 
EVANGELINE. Ill 
 
 Sing as they go, and in singing forgat they are weary 
 
 and wayworn, 
 So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants 
 
 descended 
 Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives 545 
 
 and their daughters. 
 Foremost the young men came ; and, raising together 
 
 their voices, 
 Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic 
 
 Missions : — 
 " Sacred heart of the Saviour ! inexhaustible 
 
 fountain ! 
 Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission 
 
 and patience ! " 
 Then the old men, as they marched, and the women 550 
 
 that stood by the wayside 
 Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sun- 
 shine above them 
 Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits 
 
 departed. 
 
 Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in 
 
 silence. 
 Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of 
 
 affliction, — 
 Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession 555 
 
 approached her, 
 
112 LON"! FELLOW. 
 
 And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 
 
 Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to 
 meet him, 
 
 Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his 
 shoulder, and whispered, — 
 
 "Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we love one an- 
 other 
 
 Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances 560 
 may happen ! " 
 
 Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, 
 for her father 
 
 Saw she slowly advancing. Alas ! how changed was 
 his aspect ! 
 
 Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from 
 his ej^e, and his footstep 
 
 Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart 
 in his bosom. 
 
 But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and 56.5- 
 embraced him, 
 
 Speaking words of endearment where Avords of comfort 
 availed not. 
 
 Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mourn- 
 ful procession. 
 
 There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of 
 embarking. 
 Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusioni 
 
EVANGELINE. 113 
 
 Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers. 570 
 
 too late, saw their children 
 Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest 
 
 entreaties. 
 So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried. 
 While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with 
 
 her father. 
 Half the task was not done when the sun went down, 
 
 and the twilight 
 Deepened and darkened around ; and in haste the 575 
 
 refluent ocean 
 Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the 
 
 sand-beach 
 Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the 
 
 slippery sea-weed. 
 Farther back in the midst of the household goods and 
 
 the wagons, 
 Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle, 
 All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near 58o 
 
 them. 
 Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian 
 
 farmers. 
 Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 
 
 ocean, 
 Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and 
 
 leaving 
 Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the 
 
 sailors. 
 
114 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from ts&i 
 
 their pastures ; 
 Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk 
 
 from their udders ; 
 Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars 
 
 of the farm-yard, — 
 Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand 
 
 of the milkmaid. 
 Silence reigned in the streets ; from the church no 
 
 Angelus sounded, 
 Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights 590 
 
 from the windows. 
 
 But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had 
 
 been kindled, 
 Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from 
 
 wrecks in the tempest. 
 Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were 
 
 gathered. 
 Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the 
 
 crying of children. 
 Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in 595 
 
 his parish. 
 Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing 
 
 and cheering. 
 Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea- 
 shore. 
 
EVANGELINE. 115 
 
 Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat 
 
 with her father, 
 And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old 
 
 man, 
 Haggard and hollow and wan, and without cither 600 
 
 thought or emotion. 
 E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have 
 
 been taken. 
 Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to 
 
 cheer him, 
 Vainlj^ offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked 
 
 not, he spake not. 
 But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering 
 
 fire-light. 
 ■" Benedicts ! " murmured the priest, in tones of com- 605 
 
 passion. 
 More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, 
 
 and his accents 
 Paltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child 
 
 on a threshold. 
 Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful pres- 
 ence of sorrow. 
 Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of 
 
 the maiden. 
 Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above 6io 
 
 them 
 Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and 
 sorrows of mortals. 
 
116 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together 
 in silence. 
 
 Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 
 
 the blood-red 
 Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the 
 
 horizon 
 Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain 615. 
 
 and meadow, 
 Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 
 
 shadows together. 
 Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of 
 
 the village, 
 Gleumed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that 
 
 lay in the roadstead. 
 Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame 
 
 were 
 Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the 62© 
 
 quivering hands of a martyr. 
 Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning, 
 
 thatch, and uplifting. 
 Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a 
 
 hundred house-tops 
 Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame inter- 
 mingled. 
 
 These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the 
 shore and on shipboard. 
 
E VANGELINE. 117 
 
 Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their 62J 
 
 ang-uish, 
 " We shall behold no more our homes in the village of 
 
 Grand-Pre ! " 
 Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the- 
 
 farm-yards, 
 Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon the lowing 
 
 of cattle 
 Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs 
 
 interrupted. 
 Then rose a sound of dread, siich as startles the sleep- 630' 
 
 ing encampments 
 Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the 
 
 Nebraska, 
 "When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the- 
 
 speed of the whirlwind, 
 Or the loud bellowing herds oi buffaloes rush to the 
 
 river. 
 Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the 
 
 herds and the horses 
 Broke through their folds and fences, and madly 635: 
 
 rushed o'er the meadows. 
 
 Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the 
 priest and the maiden 
 Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened- 
 
 before them ; 
 
118 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And as they turned at lengtli to speak to their silent 
 
 companion, 
 Xio ! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad 
 
 on the sea-shore 
 Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had de- 640 
 
 parted. 
 Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the 
 
 maiden 
 Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her 
 
 terror. 
 Then in a swoon she sank, and laj^ with her head on 
 
 his bosom. 
 Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious 
 
 slumber ; 
 And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a 645 
 
 multitude near her. 
 Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully 
 
 gazing upon her, 
 Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest com- 
 passion. 
 Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the 
 
 landscape. 
 Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces 
 
 around her, 
 And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering 6oO 
 
 senses. 
 Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the 
 
 people, — 
 
EVANGELINE. llO 
 
 "Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier 
 
 season 
 Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land 
 
 of our exile. 
 Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the 
 
 churchyard. " 
 Such were the words of the priest. And there in r.5& 
 
 haste by the sea-side. 
 Having the glare of the burning village for funeral 
 
 torches. 
 But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of 
 
 Grand-Pre. 
 And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of 
 
 sorrow, 
 Lo ! with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast 
 
 congregation, 
 Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its rocr with 9m 
 
 the dirges. 
 'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste 
 
 of the ocean, 
 With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and 
 
 hurrying landward. 
 Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of 
 
 embarking ; 
 And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the 
 
 harbor. 
 Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the 665 
 
 village in ruins. 
 
■120 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 Many a weary year had passed since the burning of 
 
 Grand-Pre, 
 "When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, 
 Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into 
 
 exile, 
 Exile without an end, and without an example in 
 
 story. 
 Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed ; 670 
 Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the 
 
 wind from the northeast 
 Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the 
 
 Banks of Newfoundland. 
 Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from 
 
 city to city, 
 From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 
 
 savannas, — 
 From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where -jTn 
 
 the Father of Waters 
 Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to 
 
 the ocean, 
 I>eep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 
 
 mammoth. 
 
E VANGELINE. 121 
 
 friends they sought and homes ; and many, despair- 
 ing, heart-broken, 
 
 Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend 
 nor a fireside. 
 
 Written their historj' stands on tablets of stone in the 680 
 churchyards. 
 
 Xiong among them was seen a maiden who waited and 
 wandered, 
 
 Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all 
 things. 
 
 Pair was she and young ; but, alas ! before her ex- 
 tended, 
 
 Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its 
 pathway 
 
 Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and 685 
 suffered before her, 
 
 Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and 
 abandoned. 
 
 As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is 
 marked by 
 
 Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in 
 the sunshine. 
 
 Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, 
 unfinished ; 
 
 As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- 690 
 shine, 
 
 Suddenly paused in the sky, and fading, slowly de- 
 scended 
 
122 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 
 Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the 
 
 fever within her, 
 Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of 
 
 the spirit, 
 She would commence again her endless search and 69& 
 
 endeavor ; 
 Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the 
 
 crosses and tombstones, 
 Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps 
 
 in its bosom 
 He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber 
 
 beside him. 
 Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper, 
 Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her for- too 
 
 ward. 
 Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her 
 
 beloved and known him, 
 But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten. 
 "Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said; "Oh yes! we 
 
 have seen him. 
 He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone 
 
 to the prairies ; 
 Ooureurs-des-Bois are they, and famous hunters and 705 
 
 trappers. " 
 ' ' Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " said others ; "Oh j-es ! we 
 
 have seen him. 
 He is a Voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana.'* 
 
EVANGELINE. 123 
 
 Then would they say, "Dear child! why dream and 
 
 wait for him longer? 
 Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel? others 
 Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as 7io 
 
 loyal ? 
 Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has 
 
 loved thee 
 Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy hand and be 
 
 happy ! 
 Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's 
 
 tresses. " 
 Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadlj^, 
 
 " I cannot ! 
 Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, 7i5 
 
 and not elsewhere. 
 For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illu- 
 mines the pathway, 
 Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in 
 
 darkness." 
 Thereupon the priest, her friend and father-confessor. 
 Said, with a smile, ' ' daughter ! thy God thus 
 
 speaketh within thee ! 
 Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was 720 
 
 wasted ; 
 If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters 
 
 returning 
 Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full 
 
 of refreshment ; 
 
124 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 That whicli the fountain sends forth returns again to 
 
 the fountain. 
 Patience ; accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy 
 
 work of a-fection ! 
 Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance 725 
 
 is godlike. 
 Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart 
 
 is made godlike, 
 Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more 
 
 wortliy of heaven ! " 
 Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored 
 
 and waited. 
 Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the 
 
 ocean, 
 But with its sound there was mingled a voice that 730 
 
 whispered, " Despair not ! " 
 Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless 
 
 discomfort, 
 Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of 
 
 existence. 
 Let me essaj'', Muse ! to follow the wanderer's foot- 
 steps ; — 
 Not through each devious path, each changeful year 
 
 of existence ; 
 But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through 735 
 
 the valley : 
 Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of 
 
 its water 
 
EVANGELINE. 125 
 
 Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals 
 
 only ; 
 Tlien drawing nearer its banks, tiirough sylvan glooms 
 
 that conceal it, 
 Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous 
 
 murmur ; 
 Happy, at length, if he find the spot where it reaches 7io 
 
 an outlet. 
 
 II. 
 
 It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful 
 River, 
 
 Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the 
 Wabash, 
 
 Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Missis- 
 sippi, 
 
 Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian 
 boatmen. 
 
 It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, from the 745 
 shipwrecked 
 
 Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating to- 
 gether, 
 
 Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common 
 misfortune ; 
 
 Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or 
 by hearsay. 
 
126 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Sought for their kith and their kin among the few- 
 acred farmers 
 On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Ope- Tflo 
 
 lousas. 
 With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the 
 
 Father Felician. 
 Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness 
 
 sombre witli forests, 
 Day after day they glided adown the turbulent 
 
 river ; 
 Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on 
 
 its borders. 
 Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, 755 
 
 where plumelike 
 Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept 
 
 with the current, 
 Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand- 
 bars 
 Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of 
 
 their margin. 
 Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of 
 
 pelicans waded. 
 Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the 760 
 
 river. 
 Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant 
 
 gardens, 
 Stood the houses of planters, with negro-cabins and 
 
 dove-cots. 
 
EVANGELINE. 127 
 
 They were approaching the region where reigns per- 
 petual summer, 
 Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of 
 
 orange and citron, 
 Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the ecst- 765 
 
 ward. 
 They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering 
 
 the Bayou of Plaquemine, 
 Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious 
 
 waters, 
 Which, like a network of steel, extended in every 
 
 direction. 
 Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of 
 
 the cypress 
 Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid- 770 
 
 air 
 Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient 
 
 cathedrals. 
 Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by 
 
 the herons 
 Home to their roosts in the cedar -trees returning at 
 
 sunset, 
 Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac 
 
 laughter. 
 Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed 775 
 
 on the water. 
 Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustain- 
 ing the arches. 
 
128 LONGFELLOIV. 
 
 Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through 
 
 chinks in a ruin. 
 Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were r.ll things 
 
 around them ; 
 And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder 
 
 and sadness, — 
 Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be 788 
 
 compassed. 
 As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the 
 
 prairies, 
 Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking 
 
 mimosa, 
 So, at the hoof -beats of fate, with sad forebodings of 
 
 evil, 
 Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom 
 
 has attained it. 
 But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that 7S5 
 
 faintly 
 Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through 
 
 the moonlight. 
 It was the thought of her brain that assumed the 
 
 shape of a phantom. 
 Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered 
 
 before her. 
 And every stroke of the oar now brought him ne.aieir 
 
 and nearer. 
 
EVANGELINE. 129 
 
 Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one 790 
 
 of the oarsmen, 
 And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradven- 
 
 ture 
 Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a 
 
 blast on his bugle. 
 Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy 
 
 the blast rang, 
 Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the 
 
 forest. 
 Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred 795 
 
 to the music. 
 Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance. 
 Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant 
 
 branches ; 
 But not a voice replied ; no answer came from the 
 
 darkness ; 
 And, when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain 
 
 was the silence. 
 Then E\^angeline slept ; but the boatmen rowed 800 
 
 through the midnight, 
 Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat- 
 songs, 
 Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers, 
 While through the night were heard the mysterious 
 
 sounds of the desert, 
 Far oft, — indistinct, —as of wave or wind in the 
 
 forest, 
 
130 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Mixed with the whoop of the crane end the roar of the 805 
 grim alligator. 
 
 Thus ere another noon they emerged from the 
 
 shades ; and before them 
 Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. 
 Watev-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undula- 
 tions 
 Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, 
 
 the lotus 
 Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boat- 811/ 
 
 men. 
 Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia 
 
 blossoms, 
 And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan 
 
 islands. 
 Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming 
 
 hedges of roses, 
 Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to 
 
 slumber. 
 Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were 8i5 
 
 suspended. 
 Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by 
 
 the margin, 
 Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about on 
 
 the greensward, 
 Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers 
 
 slumbered. 
 
EVANGELINE. 131 
 
 Over tliem vast and high extended the cope of a cedar. 
 
 Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and Sio 
 the grapievine 
 
 Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of 
 Jacob, 
 
 On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, de- 
 scending^ 
 
 Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blos- 
 som to blossom. 
 
 Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered 
 beneath it. 
 
 Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an 822 
 opening heaven 
 
 Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions 
 celestial. 
 
 Nearer, and ever nearer, among the numberless 
 
 islands, 
 Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the 
 
 water, 
 Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and 
 
 trappers. 
 Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the 830 
 
 bison and beaver. 
 At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful 
 
 and careworn. 
 Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and 
 
 a sadness 
 
132 LONGFELLOW, 
 
 Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly 
 
 written. 
 Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy 
 
 and restless, 
 Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of 835 
 
 sorrow. 
 Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the 
 
 island, 
 But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of 
 
 palmettos, 
 So that thej^ saw not the boat, where it lay concealed 
 
 in the willows ; 
 All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen. 
 
 were the sleepers. 
 Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumber- 840- 
 
 ing maiden. 
 Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on 
 
 the prairie. 
 After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in 
 
 the distance, 
 As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the 
 
 maiden 
 Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, ' ' Father 
 
 Felician ! 
 Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel 84!r 
 
 wanders. 
 Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague supersti- 
 tion? 
 
EVANGELINE. TSS 
 
 Ov has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my 
 
 spirit? " 
 Then, with ablush, she added, "Alas for my crediw 
 
 lous fancy ! 
 Unto ears like thine such words as these have no 
 
 meaning." 
 But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as 850' 
 
 he answered, — 
 ■•Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to 
 
 me without meaning. 
 Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on 
 
 the surface 
 Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor 
 
 is hidden. 
 Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world 
 
 calls illusions. 
 Gabriel trulj' is near thee ; for not far awr.y to the 855 
 
 southward, 
 On the banks of the Teche^ are the towns of St. Maur 
 
 and St. Martin. 
 There the long-wandering bride shall be given again 
 
 to her bridegroom, 
 There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his 
 
 sheepfold. 
 Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of 
 
 fruit-tj ees ; 
 Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of 8C0 
 
 heaven's 
 
134 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of 
 
 the forest. 
 They who dwell there have named it the Eden of 
 
 Louisiana ! " 
 
 With these words of cheer they arose and continued 
 
 their journey. 
 Softly the evening came. The sun from the western 
 
 horizon 
 Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the 865 
 
 landscape ; 
 Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 
 Seemed all on fire at the touchy and melted and 
 
 mingled together. 
 Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of 
 
 silver, 
 Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the mo- 
 tionless water. 
 Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible 87C 
 
 sweetness. 
 Touched bj'' the magic spell, the sacred fountains of 
 
 feeling 
 Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 
 
 around her. 
 Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 
 
 wildest of singers, 
 ^Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 
 
 water, 
 
E VANGELINE. \ 3^. 
 
 Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious 875 
 
 music, 
 That the whole air and the woods and the waves 
 
 seemed silent to listen. 
 Plaintive at first were the tones and sad : then soaring 
 
 to madness 
 Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied 
 
 Bacchantes. 
 Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamen- 
 tation ; 
 Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad 88O 
 
 in derision, 
 As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the 
 
 tree-tops 
 Sliakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on 
 
 the branches. 
 With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed 
 
 with emotion. 
 Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through 
 
 the green Opelousas, 
 And, through the amber air, above the crest of the 885 
 
 woodland, 
 Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighbor- 
 ing dwelling ; — 
 Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing 
 
 of cattle. 
 
136 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 III. 
 
 Near to the bank of the river, o'erohadowed by oaks, 
 
 from whose branches 
 <jrarlands of Spanish n.oss and of mystic mistletoe 
 
 flaunted, 
 Such as the Druids ctit down with golden hatchets at 890 
 
 Yule-tide, 
 Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. 
 
 A garden 
 Oirded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blos- 
 soms, 
 Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was 
 
 of timbers 
 Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted to- 
 gether. 
 Large and low was the roof ; and on slender columns 895 
 
 supported, 
 Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a bioad and spacious 
 
 veranda. 
 Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended 
 
 around it. 
 At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the 
 
 garden, 
 Stationed the dove-coLs were, as love's perpetual 
 
 symbol. 
 Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of 900 
 
 rivals. 
 
E VA NGELINE. \ 37 
 
 •Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow and 
 sunshine 
 
 IRan near the tops of the trees ; but the house itself 
 was in shadow, 
 
 And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly ex- 
 panding 
 
 Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke 
 rose. 
 
 In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a 905 
 pathwaj^ 
 
 Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the 
 limitless prairie. 
 
 Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly de- 
 scending. 
 
 Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy 
 canvas 
 
 Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm 
 in the tropics, 
 
 Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grape- 9io 
 vines. 
 
 Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of 
 
 the prairie. 
 Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and 
 
 stirrups, 
 Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of 
 
 deerskin. 
 
138 ' LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Broad and brown was the face that from under the 
 
 Spanish sombrero 
 Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of its 913- 
 
 master. 
 Round about him were numberless herds of kine, that 
 
 were grazing 
 Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory 
 
 freshness 
 That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the 
 
 landscape. 
 Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and 
 
 expanding 
 Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that nao 
 
 resounded 
 "Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air 
 
 of the evening. 
 Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the 
 
 cattle 
 Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of 
 
 ocean. 
 Silent a moment they gazed, thon bellowing rushed 
 
 o'er the prairie, 
 And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the 92& 
 
 distance. 
 Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through 
 
 the gate of the garden 
 Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden advanc- 
 ing to meet him. 
 
EVANGELINE. 139 
 
 Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amaze- 
 ment, and forward 
 Eiushed with extended arms and exclamations of 
 
 wonder ; 
 When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the 930 
 
 blacksmith. 
 Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the 
 
 garden. 
 There in an arbor of roses with endless question and 
 
 answer 
 Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their 
 
 friendly embraces, 
 Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and 
 
 thoughtful. 
 Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not ; and now dark 935 
 
 doubts and misgivings 
 Stole o'er the maiden's heart ; and Basil, somewhat 
 
 embarrassed. 
 Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the 
 
 Atchafalaya, 
 How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's boat 
 
 on the bayous?" 
 Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade 
 
 passsed. 
 Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a tremu- 940 
 
 lous accent, 
 "Gone? is Gabriel gone?" and, concealinn; her lace 
 
 on his shoulder, 
 
140 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept 
 
 and lamented. 
 Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe 
 
 as he said it, — 
 "Be of good cheer, my child; it is only to-day he . 
 
 departed. 
 Foolish boy ! he has left me alone with my herds and 945 
 
 my horses. 
 Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his 
 
 spirit 
 Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet exist- 
 ence. 
 Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever, 
 Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles, 
 He at length had become so tedious to men and to 95o 
 
 maidens. 
 Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought, me, 
 
 and sent him 
 Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the 
 
 Spaniards. 
 Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark 
 
 Mountains, 
 Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the 
 
 beaver. 
 Therefore be of good cheer ; we will follow the fugitive 955 
 
 lover ; 
 He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the 
 
 streams are against him. 
 
EVANGELINE. I4I 
 
 Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of 
 
 the morning 
 We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his 
 
 prison. " 
 
 Then glad voices were heard, and up from the banks 
 
 of the river, 
 Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the 960 
 
 fiddler. 
 Long under Basil's roof had he lived like a god on 
 
 Olympus, 
 Having no other care than dispensing music to mor- 
 tals. 
 Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his 
 
 fiddle. 
 ^'Long live Michael," they cried, "our bi-ave Acadian 
 
 minstrel ! " 
 As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession ; and 965 
 
 straightway 
 father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting 
 
 the old man 
 Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, 
 
 enraptured. 
 Hailed with with hilarious joy his old companions and 
 
 gcissips. 
 Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and 
 
 daughters. 
 
142 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Mucli they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant 970 
 
 blacksmith, 
 All his domains and his herds, and !iis patriarchal 
 
 demeanor ; 
 Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and 
 
 the climate. 
 And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his 
 
 who would take them ; 
 Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go 
 
 and do likewise. 
 Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy 9^6 
 
 veranda, 
 Entered the hall of the house, where already the 
 
 supper of Basil 
 Waited his late return ; and thej^ rested and feasted 
 
 together. 
 
 Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness de- 
 scended.' 
 
 All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape 
 with silver, 
 
 Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars ; but 
 within doors. 
 
 Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the 
 glimmering lamplight. 
 
 Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, 
 the herdsman 
 
E VANGELINE. 143 
 
 Poured forth his heart and his wine together in end- 
 less profusion. 
 
 Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchi- 
 toches tobacco, 
 
 Thus he spake to his guests^ who listened, and smiled 985 
 as they listened : — 
 
 " Welcome once more, my friends, who long have 
 been friendless and homeless, 
 
 Welcome once more to a home, that is better per- 
 chance than the old one ! 
 
 Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the 
 rivers ; 
 
 Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the 
 farmer. 
 
 Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a 990 
 keel through the water. 
 
 All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom ; 
 and grass grows 
 
 More in a single night than a whole Canadian sum- 
 mer. 
 
 Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed 
 in the prairies ; 
 
 Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and 
 forests of timber 
 
 With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed 995 
 into hotises. 
 
 After your houses are built, and your fields ai'e yellow 
 with harvests. 
 
144 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 No King George of England shall drive you away 
 
 from your homesteads, 
 Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your 
 
 farms and your cattle. " 
 Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from 
 
 his nostrils, 
 While his huge, brown hand came thundering down looa 
 
 on the table. 
 So that the guests all started ; and Father Felician, 
 
 astounded, 
 Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to 
 
 his nostrils. 
 But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were 
 
 m.ilder and gayer : — 
 " Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the 
 
 fever ! 
 For it is not like that of our cold Acadian cli- lOOE 
 
 mate. 
 Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in 
 
 in a nutshell ! " 
 Then there were voices heard at the door, and foot- 
 steps approaching 
 Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy 
 
 veranda. 
 It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian 
 
 planters, 
 Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil imo 
 
 the Herdsman. 
 
EVANGELINE. 145 
 
 Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and 
 
 neighbors : 
 Friend clasped friend in his anns ; and they who 
 
 befoi'e were as strangers, 
 Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to 
 
 each other. 
 Drawn by the gentle bond of a common conntry 
 
 together. 
 But in the neighboring hall a strain of nrnslc, pro- loio 
 
 ceeding 
 From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious 
 
 fiddle, 
 Broke up all further speech. Awaj', like children 
 
 delighted, 
 All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to 
 
 the maddening 
 AVhirl of the giddy dance, as it swept and swayed to 
 
 the music, 
 Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of flutter- 1020 
 
 ing garments. 
 
 Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest 
 
 and the herdsman 
 Sat, conversing together of past and present and 
 
 future ; 
 While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within 
 
 her 
 
146 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the 
 
 music 
 Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible 1025 
 
 sadness 
 Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into 
 
 the garden. 
 Beavitiful was the night. Behind the black wall of 
 
 the forest. 
 Tipping its siimmit with silver, arose the moon. On 
 
 the river 
 Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 
 
 gleam of the moonlight. 
 Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and loso 
 
 devious spirit. 
 Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of 
 
 the garden 
 Poured out their souls in odors, that were their 
 
 prayers and confessions 
 Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent 
 
 Carthusian. 
 Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with 
 
 shadows and night-dews, 
 Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the 1035 
 
 magical moonlight 
 Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable long- 
 ings, 
 As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shau« 
 
 of the oak-trees, 
 
EVANGELINE. 147 
 
 Passed she along the path to the edge of the measure- 
 less prairie. 
 
 Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire- 
 flies 
 
 Gleamed and floated away in mingled and infinite 1040 
 numbers. 
 
 Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 
 heavens, 
 
 Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel 
 and worship, 
 
 Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of 
 that temple, 
 
 As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, 
 "Upharsin," 
 
 And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and 1045 
 the fire-flies, 
 
 Wandered alone, and she cried, ' ' Gabriel ! my 
 beloved ! 
 
 Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold 
 thee ? 
 
 Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 
 reach me? 
 
 Ah ! how often thy feet have trod this path to the 
 
 prairie 
 
 Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on the wood- 10.50 
 
 lands around me ! 
 Ah ! how often beneath this oak, ret'',rning from 
 
 labor, 
 
148 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me iir 
 
 thy shimbers ! 
 "When shall these ej'es behold, these arms be folded' 
 
 about thee?" 
 Loud and sudden and near the notes of the whippoor- 
 
 will sounded 
 Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, through the 1055 
 
 neighboring thickets, 
 Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into 
 
 silence. 
 " Patience ! " whispered the oaks from oracular 
 
 caverns of darkness : 
 And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded 
 
 "To-morrow!" 
 
 Bright rose the sun next day ; and all the flowers- 
 
 of the garden 
 Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and an- 1060« 
 
 nointed his tresses 
 With the delicious balm that they bore in their vaseS' 
 
 of crystal. 
 "Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the 
 
 shadowy threshold ; 
 "See tha<- you bring us the Prodigal Son from his 
 
 fasting and famine, 
 And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the 
 
 bridegroom was coming." 
 
E I \ANGELINE. \ 49 
 
 ■■Farewell!" answered the maiden, and, smiling, loi^o 
 with Basil descended 
 
 Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already 
 were waiting. 
 
 Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sun- 
 shine, and gladness, 
 
 Swiftly they follow the flight of him who was speed- 
 ing before them, 
 
 Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the 
 desert. 
 
 Not that day, nor the next, nor j^et the day that sue- ioto 
 ceeded, 
 
 Found they the trace of his course, in lake or forest 
 or river, 
 
 Xor^ after inany days, had they found him ; but 
 vague and uncertain 
 
 Ramors alone were their guides through a wild and 
 desolate country ; 
 
 Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, 
 
 Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the 1075- 
 garrulous landlord. 
 
 That on the day before, Avith horses and guides and 
 companions, 
 
 Gabriel left the village, and took the I'oad of the 
 prairies. 
 
150 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Far in tlie West there lies a desert land, where the 
 
 mountains 
 Lift^ through perpetual snows, their lofty and lumin- 
 ous summits. 
 Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the loso 
 
 gorge, like a gateway. 
 Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's 
 
 wagon. 
 Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and 
 
 Owyhee. 
 Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river 
 
 Mountains, 
 Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the 
 
 Nebraska ; 
 And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the 1085 
 
 Spanish sierras, 
 Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind 
 
 of the desert, 
 Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to 
 
 the ocean, 
 Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn 
 
 vibrations. 
 Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, 
 
 beautiful prairies , 
 Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sun- looo 
 
 shine. 
 
EVANGELINE. 151- 
 
 Bright witli luxuriant clusters of roses and purple 
 amorphas. 
 
 Over them wandered the bu£falo herds., and the elk 
 and the roebuck ; 
 
 Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of rider- 
 less horses ; 
 
 Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary 
 with travel ; 
 
 Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's 1095 
 children, 
 
 Staining the desert with blood ; and above their ter- 
 rible war-trails 
 
 Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vul- 
 ture, 
 
 Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in 
 battle, 
 
 By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens. 
 
 Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these iioo- 
 savcige marauders ; 
 
 Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift- 
 running rivers ; 
 
 And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of 
 the desert, 
 
 Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by 
 the brook-side, 
 
 And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline 
 heaven, 
 
 Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them. n05- 
 
152 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Into this wonderful land^ at tlie base of the Ozark 
 
 Mountains, 
 Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers 
 
 behind him. 
 Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden 
 
 and Basil 
 Followed his flying steins, and thought each day to 
 
 o'ertake him. 
 Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke mo 
 
 of his camp-fire 
 Rise in the morning air from the distant plain ; but 
 
 at nightfall, 
 "When they had reached the place, they found only 
 
 embers and ashes. 
 And, though their hearts were sad at times and their 
 
 bodies were wearj^, 
 Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana 
 Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and iii5 
 
 vanished before them. 
 
 Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently 
 
 entered 
 Into their little camp an Indian woman, whose 
 
 features 
 Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as 
 
 her sorrow. 
 She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her 
 
 people, 
 
EVANGELINE. 153 
 
 ^rom the far-o£E hunting-grounds of the cruel Ca- 1120 
 
 manches, 
 "Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur-des-BoIs, 
 
 had been murdered. 
 Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest 
 
 and friendliest welcome 
 ■Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and 
 
 feasted among them ' 
 'On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the 
 
 embers. 
 IBut when thej'' meal was done, and Basil and all his 1125 
 
 companions, 
 Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the 
 
 deer and the bison, 
 Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where 
 
 the quivering fire-light 
 Plashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms 
 
 wrapped up in their blankets, 
 Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and 
 
 repeated 
 Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her ii30 
 
 Indian accent, 
 All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, 
 
 and reverses. 
 Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that 
 
 another 
 Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been 
 
 disappointed. 
 
154 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Moved to tlie depths of her soul by pity and woman's 
 
 compassion, 
 Yet in hei' sorrow pleased that one who had suffered iisa 
 
 was near her, 
 She in turn related her love and all its disasters. 
 Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she- 
 had ended 
 Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror 
 Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the 
 
 tale of the Mowis ; 
 Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and ii40i 
 
 wedded a maiden, 
 But, when the morning came, arose and passed from 
 
 the wigwam, 
 Fading and melting away and dissolving into the 
 
 sunshine, 
 Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far 
 
 into the forest. 
 Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a 
 
 weird incantation. 
 Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed 1145 
 
 by a phantom. 
 That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the 
 
 hush of the twilight. 
 Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love- 
 
 to the maiden, 
 Till she followed his green and waving plume through] 
 
 the forest. 
 
E VANGELINE. 155 
 
 And nevermore returned, no:^ was seen again by her 
 
 people. 
 Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline ii50 
 
 listened 
 To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region 
 
 around her 
 Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest 
 
 the enchantress. 
 Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the 
 
 moon rose, 
 Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious 
 
 splendor 
 Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and fill- ii55 
 
 ing the woodland. 
 With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and 
 
 the branches 
 Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible 
 
 whispers. 
 Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's 
 
 heart, but a secret. 
 Subtle sense crept in of pain and indefinite 
 
 terror. 
 As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of iieo 
 
 the swallow. 
 It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of 
 
 spirits 
 Seemed to float in the air of night ; and she felt for a 
 
 moment 
 
156 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a 
 
 phantom. 
 With this thought she slept, and the fear and the 
 
 phantom had vanished. 
 
 Early upon the morrow the march was resumed ; 1165 
 
 and the Shawnee 
 Said, as they journej'ed along, ' ' On the western 
 
 slope of these mountains 
 Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the 
 
 Mission. 
 Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary 
 
 and Jesus. 
 Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with 
 
 pain, as they hear him." 
 Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline ii70 
 
 answered, 
 "Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings 
 
 await us ! " 
 Thither they turned their steeds ; and behind a spur 
 
 of the mountains. 
 Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of 
 
 voices. 
 And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a 
 
 river, 
 Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the iiT.'i 
 
 Jesuit Mission. 
 
EVANGELINE. 157 
 
 Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the 
 
 village, 
 Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A 
 
 crucifix fastened 
 High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by- 
 grapevines. 
 Looked with its agonized face on the multitude 
 
 kneeling beneath it. 
 This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the 118O 
 
 intricate arches 
 Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their ves- 
 pers, 
 Mingled its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of 
 
 the branches. 
 Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer 
 
 approaching. 
 Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening 
 
 devotions. 
 But when the service was done, and the benediction iiS5 
 
 had fallen 
 Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the 
 
 hands of the sower, 
 Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, 
 
 and bade them 
 Welcome ; and when they replied, he smiled with 
 
 benignant expression, 
 Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in 
 
 the forest, 
 
158 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And, with words of kindness, conducted them into 119C 
 
 his wigwam. 
 Tbeie upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes 
 
 of the maize-ear 
 I'easted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd 
 
 of the teacher. 
 Soon was their story told ; and the p:^.<ist with 
 
 solemnity answered : — 
 "Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, 
 
 seated 
 On this mat by my side, where now the maiden ii95 
 
 reposes, 
 Told me this same sad tale ; then arose and continued 
 
 his journey ! " 
 Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an 
 
 accent of kindness ; 
 But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter 
 
 the snow-flakes 
 Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have 
 
 departed. 
 "Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest ; 1200 
 
 ' ' but in autumn. 
 When the chase is done, will return again to the 
 
 Mission." 
 Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and 
 
 submissive, 
 ^'Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and. 
 
 afflicted." 
 
EVANGELINE. 159 
 
 So seemed it wise and well unto all ; and betimes on 
 
 tlie morrow, 
 Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides 1205 
 
 and companions, 
 Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at 
 
 the Mission. 
 
 Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each 
 
 other, — 
 Days and weeks and months ; and the fields of maize 
 
 that were springing 
 Grreen from the ground when a stranger she came, 
 
 now waving above her. 
 Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, 1210 
 
 and forming 
 Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged 
 
 by squirrels. 
 Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, 
 
 and the maidens 
 Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a 
 
 lover. 
 But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in 
 
 the corn-field. 
 Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her 1215 
 
 lover. 
 *^ Patience ! " the priest would say ; "have faith, and 
 
 thy prayer will be answered ! 
 
160 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from 
 
 the meadow, 
 See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as 
 
 the magnet ; 
 This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has 
 
 planted 
 Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's 1220 
 
 journey 
 Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the 
 
 desert. 
 Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of 
 
 passion, 
 Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of 
 
 fragrance. 
 But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their 
 
 odor is deadly. 
 Only this humble plant can guide us here, and here- 1225 
 
 after 
 Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with 
 
 the dews of nepenthe." 
 
 So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter, — 
 
 yet Gabriel came not ; 
 Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the 
 
 robin and bluebird 
 Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel 
 
 came not. 
 
EVANGELINE. 161 
 
 Bat on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was 1230 
 
 wafted 
 Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom. 
 Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan 
 
 forests, 
 Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw 
 
 River. 
 And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of 
 
 St. Lawrence, 
 Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the 1235 
 
 Mission, 
 When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches, 
 She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan 
 
 forests. 
 Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to 
 
 ruin ! 
 
 Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons 
 
 and places 
 Divers and distant far was seen the Avandering 1240 
 
 maiden ; — 
 Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian 
 
 Missions, 
 Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the 
 
 army, 
 Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous 
 
 cities. 
 
162 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Like a phantom she came, and passed away unre- 
 
 membered. 
 Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long 1245 
 
 journey ; 
 Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it 
 
 ended. 
 Each succeeding year stole something away from her 
 
 beauty, 
 Leavijig behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and 
 
 the shadow. 
 Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray 
 
 o'er her forehead, 
 Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly i2na 
 
 horizon. 
 As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the 
 
 morning. 
 
 Ik that delightful land which is washed by the Dela- 
 ware's waters, 
 
 Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the 
 apostle. 
 
 Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city 
 he founded. 
 
 There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem 1255 
 of beauty. 
 
EVANGELINE. 163 
 
 And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 
 
 the forest, 
 As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose 
 
 haunts they molested. 
 There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, 
 
 an exile, 
 Finding among the children of Penn a home and a 
 
 country. 
 There old Rene Lehlanc had died ; and when he de- 1260 
 
 parted. 
 Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants. 
 Something at least there was in the friendly streets of 
 
 the city, 
 Something that spake to her heart, and made her no 
 
 longer a stranger ; 
 And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of 
 
 the Quakers, 
 For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, 1265 
 Where all men were equal, and all were brothers aud 
 
 sisters. 
 So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed en- 
 deavor, 
 Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncom- 
 plaining. 
 Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her 
 
 thoughts and her footsteps. 
 As from the mountain's top the rainy mists of the 1270 
 
 morning 
 
164 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below 
 
 VIS, 
 
 Sun-illumined, wiuh shining rivers and cities and 
 
 hamlets, 
 So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the- 
 
 world far below her, 
 Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; and the 
 
 pathway 
 Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair 127.=; 
 
 in the distance. 
 Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his 
 
 image, 
 Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she 
 
 beheld him. 
 Only more beautiful made by his death-like silence 
 
 and absence. 
 Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was 
 
 not. 
 Over him years had no power ; he was not changerl, 1280. 
 
 but transfigured ; 
 He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and 
 
 not absent ; 
 Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to 
 
 others, 
 This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had 
 
 taught her. 
 So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous 
 
 spices, 
 
E VA NGELINE. 1 65- 
 
 Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air 1285- 
 
 with aroma. 
 Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to 
 
 follow 
 Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her 
 
 Saviour. 
 Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy ; 
 
 frequenting 
 Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the 
 
 city, 
 Where distress and want concealed themselves from 1290- 
 
 the sunlight J 
 Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished 
 
 neglected. 
 Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the 
 
 watchman repeated 
 Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in 
 
 the city. 
 High at some lonely window he saw the light of her 
 
 taper. 
 Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow 1295 
 
 through the suburbs 
 Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits 
 
 for the market. 
 Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its 
 
 watch ings. 
 
166 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the 
 
 city, 
 Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly hy flocks of 
 
 wild pigeons, 
 Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their isoo 
 
 craws but an acorn. 
 And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of 
 
 September, 
 Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake 
 
 in the meadow, 
 So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural 
 
 margin, 
 Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of ex- 
 istence. 
 Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, 1305 
 
 the oppressor ; 
 But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his 
 
 anger ; — 
 •Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor 
 
 attendants, 
 Crept away to die in the almshovise, home of the 
 
 homeless. 
 Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of mead- 
 ows and woodlands ; — 
 Now the city surrounds it ; but still, with its gate- i3io 
 
 way and wicket 
 Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem 
 
 to echo 
 
EVANGELINE. \{J1 
 
 Softly the words of the Lord : — " The poor ye always 
 have with you." 
 
 Thither by night and by day, came the Sister of 
 Mercy. The dying 
 
 Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to be- 
 hold there 
 
 G-leams of celestial light encircle her forehead with isiS' 
 splendor. 
 
 Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and 
 apostles, 
 
 Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city 
 celestial, 
 
 Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would 
 enter. 
 
 Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, de- 1320- 
 
 serted and silent, 
 Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the 
 
 almshouse. 
 Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in 
 
 the garden ; 
 And she paused on her way to gather the fairest 
 
 among them, 
 That the dying once more might rejoice in their 
 
 fragrance and beauty. 
 
168 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, 1325 
 cooled by the east-wind, 
 
 Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the 
 belfry of Christ Church, 
 
 "While, intermingled with these, across the meadows 
 were wafted 
 
 .Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in 
 their church at Wicaco. 
 
 :Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on 
 her spirit : 
 
 Something within her said, ' ' At length thy trials are i330 
 ended " ; 
 
 And, with light in her looks, she entered the cham- 
 bers of sickness. 
 
 Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful at- 
 tendants. 
 
 Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, 
 and in silence 
 
 "Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and conceal- 
 ing their faces, 
 
 "Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow 1335 
 by the roadside. 
 
 'Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline en- 
 tered, 
 
 ■Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, 
 for her presence 
 
 :Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls 
 of a prison. 
 
EVANGELINE. 169 
 
 And, as slie looked around, she saw how Death, the 
 
 consoler, 
 Xaying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it 1340 
 
 forever, 
 llany familiar forms had disappeared in the night 
 
 time ; 
 Yacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 
 
 Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of 
 
 wonder. 
 Still she stood, with, her colorless lips apart, while a 
 
 shudder 
 Han through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets i345 
 
 dropped from her fingers, 
 And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of 
 
 the morning. 
 Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such 
 
 terrible anguish^ 
 That the dying heard it, and started up from their 
 
 pillows. 
 On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an 
 
 old man. 
 Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded i350 
 
 his temples ; 
 But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a 
 
 moment 
 Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier 
 
 manhood : 
 
170 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are 
 
 dying. 
 Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the 
 
 fever, 
 As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had be- 1355 
 
 sprinkled its portals, 
 That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass 
 
 over. 
 Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit 
 
 exhausted 
 Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths 
 
 in the darkness. 
 Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and 
 
 sinking. 
 Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied 1360 
 
 reverberations, 
 Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that 
 
 succeeded 
 Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and 
 
 saint-like, 
 ' ' Gabriel ! my beloved ! " and died away into 
 
 silence. 
 Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of 
 
 his childhood ; 
 Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among 13G5 
 
 them, 
 Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, walking 
 
 under their shadow, 
 
EVANGELINE. 171 
 
 As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his 
 
 vision. 
 Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he lifted his 
 
 eyelids, 
 Vanished the vision away, hut Evangeline knelt by 
 
 his bedside. 
 Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the ac- i37o 
 
 cents unuttered 
 Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his 
 
 tongue would have spoken. 
 Vainly he strove to rise ; and Evangeline, kneeling 
 
 beside him, 
 Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her 
 
 bosom. 
 Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it suddenly 
 
 sank into darkness, 
 As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a 1375 
 
 casement. 
 
 All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and 
 
 the sorrow. 
 All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied 
 
 longing. 
 All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of 
 
 patience ! 
 And. as she pressed once more the lifeless head to 
 
 her bosom, 
 
172 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, ' ' Father, 1380 
 I thank thee ! " - 
 
 Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away ixoja 
 its shadow. 
 
 Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are 
 sleeping. 
 
 Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church- 
 yard, 
 
 In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and un- 
 noticed. 
 
 Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside i385 
 them, 
 
 Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at 
 rest and forever, 
 
 Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer 
 are busy. 
 
 Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased 
 from their labors, 
 
 Thousands of weary feet, where tlieirs have com- 
 pleted their journey ! 
 
 Still stands the forest primeval ; but under the 1390 
 shade of its branches 
 Dwells another race, with other customs and lan- 
 guage. 
 
EVANGELINE. 173 
 
 Only along the shore of the mournful and mistj' 
 
 Atlantic 
 Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from 
 
 exile 
 Wandered back to their native land to die in its 
 
 bosom. 
 In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still 1395 
 
 busj' ; 
 Maidens still wear their Norman cai»s and their 
 
 kirtles of homespun, 
 And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story. 
 While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neigh- 
 boring ocean 
 Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
 
 of the forest. 
 
Notes. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 Circumstances of composition and publication. — In Nov- 
 ember, 1796, Coleridge had taken up his residence in Som- 
 ersetshire in the village of Nether Stowey. Thither in July 
 of the following year came "Wordsworth to settle in Alfox- 
 den, three miles distant, to be within reach of Coleridge's 
 society. There the Ancient Mariner (A.M.) was planned 
 and composed. The story of its origin is told in most 
 detail by Wordsworth in a note to We are Seven, dictated to 
 Miss Pen wick : — 
 
 " In the autumn of 1797 (spring of 1798, Knight) he [Cole- 
 ridge], my sister, and myself started from Alfoxden pretty 
 late in the afternoon, with a view to visiting Linton (Len- 
 ton, Knight) and the Valley of Stones near to it ; and, as 
 our united funds were very small, we agreed to pay the 
 expense of the tour by writing a poem, to be sent to the 
 " New Monthly Magazine," set up by Phillips, the bookseller, 
 and edited by Dr. Aikin. Accordingly we set off, and pro- 
 ceeded along the Quantock Hills [near Nether Stowey], 
 towards Watchet ; and in the course of this Avalk was 
 planned the poem of the A^icient Mariner, founded on a 
 dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Craikshank 
 [a neighbour of the poet's]. Much the greater part of the 
 
178 NOTES. 
 
 story was Mr. Coleridge's invention ; but certain parts I 
 myself suggested : for example, some crime was to be com- 
 mitted which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as Col- 
 ei-idge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral perse- 
 cution, as a consequence of that crime, and his own 
 wanderings. I had been reading in Shelvock's Voyages, a 
 day or tAvo before, that, while doubling Cape Horn, the}-- 
 frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort 
 of sea-fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen 
 (fifteen, Ivnight) feet: " Supj^ose," said I, "you represent 
 him as having killed one of these birds on entering the South 
 Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon 
 them to revenge the crime." The incident was thought fit 
 for the pvxrpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested 
 the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not 
 recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme 
 of the poem. The gloss with which it was subsequently 
 accomiDanied was not thought of by either of us at the time, 
 at least not a hint of it was given to me, and I have no 
 doubt it was a gratuitous after-thought. "We began the 
 composition together, on that to me memorable evening. 
 I furnished two or three lines at the beginning of the poem, 
 in jjarticular : 
 
 ' And listen 'd like a three years' child ; 
 The Mariner had his will.' 
 
 These trifling contributions all but one, which Mr. C. 
 has with unnecessary scrupulosity recorded, slipped out of 
 his mind, as they well might. As we endeavoured to joro- 
 ceed conjointly (I speak of the same evening), our respective 
 manners proved so widely different, that it would have 
 leen quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate 
 from an undertaking upon which I could only have been a 
 clog. We returned after a few days .... by Dulverton to 
 Alfoxden. The Ancient Mariner grew and grew till it be- 
 came too important for our first object, which was limited 
 
COLERIDGE: 7'HE ANCIENT MARINER. 179 
 
 to our expectations of five pounds ; and we began to think 
 of a volume. — Memoirs of William Wordsivorth, by Christo- 
 IDher Wordsworth, i.l07 ; Knight, i.l98 f. 
 
 Coleridge's account shows the philosophic side. His con- 
 versation, he said, with Wordsworth often turned on -'two 
 cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympa- 
 thy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of 
 nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by 
 the modifying colours of imagination. . . . The thought sug- 
 gested itself that a series of poems might be composed of 
 two sorts. In the one the incidents and agents were to be, 
 in part at least, supernatural ; and the excellence arrived 
 at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the 
 dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally ac- 
 company such situations, sui3i)osing them real .... For 
 the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordin- 
 ary life .... In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical 
 Ballads ; in which it was agreed that my endeavours should 
 be directed to poems and characters supernatural, or at 
 least to romantic ; yet so as to transfer from our inward 
 nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient 
 to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing 
 ■suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes 
 poetic faith .... With this view I wrote The Ancient Mari- 
 ner, and was preparing among other poems. The Dark 
 Ladie, and the Christabel. — Coleridge, BiograjyJiia Literaria, 
 -chap. xiA'. 
 
 The very memorable volume in which Coleridge and 
 Wordsworth thus collaborated was the Lyrical Ball ad a, 
 published in Bristol and London in 1798. 
 
 The history of the text. — The A. M. in its present form 
 shews the result of many years' changes and revisions. 
 The first printed version of the poem, in Lyrical Ba/ladu, 
 1798, was no sooner published than the work of revision 
 began. Later editions show decided modifications. Already 
 
180 NOTES. 
 
 in 1802 archaisms of spelling and language become rarei'v 
 and much of the grotesqueness and weakness of the original 
 draft is pruned off. In Sibylline Leaves, 1817, these modifi- 
 cations are completed. The marginal gloss here first appears, 
 and the motto from Burnet, and the poem with the excep- 
 tion of a few lines has attained its permanent form. In 
 1828 the poet collected and arranged his poems, and the text 
 of the A. M. had its final revision. In 1829 was issued the 
 last edition on which the poet bestowed his personal atten- 
 tion. There remained for the edition of 1835 only the re- 
 duction of the orthography, especially the use of capital 
 letters, to present usuage. Our text is therefore founded on. 
 the edition of 1829, Avhile it foUoAvs the orthography of the 
 edition of 1835. 
 
 The various modifications of the text, other than spelling- 
 and punctuation, are noted from the following editions: — 
 
 (1) 1798, Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems.. 
 London, pp. 1-52. 
 
 (2) 1802, Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and other Poems.. 
 By William Wordsworth, London, 1802 (3rd edition), i, 
 143-189. 
 
 (3) 1805, the same (4th ed.) 
 
 (4) 1817, Sibylline Leaves : A Collection of Poems. By 
 S. T. Coleridge, Esq., London, 1817. pp. 1-39. 
 
 (5) 1829, The Poetical Works of S. T. boleridge .... Lon- 
 don, 1829. ii. 1-38. 
 
 (6) 1835, the same. London and Boston, 1835. ii. 1-27. 
 
 The gloss. — The marginal gloss, which is at times a> 
 summary, at times a commentary of the text, was, as Ave 
 noted, entirely absent in the editions previous to 1817. On 
 the other hand the earlier editions had the folloAving Argu- 
 ment preceding the poem, Avhich Avas afterwards incorpor- 
 ated into the gloss : — 
 
 HoAv a Ship haAang passed the Line Avas driA^en by Storms 
 to the cold Country towards the South Pole ; and hoAv from 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 181 
 
 there she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the 
 Great Pacific Ocean ; and of the strange things that befell \ 
 and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to 
 his own country. 1798 ed., p. 3. 
 
 The Gloss, like the numerous archaisms of vocabulary, 
 phrase, and construction contained in the poem, adds to it& 
 archaic character, making it a closer imitation of the 
 older literature, in which marginal glosses abound. 
 
 Sources. As already noted, the kernel of the story — the 
 voyage, and spectral persecution for killing the albatross — 
 are Wordsworth's suggestion, due to Shelvocke's Voyage 
 (see A. M. 63n.). Cruikshank's dream, already referred 
 to, supplied the notion of a skeleton ship, manned by skele- 
 ton figures, though the legend of the Phantom Ship {A. M. 
 16in.) suggests many details. For the description of the 
 Sea of Ice, and of the Pacific, 0. drew on his reading, — 
 Crantz's History of Greenland, etc. The power of fascina- 
 tion possessed by the Mariner was not unknown to the poet 
 himself in his own conversation {Table Talk, i. 234n.). The 
 Wedding Guest is the usual object of ghostly apparitions in 
 the English and German literature of horrors contemporary 
 with Coleridge, by which, especially in the A, M. 1798, he 
 was not a little influenced. It has also been suggested 
 (Brandl) that the witch in Macbeth, i. iii., who would sail 
 in a sieve to persecute a mariner, — 
 
 Shall he dwindle, peak and pine : 
 Though his bark cannot be lost, 
 Yet it shall be tempest-tost,— 
 
 has kinship with Life-in-Death. Also that the navigation 
 of the ship by the lonely Mariner, the aid of the angelic 
 host, the arrival into port, and welcome by the boatmen, 
 are all parallelled by the story that Paulinus of Nora told 
 to Vicarius, Vice-Perfect of Kome (latter half of 4th cent.). 
 Influences much stronger and more certain than these last 
 came from the ballad literature of Britain, in which Cole- 
 ridge took a deep interest, along with most of his contem- 
 
182 NOTES. 
 
 poraries in England and Germany. No more striking proof 
 of the part taken in the rise of the Romantic Movement (see 
 In trod.) by such collections as Percy's Reliques can be adduced 
 than the way in which the phraseology and constructions and 
 general style of the ballads are preserved in the A.M. , one of the 
 greatest products of the movement (see A. M. nn. for details). 
 To the ballad literature we owe likewise the metre of the 
 poem. Only, where the ballads were irregular by careless- 
 ness, C. was irregular by art, using his variations to accord 
 with the mood and substance of his subject. His use of 
 sectional rime, too, while not unknown in the latest ballads, 
 shows the exquisite metrist rather than the writer of popular 
 ballads. 
 
 Page I. Title. The Eime, etc. In 1800-5, The Ancient 
 Mariner, a Poet's Reverie. 
 
 The use of Rime with the meaning of tale in verse is 
 archaic. 
 
 Other tales certes can [know] I noon [none] 
 But of a ryme I lerned longe agoon [ago]. 
 
 —Chaucer, 0. T., Si7- Thopas, Prol. 
 
 (AS. rim, number, OPr. rime, verse, rime.) 
 The motto. Facile credo. Added in 1817. " I can easily 
 believe, that there are more Invisible than Visible beings in 
 
 the Universe ; but who will declare to us the family of 
 
 all these, and acquaint us with the Agreements, Diilerences, 
 and peculiar Talents which are to be found among them ? 
 [What is their work ? Where are their dwelling-places ?] It 
 is true. Human Wit has always desired a Knowledge of these 
 Things, though it has never yet attained it. . . .1 will own 
 that it is very profitable, sometimes to contemplate in the 
 Mind, as in a Draught, the Image of the greater and better 
 World ; lest the Soul being accustomed to the Trifles of this 
 present Life, should contract itself too much, and altogether 
 rest in mean Cogitations ; but, in the mean Time, we must 
 take Care to keep to the Truth, and observe Moderation, 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. isa 
 
 that we may distinguish Certain from Uncertain Things, 
 and Day from Night." Tr. of 2nd ed., by Mr. Mead and 
 Mr. Foxton, Lond., 1736, p. 83 f. 
 
 Thomas Burnet (1635?-1715), from whose ArchcEoIogicB 
 Philosophicce — a treatise on the Origin of Things— the ex- 
 tract is drawn, was Master of the Charter-house School and 
 Chaplain to William III. ; author likewise of other Latin 
 works, — The Sacred Theory of the Earth, The Faith and 
 Duties of Christians, etc. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 1. 1. — It is an ancient Mariner. This archaism is imi- 
 tated from the ballads. 
 
 It was a Friar of orders gray 
 Walkt forth to tell his beades. 
 — The Friar of Orders Gray, 1. 1. (Percy's Reliques.) 
 
 It was a Knight in Scotland borne, etc. 
 
 — The Fair Floioer of NorUiumherland, 1. 1. (Child's 
 Ballads, i. 113.) 
 
 ancient. Suggesting not only aged but also belonging to 
 olden times. 
 
 "It was a delicate thought to put the weird tale not 
 into the author's own mouth, but into that of an ancient 
 mariner, who relates it with dreamy recollection." — 
 Brandl, p. 202. 
 
 1. 3. — By thy long gray beard. Swearing by the beard is 
 not rare in older literature. 
 Touch. Swear by your beards that I am a knave. 
 Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.— Shakspere, As You- 
 Like It, i. ii. 
 
 Cf. Hichard of Almaigne, 11. 32, 38. (Percy's Reliques). 
 
 But here it is more than an explitive. It gives pictur- 
 esque suggestion of the appearance of the Mariner with- 
 out the effort of description. 
 
i84 NOTES. 
 
 1. 3.— and glittering eye . 1798-1805, and thy glittering' 
 eye . The glitter of the eye characterizes some kinds of 
 insanity. 
 
 I. 4.— stopp'st thou me? 1798-1805, Stoppestme? 
 
 1.8. — May'st hear. This omission of "thou" is some- 
 what frequent in older literature in questions, and not 
 unknown in statements. (Abbott, Shaks. Qr. §§241, 401.) 
 
 It was she 
 First told me thou wast mad ; then [thou] cam'st in smiling. 
 — Twelfth Night, ii. lii. 121 f. 
 
 Page 2. 1. 9. He holds him, etc. The 1798 ed. reads: 
 
 But still he holds the wedding-guest — 
 
 There was a Ship, quoth he— 
 " Nay, if thou's got a laughsome tale, 
 "Marinere! come with me." 
 
 He holds him with his skinny hand. 
 
 Quoth he, there was a Ship— 
 "Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon 1 
 
 Or my staff shall make thee skip." 
 
 II, 9, 13.— He holds him He holds him. The repeti- 
 tion here and throughout the poem (see 11. 23 f, 25 f, 29, 
 59 f, 68, etc.) should be noted as a leading stylistic peculiar- 
 ity of the A. M. Though used by G. with infinitely greater 
 effect and variety than it was used in the ballads, it has 
 still its source in the ballad literature. Compare, for ex- 
 ample. 
 
 And when the(y) came to Kyng Adlands halls. 
 
 Of red gold shone their weeds [garments]. 
 And when they came to Kyng Adlands hall 
 
 Before the goodlye gate. etc. 
 
 —King Estmere, 1. 31 ff. (Percy's Reliques.) 
 
 Now Christe thee save, thou little foot-page. 
 
 Now Christ thee save and see [protect] ! 
 And here shee sends thee a silken scarfe. ... 
 And here shee sends thee a ring of gold..., 
 
 —The Child of Elle, 11. 13, 14, 21, 25. (Percy's Meliqties.) 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 185 
 
 Mak hast, mak hast, my mirry men all 
 
 Late late yestreen [yester(day) even] I saw the new moone 
 
 •O lang, lang. may thair ladies sit 
 
 O lang, lang, may the ladies stand. 
 
 —Sir Patrick Spence, 11. 21, 25, 33, 37. (Percy's Eeliques.) 
 
 1- 11. — gray-beard loon. The loon is a Avater-fowl that 
 .affords, from its behaviour when frightened, a stock com- 
 jiarison for oddly behaving people. Cf. "crazy as a loon." 
 
 Away, away, thou thriftless loone ; 
 
 —The Heir of Linne, 1. 69. (Percy's Eeliques ) 
 
 The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon. 
 
 — Shakspere, Macbeth, v. iii. 11. 
 
 1. 12.— eftsoons. A compound of eft, AS. ceft, (cf. after), 
 iagain, after ; and soon, AS. sdne, soon, with advei'bial 
 -■suffix s (cf. while, whiles): — soon after; or here, at once, 
 •'forthwith.' An archaism from Spenser and the ballads.- 
 
 Eftsoones he gan appl^' relief 
 Of salves and med'cines. 
 
 — Spenser, F.Q., i, x. xxlv. 
 
 And eke the stout St. George eftsoon 
 He made the dragon follow. 
 —St. George for England, 1. 299 t. (Percy's Eeliques.) 
 
 1. 15. — Three years' child. — 1798, three year's child ; 
 1817, 1829, three years child : 
 
 1. 22. — drop. Put to sea with the ebbing tide. 
 
 1. 23. — kirk — The Scotch and Northern English form of 
 ■church (AS. cyric), preserving the c's hard, while Mid- 
 land and Southern English assibilated them. 
 
 The touches of Northern dialect in A.WI. are significant 
 proof of the influence of Northern ballad poetry. " There 
 is scarcely," says Percy, " an old historical song or ballad, 
 wherein a minstrel or harper appears but he is characterized 
 by way of eminence to have been ' of the north countiye.' " 
 
 1. .32. — bassoon. A reed-instrument, keyed like a clari- 
 net, but blown from the side by a bent metal mouthpiece. 
 It furnishes the bass for the wood wind-instruments, such 
 
186 NOTES. 
 
 as the flutes, clarinets, etc. (Ital. bassone, augmentatiTO 
 of basso, low.) 
 
 Page 3. 1. 34. — Red as a rose. A stock comparison in the 
 ballads. 
 
 Her cheeks were like the roses red, 
 
 — Dowsabell, 1. 92. (Percy's ReUques.) 
 
 1. 35.— goes. 1805, go . 
 
 I. 37. — The -wedding-guest he beat. The repetition ol 
 the subject is frequent in the ballads. 
 
 Then Sir G-eorfre Bowes he straightway rose. 
 
 —The Rising in the North, 1. 109. (Percy's Beliques.) 
 
 Our king he kept a false stewarde. 
 
 —Sir Aldingar 1. 1. (Percy's JReliques.) 
 
 II. 41-54. — And now the storm blast, etc. 
 
 1798. Listen, Stranger ! Storm and Wind, 
 
 A "Wind and Tempest strong ! 
 For days and weeks it play'd us freaks — 
 
 Like Chaff we drove along. 
 Listen, Stranger I Mist and Snow, 
 
 And it grew wond'rous cauld : 
 And Ice mast-high came floating by 
 
 As green as Emerauld. 
 
 In 1802-5 the reading is nearer our text, but still lacks: 
 the splendid figure of 11. 45-50 : — 
 
 But now the Northwind came more fierce. 
 
 There came a Tempest strong ! 
 
 And Southward still for days and weeks 
 
 Like Chaff we drove along. 
 
 And now there came both Mist and Snow, etc. 
 
 1. 46. — As w^ho pursued, etc. This use of the relative 
 who without antecedent is archaic. 
 
 And I will set this foot of mine as far 
 As who goes farthest. 
 
 — Shakspere, Julius Caesar, i. iii. 119. 
 
 1. 47.— Still treads the shadow. "Still" has an archaic 
 sense here, = ever. The shadow of his pursuing enemy 
 already reaches his feet, but ever he presses on. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 187 
 
 1. 55. — through the drifts the snowy clifts, etc. Clifts 
 (cf. Is. Ivii. 5) is a secondary form of cliff, shoAving the in- 
 fluence of clift (secondary form of cleft). The light re- 
 flected from the snowy summits cast a desolate splendour 
 through the great masses of floating ice. 
 
 1. 56. — sheen. Sheen is used, first, as an adjective, = 
 bright (AS. scene.^ bright, shining), as in 1. 314: as a noun, 
 — brightness, splendour, as here. 
 
 1. 57. — ^nor shapes. . . .nor beasts. The 1798 text has the 
 archaic form : 
 
 Ne shapes of men ne beasts we ken. 
 -^'^e for nor similarly was the first reading in 11. 116, 122, 
 158, 332, 441, 453, 543. 
 
 1. 57. — ken. (AS. cennan, to cause to knoAv, from cann, 
 know, can) ; here descry, see. 
 page 4- 1. 62. — Like noises in a swound. In 1805 this read, 
 A wild and ceaseless sound. 
 
 swound. An archaic or provincial form of swoon. 
 Swoon is Mid. Eng. stvoune, on which grew a d, as in souncZ 
 (Fr. son), expoun^i, etc. (Cf. the vulgar pronunciation 
 drowncZ, goAvnd, etc.) 
 
 The basis of the simile is the excessive pulse, hammering 
 in the ears, which sometimes precedes syncope. Noises, it 
 is said also, are sometimes magnified during the attack. 
 
 My ears throb hot ; my eyeballs start ; 
 My brain with horrid tumult swims ; etc. 
 
 —Coleridge, New Year's Ode. 
 
 1. 63. — albatross. See Circumstances of composition. 
 The passage in Shelvocke's Vo2/age, which suggested the 
 Albatross of our poem is as follows. — Captain Shelvocke 
 is describing the coast of Patagonia. — " These (Pintado 
 birds) were accompadied by Albitrosses, the largest sort of 
 sea-fowl, some of them extending their wings 12 or 13 foot." 
 
 It is however more interesting to see that the sugges- 
 tions of the ominous character of the albatross, its death 
 
188 NOTES. 
 
 at the hands of one of the crew, etc., are apparently 
 directly drawn from the Voyage. After rounding Cape 
 Horn, Captain Shelvocke continues : "One would think 
 it impossible that any thing living could subsist in so 
 rigid a climate ; and indeed, we all observed, that we 
 had not had the sight of one fish of any kind, since we 
 were come to the Southward of the streights of le Mair, 
 not one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black Alhitross, 
 who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us 
 as if lost himself, till Hatley (my second Captain) observ- 
 ing, in one of his melancholy fits, that the bird was always 
 hovering near us, imagined from his colour, that it might 
 be some ill omen. That which, I suppo .e, induced him 
 the more to encourage his superstition, was the continued 
 series of contrary tempestuous winds, which had oppress'd 
 us ever since we had got into this sea. But be that as it 
 would, after some fruitless attempts, at length, shot the 
 Alhitross, not doubting (perhaps) that we should have a 
 fair wind after it. p. 72 f. — A Voyage round the World. 
 . . . .1719-22, by Capt. George Shelvocke, London, 1726. 
 
 For DeQuincey's ill-natured comment on this borrowing, 
 see his Recollections of the Lakes and the Lahe Poets. Words- 
 worth casts doubt on the borrowing from Shelvocke, 
 " which probably," he says, " Coleridge never saw." (Ed. 
 1852, notes.) 
 
 1. 65. — As if it had been. 
 1798. And an it were a Christian Soul 
 
 1. 67.— It ate the food, etc. 
 1798-1805. The Mariners gave it biscuit-worms, 
 
 1. 69. — thunder-fit. Noise and commotion as of thunder. 
 
 1. 76. — vespers. Here used either with its etymological 
 sense, — Lat. vesper, evening; or by virtue of its meaning 
 of the evening Church Service, figuratively for evening. 
 
 Cf. 
 
 They are black vesper's pageants. 
 
 — Shakspere, Antotiy and Cleopatra, Iv. xiv. 8. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 189 
 
 1. 77.— Whiles. Cf. the adverbial s of " eftsoons," 1. 12 
 The form is archaic, used in the ballads, etc. 
 Fyghte ye, my merry men, whyllys ye may, 
 For my lyff days ben [are] gan [gone]. 
 
 — Ohevy Chase, 1. 52. (Percy's Reliques.) 
 
 1. 82. I shot the albatross. Bassett quotes a sailor, 
 speaking of an albatross : "If you shoot one and kill him, 
 you may look out for squalls ; but to catch him and let 
 him die on deck is a different thing altogether." — Legends, 
 etc., p. 449. 
 
 In the Danish Ballad of the Seafaring Men (Folk-Lore 
 Kecord, iii. ii.), the sailors spare a dove that, as a spiiit of 
 Crod, brings them safely home while they sleep. 
 
 Page 5. 1. 83. — rose upon the right. So the mariners of 
 King Necos declared that " in sailing round Libya (Africa) 
 they had the sun upon their right hand." — Herodotus, iv. 
 42. Coleridge suggests, probably from the experience of 
 Captain Shelvocke, that the Mariner had rounded Cape 
 Horn. 
 
 The repetition from 1. 2.5 ff., as if there were nothing 
 else to notice, suggests the utter solitude of the sea. 
 
 1. 85. — Still hid in mist, etc. 
 
 1798. And broad as a weft upon the left 
 
 1. 90.— the mariner's hallo ! 1817, 1829, the Mariners' 
 hollo ! 
 
 1. 91. — And I had done, etc. The use of " and " as an in- 
 troductory word, and its frequent repetition are characteris- 
 tic of the ballads. 
 
 And from her bended knee arose. 
 
 And on her feet did stand : 
 And casting up her eyes to heaven, 
 
 Shee did for mercye calle ; 
 And drinking up the poyson stronge, 
 
 Her life she lost withalle. 
 
 / 
 
190 NOTES. 
 
 And when tliat death, etc. 
 
 —Fair Rosamond, 1. I79ff. (Percy's Jleliquee.) 
 
 1. 92. — 'em. Not a contraction of " them," but the Mid. 
 Eng. hem, AS. heom, dative pi. of the third pars, pronoun. 
 Colloquial or archaic. 
 
 1. 95f.— Ah wretch... to blow. These two lines were 
 added in 1817. 
 
 1. 97. — like God's own head. 
 
 1802. Nor dim nor red, like an ang'cl's head, 
 
 Construe with '"uprist." The simile is a strong varia- 
 tion from Matt. xvii. 2 ; Bev. i. 16. 
 
 1. 98. — uprist. This is properly a present tense for " up- 
 riseth," as in 
 
 For when the sun uprist, then wol ye sprede [spread]. 
 
 — Cliaucer, Complaint of Mant, 1. 4. 
 
 But it was used likewise as a new weak past tense to uprise. 
 
 Aleyn up-rist, and thoughte, 'er that it dawe [prrows Aay] 
 I well [will] go crepen [creep] in by my felawe. 
 
 —Chaucer, Tlie Reeve's Talc, 1. 329f. 
 
 Page 6. 1. 103. — The fair breeze. 1798-1805, The breezes 
 
 blew. 
 
 1. 104, — The furrow followed free. In 1817 Colciidge 
 
 changed this line to 
 
 The furrow stream'd off free; 
 
 remarking in a foot-note : "In the former edition the linft 
 
 was 
 
 Tlie furrow follow'd free : 
 
 but I had not been long on board a ship, before I perceived 
 that this was the image as seen by a spectator from the 
 shore, or from another vessel. From the ship itself the 
 Wake appears like a brook flowing off from the stern." In 
 1828 Coleridge wisely returned to the more expressive line. 
 
 1. 110. — copper sky. Sky of a fiery red colour. 
 
 1. 117. — As idle as a painted ship, etc. The representa- 
 tion of figures in action, in painting and sculpture, is 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 19L 
 
 frequently referred to by the poets to indicate arretted 
 
 action. 
 
 While, passing- fair. 
 Like to a pictured imaa;e, voiceless there 
 Strove she [Iphigenia] to speak. 
 
 — alSschylus, Agamem7ion, 1. 233fF. (Swanwick). 
 
 His sword seemed i' the air to stick • 
 
 So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhiis stood, 
 And like a neutral to his will and matter 
 Did nothing. 
 
 — Shakspere, Hamlet, ii. ii. 499ff. 
 
 So like a painted battle the war stood 
 Silenced. 
 
 — Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur. 
 
 So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
 
 Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
 
 And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
 
 As in a picture. 
 
 — Tennyson, Morte d' Arthur. 
 
 1. 120. — And all the boards. "And" in the sense of 
 " and yet." Cf. , for many instances, Edward's speech be- 
 ginning, 
 
 Have I a tongue to doom my brotlier's death. 
 And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave ? 
 
 — Richard III., ii. i. 
 
 1. 123.— The very deep. 1798-1805, The very deeps . 
 1. 125. — Yea, slimy things, etc. There is a first sketch of 
 this description iu an earlier poem. 
 
 What time after long and pestful calms, 
 With slimy shapes and miscreated life 
 Poisoning the vast Facitio. 
 
 —Coleridge, The Destiny of Nations. 
 
 Page 7. 1. 127. — About, about, etc. There is a trace here of 
 the witches' song in Macbeth. 
 
 The weird sisters, hand in hand, 
 Posters of the sea and land. 
 Thus do go about, about, etc. 
 
 — Shakspere, Macbeth, 1. iii. 32 ff. 
 
 i. 127. — in reel and rout. Whirling about in confusion. 
 
192 NOTES. 
 
 1. 128. — death-fires. A luminous appearance hovering 
 oyer putrescent bodies, as in graveyards, is called a 
 death-fire, or dead-light, corpse-light, corpse-candle. 
 
 Mighty armies of the dead 
 
 Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb. 
 
 — Coleridge, Ode to the Departing Year. 
 
 The appearance of these lights at sea portended drown- 
 ing, or indicated the presence of drowned sailors. 
 
 Where lights, like charnel meteors, burned the distant wave, 
 
 Bluely as o'er some seaman's grave, 
 
 And fiery darts at intervals 
 
 Flew up all sparkling from the main. 
 
 — Southey, Lallah Bookh, The Fire Worshippers. 
 
 1. 129f.— water burnt. See 1. 274 n. This phos- 
 phorescence of the sea is termed Fire-burn or Sea-candles 
 in Scotch. In Provence the sea is said to burn, — La mar 
 cremo. 
 
 The description is apparently drawn from the following : 
 " During a calm. . . .some parts of the sea seemed covered 
 with a kind of slime ; and some small sea animals were 
 swimming about. The most conspicuous of which were of 
 the gelatinous, or medusa kind, almost globular ; and an- 
 other sort smaller, that had a white, or shining appear- 
 ance, and were very numerous. Some of these last were 
 taken up, and put into a glass cup, with some salt water, 
 in which they appeared like small scales, or bits of silver,. 
 when at rest .... "When they began to swim about, .... 
 they emitted the brightest colours of the most precious 
 gems, according to their position with respect to the light. 
 Sometimes they appeared quite pellucid, at other times, 
 assuming various tints of blue, from a pale sapphirine, to> 
 a deep violet colour, which were frequently mixed with a 
 ruby or opaline redness, and glowed with a strength suffi- 
 cient to illuminate the vessel and water. These colours 
 appeared most vivid, when the glass was held to a strong 
 light ; and mostly vanished, on the subsiding of the ani- 
 mals to the bottom, when they had a brownish cast. But. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 193 
 
 with candle light, the colour was, chiefly, a beautiful, pale 
 green, tinged with a burnished gloss ; and, in the dark, it 
 had a faint appearance of glowing fire."— ^ Voyage to the 
 Pacific Ocean.... hj Captain James Cook. Lond., 1784, 
 vol. ii. p. 257 : bk. iii. ch. 13. 
 
 1. 129. — a witch's oils, etc. Probably a picturesque in- 
 ^'ention of the poet's, based on the superstition that fires 
 change colour on the approach of spirits. 
 
 1. 132. (gloss) Josephus. Flavius Josephus( Joseph ben 
 Matthias) (37 A.D.-97 or 100), goTernor of Galilee during 
 the E,oman conquest of Palestine, friend of the emperor 
 Titus, who made him a Roman citizen and gave him a 
 palace at Home. The works of Josephus are : A History 
 of the War of the Jews against the Romans and The Anti- 
 quities of the Jews. In Titus's speech to his soldiers, he 
 asserts that those who die in battle "become good de- 
 mons and propitious heroes, and show themselves to their 
 posterity afterwards." — War of the Jews, vi. i. Spirits ap- 
 peared also before the destruction of Jerusalem, id. vi. 5. 
 A passing allusion is also in Antiq. Jews, viii. 2. But there 
 is little about demons in Josephus. Medieval conceptions 
 are more in harmony with the gloss. 
 
 Psellus. Michael Constantine Psellus (1020-1105 or 
 1110) was born in Constantinople (' the Constantinopoli- 
 tan'), where he " taught philosophy, rhetoric, and dialec- 
 tic with the greatest success, and was honoured with the 
 title of ' Prince of Philosophers' by the emperors." Gaul- 
 minus in his Dedicatio speaks of P. as "Platonicae discip- 
 linae studiosissimu.s " ('the Platonic'). His works are 
 most numerous,* forming commentaries to Aristotle, trea- 
 tises on the sciences, including alchemj^. The work C. 
 specially referred to is Tepl ivepyela^ Sat.iJ.6vMv Sid\oyoi—( Dialogue 
 Concerning the Work of Spirits), edited by Gaulminus 
 1615. and Boissonade, 1838, and translated into Latin by 
 Petrus Morellus, Paris, 1577. 
 
 C. may have got the suggestion of these names in this 
 
194 NOTES. 
 
 connection from Burnet, or more likely from Burton, An- 
 atomy of Melancholy, i. ii. mem. 1, subs. 2. 
 
 1. 139.— Well a-day. In 1798, wel-a-day ! 1802, 1805, 
 well-a-day ! 
 
 The ballad poetry is fond of this interjection. 
 
 ' Now welladay ! ' sayth Joan o' the Scales : 
 ' Now welladay ! and woe to my life ! ' 
 
 —The Heir of Linne, 11. 121-2. (Percy's Reliqnes;. 
 
 It is an archaic interjection of grief, corrupted in form 
 from wellaioay under the influence of day. 
 
 But welaway ! to fer be they to fecche. 
 
 — Chaucer, Anelicla and Arcite, 1. 338. 
 
 Welaway — A.^. w~i la ivd ! literally, Avoe lo woe, alas. 
 
 Page 8. 11. 143-149. ^There passed a weary time. First ap- 
 pears in 1817 ed. 
 
 1798. I saw a something' in the Sky 
 
 No bigger than my tist ; 
 At first it scem'd a little speck, etc 
 
 1802, 1805. " So past a weary time, each throat 
 Was parch'd, and glaz'd each eye, 
 When, looking westward, I beheld 
 A something in the sky. 
 
 At first, etc. 
 
 1. 152. I wist Indeed, certainly. The AS. gewiss, cer- 
 tainly, surely, became Mid. Eng. ywiss, i-ivisx. I-wiss was 
 confused with wit (AS. witan, to know), past tense lui'st, and 
 hence was written as here I loist, or more frequently, Iiciss. 
 
 1. 155. — As if it, etc. 
 
 1798. And, an it dodg'd a water-sprite, 
 
 water-sprite. Sprite, a second form of si^irit The 
 water-sprites are 
 
COLERIDGE : THE ANCIENT MARINER. 195 
 
 Spirits that have o're water gouvernment, 
 
 Are to Manklnde alike malevolent : 
 
 They trouble Seas, Flouds, Rivers, Brookes, and Wels, 
 
 Meeres, Lakes, and love t' enhahit watery Gels 
 
 — Heywood, Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, bk. viii. p. JOT. 
 
 See Scott, Border Minstrelsy, Introd. to The Young Tam- 
 lane. 
 
 1. 155. — tacked and veered. The vessel pursued an er- 
 ratic course, advancing now in zig-zag courses against the 
 wind, and again running before it, with the wind now on 
 one side, now on the other. 
 
 1. 157. — with black lips baked. Cf. " Our skin was black 
 like an oven because of the terrible famine." — Lament, of 
 Jeremiah, v. 10. 
 
 1. 159. — Through utter drought, etc. 
 1798. Then while thro' drouth all dumb we stood. 
 
 1. 161. — A sail ! a sail ! The description of the skeleton 
 ship constantly suggests the Phantom Ship of maritime 
 superstition. Marryat's version in the Phantom Ship is 
 well known. The original story is that of a Dutch Cap- 
 tain who swore he would round Cape Horn against a head- 
 jgale. The storm increased ; he swore the louder ; threw 
 •overboard those who tried to dissuade him ; cursed God, 
 and was condemned to sail on for ever without hope of 
 port or respite. Bechstein, Dsutches Sagenbuch, gives a 
 ■different vei-sion, which has features in common with the 
 A.M. Falkenberg, for murder of his brother, is condemned 
 to sail a spectral bark, attended only by his good and his 
 evil spirit, who play dice for his soul. Playing dice (cf. I. 
 196) with Death or the Devil, for a man's soul, is a super- 
 stition that often figures in medieval art. 
 
 The notion that the ship could sail in spite of wind and 
 tide (11. 155, 169, 175) is common to all accounts of the Phan- 
 tom Ship. 
 
 Or of that Fhantom Ship, whose form 
 Shoots like a meteor through the storm ; 
 
196 NOTES. 
 
 "When the dark scud comes driving hard. 
 And lowered is every topsail yard. 
 And canvas, wove in earthly looms, 
 No more to brave the storm presumes t 
 Then, 'mid the war of sea and sky, 
 Top and topgallant hoisted high, 
 Full spread and crowded every sail, 
 The Demon Frigate braves the gale ; 
 And well the doom'd spectators know 
 The harbinger of wreck and woe. 
 
 —Scott, liokeby, ii. 11. 
 
 The appearance of the phantom ship in the A.M. is like- 
 wise folloAved by disaster, 1. 212ff. See also Longfellow^ 
 Tales of a Wayside Inn, " The Ballad of Carmilhan "; Bas- 
 sett, Legends. . .of the Sea and Sailors. 
 
 Pag'e 9. 1. 164. — Gramercy. Mid. Eng. gramercy, grant 
 mercy, from Fr. grant merci, great thanks. Originally an. 
 expression of thanks, mingled with surprise. Here it be- 
 comes a mere interjection of surprise. In the ballads, — 
 
 Gramercy, Christopher, my sonne. 
 Thy counsell well it liketh mee. 
 
 Gramercy now, my children deare 
 — The Rising in the North, 11. 61, 62, 73, (Percy's BeHqnes): 
 
 1.164. — They for joy did grin. " I took the thought of 
 grinning for joy .... from poor Burnett's (a Unitarian 
 preacher) remark to me, when we had climbed to the top 
 of Plinlimmon, and were nearly dead Avith thirst. We 
 could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little 
 puddle under a stone. He said to me, ' You grinned like 
 an idiot ! ' He had done the same." — Coleridge, Table Talh-r 
 May 31st, 1830. 
 
 1. 167.— See ! See ! etc. 
 
 1798. She doth not tack from side to side — 
 
 1. 169. — Without a breeze, etc. 
 
 1798. Wlthouten wind, withouten tide 
 
 1. 170.— Steadies with upright keel. Moves on steadily;. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 197 
 
 not bent over ty wind. "Upright" describes the keel's- 
 depth. " With even keel " is the more customary phrase. 
 
 1. 171.— a-flame. 1798-1805, a flame, 
 
 1. 176.— Betwixt. An archaic and provincial word, be- 
 tween. (AS. hetweohs, hetwyx, between, from be + tweox,. 
 by two, — consequently going back to the same elements as- 
 "between," AS. betweonum.) 
 
 1. 178. — Heaven's Mother. One of the many names of 
 of the Virgin. See 1. 298 note. Ejaculations of this sort 
 are not rare in the ballads. 
 
 1. 183.— her sails. 1798-1817, her sails. So her in 1. 185. 
 
 1. 184. — gossameres. Gossamers, filmy cobwebs of small 
 spiders, found on low bushes or floating in long threads in. 
 the air, especially in autumn. (Mid. Eng. gossamer, lit. 
 goose-summer, the down of summer.) 
 
 1. 185 ff.— Are those her ribs. 
 
 1798. Ave those her naked ribs, which flec.k'd 
 
 The sun that did behind them peer ? 
 And pre those two all, all her crew, 
 Tliat woman and her fleshless Pheere ? 
 
 1802-5 have the reading of the text, save that 11. 188, 189 read' 
 
 And are those two all, all lier crew, 
 That Woman, and her Mate ? 
 
 1798 then continues with the following stanza, which is- 
 likemse in 1832-5, Avith the last line, however, reading,. 
 They were . 
 
 His bones were black with many a crack, 
 
 All black and bare, I ween ; 
 Jet-black and bare, save where with rust 
 01 mouldy damps and charnel crust 
 
 They're patch'd with purple and green. 
 
 1. 188. — a Death. A skeleton endued with life. (Named' 
 from its symbolizing death.) 
 
 1. 189. — Is Death, etc. Following this stanza there is 
 found, written by the poet's hand on a copy of the 1798' 
 
198 NOTES. 
 
 ed., the following stanza, which was first printed in Mac- 
 millan's ed., 1880. 
 
 This Ship it was a plaiikless thing, 
 
 A bare Anatomy ! 
 A plankless Spectre— and it moved 
 
 Like a Reins' of the Sea ! 
 The woman and a fleshless man 
 
 Tlierein sat merrily. 
 
 iPage 10. 1. 190ff. — Her lips were red, etc. 1798 uses 
 present tenses, are, are, is, in 11. 190-192. Her in 1. 190, in 
 all edd. 1798-1829. 
 
 1. 193.— The Night-mare, etc. 
 1798. And she is (l80:.'-5, was) far liker Death than he ; 
 Her flesh makes (1802-5, made) the still air cold. 
 
 Night-mare. Conceived as an incubus or demon oppress- 
 ing sleepers. (AS. mare, hence not connected with Mod. 
 Eng. mare, AS. mearh, horse, steed.) 
 
 1. 193. — Life-in-Death. Cf. C.'s own epitaph : 
 That he wlio many a year with toil of breath 
 Found death in life, may here find life in death. 
 
 C had his own fate in mind when he added in the 1817 
 ed. this idea of Life-in-Death. 
 
 The living death comes only on the Mariner (1. 197), who 
 feels its approach, with fear at his heart (1. 204). 
 
 1. 196. — the twain. Archaic, couple, two. (AS. twegen 
 is the masc. corresponding to neut. twa, two, which has 
 been generalized. 
 
 casting. 1798-1805, playing. 
 
 1. 197.— I've, I've won. So in 1817, 1829, 1835. The edi- 
 tions 1798-1805, read 
 
 "The same is done ! I've won, I've won ! " 
 It is therefore quite certain that the more usual reading, de- 
 fending only on the early editions, 1793-1 :i05, is not what 
 -Coleridge iinally approved. The reading " I've, I've won " 
 yhas, moreover, the merit of throwing the accent where it 
 rhetorically belongs. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. I'JO' 
 
 I. 198.— and whistles thrice. 1798-1805, whistled . Not 
 ■without meaning to the superstitious sailor. Except in a 
 calm, whistling is ominous work, likely to bring on a storm. 
 And a whistling woman — 
 
 A whistling woman and a crowing- hen 
 Are neither fit for God nor men. 
 
 " Our sailors, I am told, at this very day (I mean the vul- 
 gar sort) have a strange opinion of the devil's power and 
 agency in stirring up winds, and that is the reason they so 
 seldom whistle on shipboard, esteeming it to be a mockery, 
 and conseqtientlj'- an enraging of the devil." — Dr. Pegge, 
 Gentleman's Mag., 1763. 
 
 It will be noticed (11. 2, 76, 198, 261) that C. uses numbers, 
 as they are used in the bible, in the classic^, and in popu- 
 lar superstition, for the sake of mysterious suggestion. Cf. 
 
 The night-birdes seream'd a cry ot'dreade, 
 
 The death-belle thrice did ring ; 
 And thrice at Arthur's window bars 
 A raven flapp'd its wing. 
 
 — The Murder of Prince Arthur, Evans, iv. 118. 
 She had three lilies in her hand 
 And the stars in her hair were seven. 
 
 — Rossetti, Tlte Blessed Damozel. 
 
 II. 199-211.— The sun's rip dips, etc. Night in the Tro- 
 pics descending without twilight is here matchlessly de- 
 picted. 
 
 These stanzas are represented in 1798 by the following : — 
 
 A gust of wind sterte up behind 
 
 And whistled thro' his bones ; 
 Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth 
 
 Half-whistles and half-groans. 
 With never a whisper in the Sea 
 
 Off darts the Spectre-ship ; 
 While clombe above the Eastern bar 
 
 The horned Moon, with one bright Star 
 Almost atween the tips. 
 
 So in 1802-5, with slight changes, — the hole of his eyes, 
 between the tips. 1817 follows (i) 1798 and (ii) 1805, but in 
 
-.200 NOTES. 
 
 Errata, the poet asks the erasure of the stanza, A gust of 
 wind. 
 
 1. 209.— clotnb. An archaism. The verb is strong in 
 AS., usually strong in Mid. Eng., but weak in Mod. Eng. 
 
 1. 210.— moon, with one bright star. A MS. note of C.'s 
 to this line is first printed in Macmillan's ed.. 1880 :— " It is 
 a common superstition among sailors that something dire 
 is about to happen whenever a star dogs the moon." 
 
 1.211. — nether. (AS. neothera, lower.) Lower; under. 
 
 1. 212f. — One after one, etc. 
 
 1798-1805. One after one by the honied Moon 
 
 (Listen, O Stranger ! to me) 
 Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang 
 And curs'd nae -with his ee. 
 
 1. 213. — quick. This has been explained as living, as 
 in " the quick and the dead." This stanza, however, has 
 close relation with the following, the two depicting the 
 ■death of the crew, as one by one they curse the Mariner 
 ■ and drop down. It is possible that ' ' quick " has its usual 
 meaning. Death and Life-in-Death at once seize on their 
 own, and the crew have time only to curse him with a 
 glance as they die. 
 
 Page II. 1. 217. — And I heard, etc. 
 
 1798-1802. With never a sigh or gi-oan. 
 
 1. 223. — like the whizz. Remorse makes each death a 
 reminder of his crime. Imitations of the line are 
 
 The gloomi^ brewer's [Cromwell] soul 
 Went by me, like a stork. 
 
 — Tennyson, 'The Talking Oak. 
 And the souls mounting up to God 
 Went by her like thin flames. 
 
 — Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 1. 227. — the ribbed sea-sand. C.'s note to this line ap- 
 pears in the 1817 ed., when first the poem was published 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 201 
 
 ■under his own name. Nether Stowey and Dulverton are 
 
 in Somerset ; see p. 177f . 
 
 The figare is in the ballads, — 
 
 Ribb'd like the sand at mark of sea. 
 
 — Lord Souiis. {Border Slinstrelsy.) 
 
 Page 12. 1. 234. — And never a saint, etc. 
 
 1798-1805. And Christ wov\\A take no pity on 
 1. 238. — And a thousand, etc. 
 
 1798-180.). And a million million slim}- things 
 1. 242. — rotting-. 1798. eldritch, weird, ghastly, hideous, 
 — a common ballad word, see Sir Cauline (Percj-'s Eeliques.) 
 1. 245. ^or ever. Before ever, ere. Archaic ; see Daniel 
 "vi. 24; Eccl. xii. 6, and the ballads. 
 1. 247. — heart as dry as dust. 
 
 The good die first. 
 But they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
 
 Burn to the socket. 
 
 — AVordsworth, JSxcuriion, i. 
 
 1. 251. — Like a load. 1817, like a cloud, but corrected in 
 Errata : for cloud read load. 
 
 1. 252. — the dead were at my feet. 
 
 Have owre [half over], h:i.\'e ower to Aberdour, 
 
 It's fiftie fadom deip : 
 And thair lies gud Sir Patrick Spence, 
 Wi' the Scots lords at his feit [feet]. 
 
 Sir Patrick Spence, 1. 4lff. (Percy's Eeliques.) 
 
 1. 254. — reek. AS. recan, to smoke ; here, a secondary 
 ■sense, to smell. 
 
 Page 13. 1. 267f. — bemocked the sultry main, etc. The cold 
 rays of moonlight, spread like hoar-frost, were a mocking 
 contrast to the sultriness of the ocean. 
 1. 268. — Like April hoar-frost spread. 
 
 1798. Like morning frosts yspread ; 
 
 1. 270.— alvvay. Archaic.— always. 
 
 1. 270. — charmed -water. As if under magical influence 
 (L. carmen, incantation) ; cf. 1. 129. 
 
202 NOTES. 
 
 1. 273.— water-snakes. C. seems to have consulted vari- 
 ous zoological works ; for the note-book of this date con- 
 tains long paragraphs upon alligators, boas and crocodiles 
 of antediluvian times." (Brandl, p. 202.) 
 
 1. 274.— tracks of shining white. See 1. 129f.7i. Eefer- 
 ring to the phosphorescent gleam of the sea (or more pro- 
 perly the animalculse in the sea) particularly noticeable 
 when the surface is disturbed. Scott imitates C. in, 
 Awaked before the rushing prow, 
 The mimic fires of ocean glow, 
 
 Those lightings of the wave; 
 Wild sparkles crest the broken tides. 
 And, flashing round, the vessel's sides 
 With elvish lustre lave, etc. 
 
 — Lord of the Isles, i. xxi. 
 
 remarking in a note :— " The phenomenon called by sailors 
 Sea-fire At times the ocean appears entirely illumin- 
 ated around the vessel, and a long train of lambent corus- 
 cations are perpetually bursting from the sides of the 
 
 vessel, or pursuing her wake through the darkness.'" 
 «> 
 At times the whole sea burn'd. at times 
 With wakes of fire we tore the dark. 
 
 — Tennyson, TJie Voyage. 
 
 1. 282if. — O happy living things ! etc. C, in making the 
 Mariner find through love of the lower animals a partial 
 release from punishment for his wanton cruelty to a bird, 
 is here in close touch with his age. Cowper, Burns, 
 "Wordsworth, all show keen sympathy for the sufferings of 
 the humblest animals. C. in his early career addressed a> 
 poem even to a Young Ass, — 
 
 Innocent Fool ! Thou poor, despised forlorn, 
 I hail thee brother, spite of the fool's scorn. 
 " The more the landscape poets of what may be called the 
 century of humanity penetrated into the secrets of earth 
 and air, the more they sympathized with the lower crea- 
 tures of nature, and demanded for all and each a fitting 
 lot." (Brandl, p. 97.) 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 203 
 
 Page 14. 1. 288fP.^I could pray. This is the medieval notion 
 that prayer wrought release from curses and from the 
 power of demons. Bat here humanity, love, alone make 
 prayer possible and efficacious — a very modern notion,. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 1. 292f . — Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing. See Wordsworth, 
 To Sleep, Introd. Notes. Of. 
 
 For she belike hath drunken deep 
 Of all the blessedness of sleep. 
 
 —Coleridge. Christahel. 
 
 1. 294.— To Mary Queen, etc. So printed in edd. 1817fe. 
 
 1798. To Mary-queen the praise be j'cven [arch., givenj. 
 
 Mary Queen (of heaven), cf. 
 
 O Mary Mother, be not loth I 
 
 To listen, — thou whom the stars clothe, 
 Who seSst and maystnot be seen ! 
 Hear us at last, O Mary Queen ! 
 Into our shadow bend thy face, 
 Bowing thee from the secret place, 
 O Mary Virgin, full of grace. 
 
 — Rossetti, Ave. 
 
 1. 296. — sleep that sHd. Older English literature 
 
 abounds in a related notion, — that of sliding into sleep. 
 
 1. 297. — the silly buckets. " Silly" has here its original 
 meaning of blessed, fortunate, AS. scelig, Mid. Eng. seehj. 
 The epithet shows the gush of love that has filled the 
 Mariner's heart. Some explain i'j as weak, frail, in imita- 
 tion of, 
 
 After long storms. . . . 
 With wliich my silly bark was toss'd, 
 
 — Spenser. 
 
 Page 15. 1. 302. — dank. (Swed. dank, marshy ground.) Damp 
 and cold. 
 
 ]. 303. — drunken. Archaic in its participial use. 
 1. 308. — blessed. Enjoying the happiness of heaven. 
 
204 NOTES. 
 
 1. 309. — And soon I heard, etc. 
 
 1798. The roaring wind ! it roar'd far off, 
 
 1. 310.— anear. Near. A form of near, possibly imi- 
 tated from afar = on (of) far. This instance of its use (= 
 near) is the earliest given in the New Eng. Diet. 
 
 1. 311f. — sails. That were so thin and sere. So in Shel- 
 vocke's Voyage. When the Captain reached California, 
 he found ' ' at best our sails and riggings were hardly ever 
 fit to cope with a brisk gale, and were now grown so verj' 
 thin and rotten, etc. , p. 432. 
 
 1. 314. — fire-flags. Poetical and archaic, — flashes of 
 lightning. 
 
 sheen. See 1. o6n. 
 
 1. 315ff. — were. 1798, are. It has the present tense also 
 in 11. 317, dance on ; 318, doth ; 319, do ; 320, pours ; 
 321, and. the Moon is . 322f. read. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the thick black cloud is cleft. 
 And the moon is at its side : 
 
 Page i6. 1. 327f.— The loud wind, etc. 
 
 1798. The strong wind reach 'd the ship : it roar'd 
 And dropp'd down, like a stone I 
 
 I. 334. — To have seen. More correctly, To see. 
 
 1. 337. — 'gan. Cf. 1. 385. Mid. Eng. ginnen, an aphetic 
 form of AS. onginnan, to begin. Modern usuage marks 
 'gin, 'gan, as if abbreviations of begin, began. Frequent 
 in ballad poetry. 
 
 Tlien aunswerde him a courteous knighte. 
 And fast his handes gan wringe : 
 
 —Sir Cauline, 1. 2,^f. (Percy's Reliques.) 
 
 ]. 344.— But he said nought to me. Following this line, 
 1798 reads, 
 
 And I quak'd to think of my own voice 
 How frightful it would be. 
 
 ,11. 345-8.-1 fear thee blest. Not in the 1798 ed. 
 
COLERIDGE : THE ANCIENT MARINER. 205 
 
 Page 17. 1. 348. — corses. Mid. Eng. cors.^ from OFr. cors., 
 Lat. corpus. In the fourteenth cent, the French cors became 
 corps under influence of the Latin original. English fol- 
 lowed, and made over cors into corps{e). From 1500 p be- 
 gan to be sounded. This pronunciation finally prevailed, 
 making corse archaic and poetic. 
 
 1. 850. — For -when it dawn'd. 1798, The daylight da wn'd. 
 
 1. 359. — the sky-lark sing-. 1798, the lavrock sing. (Lav- 
 rock is Northern dialect for lark. ) Brandl remarks (p. 202), 
 on the introduction of these touches of nature: — "Cole- 
 ridge also repeats ideas from his own songs, as he makes 
 the contrite singer hear the song of the skylark, and the 
 * noise of a hidden brook ' ; all is apparently only access- 
 sory, but it gives the ballad its chief charm." 
 
 For the epithet " a-dropping from the sky," see intro- 
 ductory notes to Wordsworth's Skylark. 
 
 1. 362. — jargoning. OFr. Jargon is precisely the sing- 
 ing of birds. 
 
 1. 364. — like a lonely flute. Cf . Evangeline, 1. 1055. 
 
 Page 18. 1. 372. — Singeth a quiet tune. Between this line 
 and the following are found in the 1798 ed. these stanzas : — 
 f Listen, O listen, thou Wedding'-guest ! 
 
 " Maiiiiere ! thou hast my will : 
 " For that, which comes out of thine eye, doth make 
 '■ My body and soul to be still." 
 
 Ne\'Gr sadder tale was told 
 
 To a man of woman born : 
 Sadder and wiser thou wedding-guest I 
 
 Thou'lt rise to morrow morn. 
 
 Never sadder tale was heard 
 
 By a man of woman born : 
 The Mariueres all return'd to work 
 
 As silent as beforne. 
 
 Th3 Marineres all 'gan pull the rope3, 
 But look at me they n'old [would notl: 
 
 Thought I, I am as thin as air-- 
 They cannot me behold. 
 
206 NOTES. 
 
 1. 379.— slid. Cf. 1. 291. Frequently used of passing 
 smoothly, especially by Tennyson : — 
 
 Pair is her cottage in its place, 
 Where j'on broad water slowly glides. 
 
 It sees itself i'rom thatch to base 
 Dream in 'Jie sliding tides. 
 
 —Tennyson, Requiescat. 
 
 1. 888f. — The sun right up above the mast. The ship has 
 reached the eqiiator, and the pcver of the Polar Spirit 
 ceases. The ship tosses there till the demand of the Spirit 
 for vengeance is appeased, Avhen, freed from his power, it 
 darts nortliward. 
 
 1. 392.— down in. 1798-1805, into. 
 
 1. 394. — I have not to declare. I liave not the knowledge 
 to enable me to declare. 
 
 1. 395. — living-. Conscious. 
 
 Page 19. 1. 399. — By Him who died, etc. An oath of the_bal- 
 
 lads, — 
 
 This is a mery morning, seid LituU John, 
 Be hym that dyed 011 tre [cross]. 
 
 — Robin Hood and the Blo.ik, 1. 13f. 
 
 1. 407. — honey-dew. A sugary substance found on the 
 leaves of trees in drops like dew, exuded from plant-lice, 
 or from leaves during hot weather, sometimes dripping 
 from them as " manna " ; much liked by bees and ants. 
 
 Close your eyes with holy dread. 
 For he on honey -uew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise. 
 
 — Coleridge, Kubla Khan. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 Page 20. 1. 416. — his great bright eye. Cf. 
 
 The broad, open eye of the solitary sky. 
 
 —Wordsworth, Stray Pleasures. 
 1. 423. — Without or wave or wind ? 
 1798. Withouten wave or wind ? 
 
COLERIDGE : THE ANCIENT MARINER. 207 
 
 1. 426. — fly ! high belated. It is to te supposed 
 
 the spirits are to return to some celestial goal, for which 
 they here depart. 
 
 1. 435. — charnel-dungeon. Charnel (Fr. charnel., late 
 Lat. carnale, from carn-evi, flesh), a chapel or house for 
 the dead: — " Facing this (Paul's) cross stood the charnel. 
 
 in which the bodies of the dead were piled together." 
 
 Entick, London, iv, 119 {New Eng. Diet.) : hence " charnel- 
 dungeon," a vault or dungeon for dead bodies. Milton has 
 " charnel-vaults and sepulchres," C'omus, 471. Cf, 
 
 Ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng. 
 
 — Beattie, Minstrel, i. xxxii. 
 
 Page 21. 1. 440. — eyes. 1798, een. 
 1. 442. — And now this spell, etc. 
 
 1798. And in its time the spell was snapt, 
 
 And I could move my een : 
 I look'd, etc. 
 
 1. 452. — breathed a vyind on me. Contrast the wind in 
 1. 309ff. Even this one, sweet and gentle as it is, recalls 
 the horror of the earlier scene (see 1. 458). 
 
 1. 455. — in shade. An earthly wind darkens the water 
 by casting up ripples that break the reflection of the light. 
 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver. 
 
 — Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Page 22. 1. 466. — countree. In edd. 1798-1805 the accent is 
 marked in this line and in 11. 518, 570, countr6e. This 
 accentuation of the final syllable is the original accentua- 
 tion (Fr. contree); it is common in older poetry, and 
 characterizes as well the archaic ballads. This foreign 
 accent even affected at times the accentuation of native 
 
 words. 
 
 Despraise her not to me. 
 For better I love your little fiiig-er 
 Than I do her whole body'. 
 — Lord Tliomasine and Fair Ellinor. (Thomson, p. 83.) 
 
208 NO TES. 
 
 But none i\'as soe comelye as pretty Bessie. 
 —Beggar's Daughter of Beclnall-Green, 1. 4. (Percy's Reliquen.) 
 
 1. 473. — strewn. Outspread. 
 
 1. 475. — And the shadow of the moon. Shadow, reflec- 
 tion. 1798 here contains a number of stanzas of interest 
 as affording some explanation of 1. 482. 
 
 The moonlight bay was white all o'er. 
 
 Till rising from the pame, 
 Full many shapes, that shadows were, 
 
 Like as of torches came. 
 
 A little distance from the prow 
 
 These dark-red shadows were ; 
 But soon I saw that my own fleah 
 
 Was red as in a glare. 
 
 I turn'd my head in fear and dread, 
 
 And by the holy rood, 
 The bodies had advanc'd, and now 
 
 Before the mast they stood. 
 
 They lifted up their stiff right arms, 
 
 They held them strait and tight ; 
 And each right-arm burnt like a torch, 
 
 A torch that's borne upright. 
 Their stony eye-balls glitter'd on 
 
 In the red and smoky light. 
 
 I pray'd and turn 'd my head away 
 
 Forth looking as before. 
 There was no breeze upon the bay, 
 
 No wave against the shore. 
 
 The rock shone bright, etc. 
 1. 482. — ^shadows. Shades, spirits. 
 
 Page 23. 1. 487.— Oh, Christ ! etc. Of. 
 
 O Christ ! it was a grief e to see. 
 
 —Olievy CTase (Modern). {Fercy 's Reliques.y 
 1. 489. — by the holy rood ! An oath from the ballads. 
 Eobin replied, now by the rude [rood]. 
 
 — Rohin and Malcyne, 1. 9. (Percy's lieliques.^i 
 The rood is the cross of Christ. AS. rDcl, cross. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 209 
 
 Page 23. 1. 490. — A seraph-man. Seraphs ai'e winged angels 
 of the highest order, worshipping Jehovah and acting as 
 his messengers and ministers through the earth. (HelD. 
 saraph^ burn.) 
 
 Seraph, if we but retyre 
 To the words force, importeth nought save Fire. 
 
 — Hey wood, Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, p. 217. 
 
 1. 500.— But soon. 1798, Eftsones. 
 
 1. 501. — cheer. Hail. 
 
 1. 503. — And I saw a boat appear. 1798 continues, — 
 
 Then vanished all the lovely lights ; 
 
 The bodies rose anew : 
 With silent pace, each to his place, 
 
 Came back the ghastly crew. 
 The wind, that shade nor motion made, 
 
 On me alone it hlew. 
 
 But in a copy of the 1798 ed., this stanza is crossed out, 
 and the following substituted on the margin, — 
 
 Then vanish'd all the lovely lights, 
 
 The spirits of the air, 
 No souls of mortal men were they, 
 
 But spirits bright and fair. 
 
 (First published in Macmillan's ed., 1880.) 
 
 1. 509. — the hermit. The picturesque personage of the 
 hermit is frequently found in the ballads (See Evans, 
 vol. iv.) 
 
 Page 24. 1. 512. — shncve. An obso'ete form of shrive (AS. 
 scrifan, to prescribe penance). To hear confession, im- 
 pose penance, and grant absolution of sin. In Spenser, 
 Sliepheards Calender, August, schrieve rimes with eve. 
 
 It fell upon a holly eve. 
 Hey, ho, hoUidaye ! 
 ; When holly fathers wont to shrieve ; 
 
 Now gynneth this roundelays. 
 
210 NOTES. 
 
 PART VII. 
 
 1. 517,— marineres. This is the usual spelling through- 
 out A.M., 1798, and is retained here because of the rime. 
 
 1. 524. — I trow (properly, tro). (AS. trcowian, to trust.) 
 
 I think, I suppose. 
 
 Gallant men I trow you bee : 
 —The Rising in the North, 1. 66. (Percy's Reliques.) 
 
 1. 529. — The planks look warped ! This is the reading 
 
 1798-1805, and undoubtedly correct ; yet 1817-1835 read 
 
 The planks looked warp'd ! 
 
 and are followed by almost every later edition. 
 
 Page 25. 1. 533.— Brown skeletons. 1798-1817 read, The 
 skeletons ; but Errata in 1817 : for The r. Brown. 
 1. 535. — ivy-tod. A thick bush, usually of ivy. 
 At length within the-yvie todde, 
 (There shrouded was the little god) 
 I heard a busie bustling. 
 
 — Spenser, Shep. Calend., March. 
 
 And, like an owle, by night to goe abroad, 
 Roosted all dny within an ivie tod. 
 — Drayton, Poems, p. 254 (ed. 1G37). So also Scott, Antiq., xxi. 
 
 1. 552. — Like one that hath been seven days drowned. 
 
 " The bodies of those who w^ere drowned, but not recovered, 
 were supposed to come to the surface of the water on the 
 ninth day.'"- — Gregor, Folk-lore of the North-East of Scot- 
 land, p. 208. In the south decomposition would set in 
 earlier and shorten the time when the body would float. 
 
 Page 26. 1. 559. — telling- of the sound. Eesounding, echoing. 
 1. 570.— all in my own countree. 1798, mine own countree. 
 "All in" constitutes a poetical phrase, usually introduc- 
 ing a scenic or local touch ; 
 
 All in the blue unclouded weather, 
 Thick-iewell'd shone the saddle-leather. 
 
 —Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott. 
 
COLERIDGE: THE ANCIENT MARINER. 211 
 
 All in an oriel on the summei" side, 
 
 Vine-clad, of Artliur's palace they met. 
 
 — Tennyson, Lancelot and, Elaine. 
 
 1. 575. — crossed his brow. The sign of the cross, holy 
 ■water, prayers, the name of God or of Christ were all de- 
 structive of Satanic power. 
 
 The Crosses signe (saitli Athanasius) they 
 Cannot endure, it puts them to dismay. 
 — Heywood, HierarcMe of the blessed Angels, bk. ix. p. .581. 
 
 1. 577. — What manner of man. 1798-1805 have themore 
 archaic reading, 
 
 What manner man art thou ? 
 
 Page 27. 1. 5S2ff. — Since then, etc. 
 
 1798. Since then, at an uncertain hour 
 Now often and now fewer, 
 That anguisli comes and makes me tell 
 My ghastly adventure. 
 
 1. 586. — I pass, like night, from land to land. There is 
 here a touch of the medieval legend of the Wandering .Tew. 
 
 Page 28. 1. 610ff.— but this I tell, etc. "Mrs. Barbauld once 
 told me that she admired the Ancient Mariner very much, 
 but that there were two faults in it. — it was improbable, 
 :and had a moral. As for the improbability, I owned that 
 that might admit some question ; but as to the want of a 
 moral, I told her that in my judgment the poem had too 
 much ; and that the only, or chief fault, if I might say so, 
 was the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the 
 reader as a principle or cause of action in a work of such 
 f)ure imagination. It ought to have no more moral than 
 the Arabian Nights' tale."— Coleridge, Table Talk, May 
 31, 1830. 
 
 In the Journ. of Speculative Phi! . , 14. 327ff. .Gertrude Gar- 
 rigues endeavours to allegorize the A. M., as depicting the 
 loss of the innocence of ignorance, and the return, through 
 the medium of sin and doubt, to conscious virtue and 
 
212 NOTES. 
 
 belief :— ' He stoppeth one of three', Many are called, Imt- 
 few are chosen. ' The ship was cheered ', Man commences- 
 the voyage of life. ' And now the storm-blast came,' The 
 world, with its buffets, confronts him, etc., etc. In the 
 light of C.'s own statement all this theorizing happily 
 vanishes. 
 
 1. 623. — forlorn. Deprived, bereft. Archaic and poetical 
 in this sense. (Forlorn=/or'Zoren, past part, of forleosan, 
 to lose utterly.) 
 
 1. 624. — sadder. Made more, serious by his experience of 
 depths of human life hitherto unsuspected. 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE, 
 
 Composition and publication. Sara Coleridge in a note- 
 to ed. 1852 was of the opinion that the first stanza (11. 1-17) 
 was written as late as 1824, and prefixed to the second 
 stanza, composed many years before. These two stanzas 
 were published in that order in The Bijou and in The 
 Literary Souvenir, literary annuals of 1828, and . were 
 included with slight verbal changes in C.'s collected works, 
 1828. A memorandum of Coleridge's (ed. 1852, notes) 
 shows that 11. 39-43 were written by 1827. The whole of 
 this third stanza appeared in Blackwood'' s. June, 1832, con- 
 taining 11. 39-49 and two concluding lines, not in the final 
 revision : — 
 
 O ! might Life cease ! and Selfless Mind, 
 Whose total Being is Act, alone remain behind I' 
 
 1. 42f . , however, read : — 
 
 That only serves to make us grieve 
 
 In our old age, 
 Whose bruised wings quarrel with the bars of the still 
 narrowing cage. 
 
 The whole stanza, as printed in Blackwood's, thus made up 
 
COLERIDGE YOUTH AND AGE. 215. 
 
 fourteen lines, and was entitled The Old Man's Sigh, A 
 Sonnet, dated "18th May, i832 — Grove, Higligate.'''' For 
 all, the poet speaks of it as an "Out-slough, or hypertro- 
 phic Stanza, of. ... ' Youth and Age,' having. . . .detached 
 itself, and dropt off from the poem aforesaid." The poetry 
 as it stands in the text is first found in ed. 1834(5). 
 
 Autobiographical character of the poem. This poem is 
 the lament of the poet over the wreck of his physical being, 
 due for the most part to his use of opium, and the con- 
 sequent impotence of his great intellectual powers. As 
 early as 1806, C. was conscious of his greatness fallen to ruin. 
 
 Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, 
 And genius given, and knowledge won in vain ; 
 And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild. 
 And all which patient toil had reared, and all. 
 Commune with thee had opened out — but flowers 
 Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier. 
 
 — To William, Wordstcorth. 
 
 See Introduction. Carlyle, who knew him well in these- 
 Highgate days, describes him thus : — 
 
 " The good man, he was now getting old, toAvards sixty 
 perhaps ; and gave you the idea of a life that had been full 
 of sufferings ; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still 
 swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and 
 other bewilderment. Brow and head were round, and of 
 massive weight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. 
 Ths deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of 
 inspiration; confused pain looked mildly from them, as 
 in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air, 
 good and amicable otherwise, might be called flabby and 
 irresolute ; expressive of weakness under possibility of 
 strength. He hung loosely on his limbs, with knees bent, 
 and stooping attitude ; in walking he rather shuffled thart 
 decisively stept .... A heavy-laden, high-aspiring, and 
 surely much-suffering man." — Life of Stirling, ch. viii. 
 
 Other poems of O.'s of similar tone and substance — De-^ 
 
214 NOTES. 
 
 Jection, To William Wordsworth, Work witliout Hope, etc., 
 will best illustrate the present poem. 
 
 Pag-e 29. Title. Youth and Age. This is likewise the name 
 of one of Shakspere's poems in the Passionate Pilgrim, be- 
 ginning : 
 
 Crabbed Age and Youth 
 Cannot live together ; 
 
 Cf. Thomas Love Peacock's lines to the same title, and 
 Lord Byron's Stanzas to Music, beginning 
 
 There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away. 
 
 1. 1. — Verse. C. wrote scarcely any poetry after 1802, 
 while the years 1794—1800 are rich with almost everything 
 his poetic fame is associated with. 
 
 Six years, from sixty saved ! Yet kindling skins 
 Own them, a beacon to our centuries. 
 
 — D. Gr. Rossetti, Three Englisli Poets, iii. 
 
 1. 2. — clung. Bijou, clings . 
 
 1. 3. — Life -went a maying. Lit., celebrated the begin- 
 ning of May by gathering flowers of the hawthorn, etc., 
 and afterward dancing around the May-pole. Better, 
 a-maying. 
 
 1. 8. — This breathing house. Bijou, This house of clay . 
 
 rot built with hands. Cf. Mark xiv. 58 ; Acts vii. 48, 
 xvii. 24; 2 Corinth, v. 1, etc. 
 
 1. 10. — O'er aery cliffs, etc. * 
 
 Bijou. O'er hill and dale and sounding sands, 
 
 1. 12. — those trim skiffs, etc. For skiffs, Bijou has boats. 
 Steamboats were still a wonder. Symmington built the 
 first practical steamboat, a tug, in 1802. Fulton on the 
 Hudson, 1807, and Bell on the Clyde, 1812, followed with 
 passenger-boats. Five years later steam-navigation spread 
 throughout the three Kingdoms. In 1819 the Atlantic 
 was crossed, and in 1825 an English steamship reached 
 Calcutta. 
 
 1. 17. — Nought cared this body, etc. 
 
COLERIDGE: YOUTH AND AGE. 215- 
 
 O Rain ! with your dull two-fold sound, 
 The clash hard by, and the murmur all round I 
 You know, if you know aught, that we. 
 Both night and day, hut ill agree : 
 For days and months, and almost years. 
 Have limp'd on through this vale of tears, 
 Since hody of mine, and rainy weather, 
 Have lived on easy terms together. 
 
 — Coleridge, An Ode to the Rain. 
 
 1. 21.— Of Friendship, etc. 
 
 1829. Of Beauty, Truth, and Liberty 
 
 Page 30. I. 23.— Ah \woful ere. Literary Souvenir^ Ah 
 mournful ere. 
 
 1. 25. — so many. Bijou, so merry. 
 
 1. 27. — a fond conceit. Bijou, a false conceit. " Fond" 
 and " conceit " are used in old senses, ^a foolish fancy. 
 1. 34. — This drooping- gate. Bijou, this dragging gate. 
 1. 36. — tears take sunshine, etc. 
 
 There was the time when, though my path was rough. 
 
 This joy within me dallied with distress, 
 And all misfortunes were but as the stuff 
 
 Whence fancy mnde me dreams of happiness ; 
 For Hope grew round me like a twining vine, etc. 
 
 — Coleridge, Dejection. 
 
 1. 87. — Life is but thought. A touch of C.'s philosophic 
 idealism ; perhaps also of ShaJispere. 
 
 There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. 
 
 — Hamlet, ii. ii. 
 
 1. 41. — Where no hope is. 
 
 And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, 
 Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build nor sing.... 
 Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve. 
 And hope without an object cannot live. 
 
 —Work without Hope, 1827. 
 
 Page 30. 1. 48. — hath outstay'd his welcome while. While, 
 time. (AS. hwU, space of time.) 
 
-216 NOTES. 
 
 " This great man was dying with the clear consciousness 
 that the world had denied him his due. Long ago life had 
 lost its charm of hope for him, and where no hope was, 
 life was no better than the stern lamp of a ship that lights 
 only the path that is past. The time had been when he 
 had fretted under the sense of work without hope, and ta- 
 lents that he was comiaelled to waste. But that time was 
 gone by. The fiery column that rose before his youth was 
 the dark pillar that stood behind his age. He was recon- 
 ciled to his disraissal ; he told the jest without the smile." 
 — Hall Caine, Life of Coleridge, p. 151f. 
 
WORDSWORTH: THREE YEARS SHE GREW. 217 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ■THEEE YEAES SHE GEEW IN SUN AND SHOAYEE. 
 
 Composition and publication. — After a year at Alfoxden 
 in the neighbourhcod of Coleridge, the two poets and Doro- 
 thy Wordsworth set out, Sept. 16th, 1798, for Germany. 
 (See Introd.) While Coleridge went on to Eatzehiirg to 
 absorb German language, philosophy, and life, the Words- 
 worths buried themselves in Goslar, on the edge ol the 
 Hartz Forest. Wordsworth got little pleasure from Ger- 
 man society or literature or climate — the winter was ter- 
 .rib[y severe— but driven back upon himself, the impulse 
 from his Alfoxden life prompted him to one of the most 
 productive periods of his life. In Goslar he 'Kvroto. Nutting. 
 The Poet's Epitaph, The Fountain, Two April Mornings, 
 Unth, began The Prelude, and composed (1799) the vari- 
 ous Lucy poems. These last are the lyrics beginning : — 
 
 (i.) Strang-e fits of passion have I known. 
 
 (ii.) She dwelt among the untrodden waj-s. 
 
 (lii.) I travelled among unknown men . 
 
 (Iv.) Three years she grew in sun and shower. 
 
 (v.) A slumber did my spirit steal. 
 
 They form an interesting group of poems of ideal love, 
 a,nd should be read in connection with one other. 
 
 The Lucy poems were first published in the new enlarged 
 ■ed. of the Lyrical Ballads, London, 1800, and reprinted 
 1802, 1805, etc. The variations in the text are of the 
 slightest. 
 
 The subject of the poems of Lucy. " The Goslar poems 
 include those addressed to Lucy. Some have supposed 
 that there was an actual Lucy, known to Wordsworth in 
 Yorkshire, ' about the springs of Dove,' to whom he was 
 
218 NOTES. 
 
 attached, Avho died early, and whose love and beauty he 
 commemorates in these five memorial poems. There 
 is no doubt that the intensity of the lines, the allu- 
 sion to the spinning wheel, to the ' violet by the mossj' 
 stone half hidden from the eye ' to the ' bowers where 
 Lucj' played,' to the ' heath, the calm, and quiet scene,' 
 all siiggest a real person. We only wish there were evi- 
 dence that it had been so. But there is no such evidence." 
 — Knight^ ix. 187. 
 
 The Baroness von Stookhausen, nevertheless, has writ- 
 ten a tale called Veilchenduft (Violet-fragrance), which 
 weaves about Wordsworth the incidents suggested in the 
 Lucy poems. 
 
 Critical comments. Coleridge recognized the beauty of 
 the poem with ungrudging admiration. " I would rather 
 have written Rath, and Nature's Lady [Three Years, etc.]," 
 he told Sir H. Davy (Oct. 9, 1800), "than a million such 
 poems [as Christabel].'''' W. A. Heard says of it : " Nature 
 speaks to our minds, but her sounds and music also affect 
 body as well as soul. Wordsworth does not separate the 
 physical and the spiritual ; nothing is solely physical in 
 its effect, everything has a spiritual result. This com- 
 bination of physical and spiritual teaching in nature is 
 the idea embodied in Three years she grew. One stanza is 
 specially apposite : ' And she shall lean her ear,' etc. This 
 is not only true poetry, but it has a Platonic felicitousness 
 of language as the expression of a philosophy." — Words- 
 worth Soc. Proc, vi. 55. 
 
 Euskin's appreciation of the poem is marked with his 
 usual wonderful insight. In Sesame and Lilies (Of Queens' 
 Gardens), he quotes most of this poem in the following- 
 context : 
 
 " The first of our duties to her [woman] is to secure 
 
 her such physical training and exercise as may confirm 
 her health, and perfect her beauty ; the highest refine- 
 ment of beauty being unattainable without splendour of 
 
WORDSWORTH: THREE YEARS SHE GREW. 219 
 
 activity and of delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, 
 I say, and increase its power ; it cannot be too powerful, 
 nor shed its sacred light too far ; only remember that all 
 physical freedom is vain to produce beauty without a cor- 
 rerponding freedom of heart. There are two passages of 
 that poet who is distinguished, it seems to me, from all 
 others —not by power, but by exquisite Tightness — which 
 point you to the source and describe to you, in a few syll- 
 ables, the completion of womanly beauty [stt. 1, 2, 4, 6 of 
 this poem are quoted] .... This for the means : now note 
 the end. Take from the same poet, in two lines, a perfect 
 description of womanly beauty : — 
 
 ' A countenance in which did meet j 
 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet.' " etc. 
 
 The whole of Queens' Gardens is indeed a beautiful com- 
 mentary on this poem. 
 
 Page 31. — The title. The poem is indexed in Lyrical Ballads, 
 
 Three years she grew in sun and shov.-er. In edd. 1843, 
 
 1846, etc., it is indexed and paged, Lucy. Otherwise it 
 
 has remained without title Mr. Palgrave in the Golden 
 
 Treasury invents the sub-title given on p. 31. 
 
 1. 7f . — Myself will with me. In 1802 the poet 
 
 changed the lines to ; 
 
 Her Teacher I myself will be, 
 She is my darling ; and with me 
 
 but wisely returned to the original text in 1805. 
 
 1. lOf. — In earth and heaven, .... an overseei' g" pov/er. 
 
 The philosophy of this bears illustration from every line of 
 
 Tintern Abbey, as from the following : — 
 
 Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege, 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 From joy to joy : for she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 "With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of seltish men. 
 
220 NO TES. 
 
 Not .sjreetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life. 
 
 Shall e'er prevail against us or disturb 
 
 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
 
 Is full of blessings. 
 
 — Tintern Abbey, 1. 12i'ff. 
 
 1. 13f. — sportive as the fawn, etc. 
 
 When along the lawn she bounds, 
 Light, as hind before the hounds. 
 
 — Ambrose Phillips, The Stray Nymph. 
 
 1. 20. — for her the willow bend. The willow is pre-eminent 
 for its lithe grace, with which it here imbues the Maiden. 
 
 1. 23. — Grace that shall mould. This is the reading in 
 1802, but ed. 1800 reads, 
 
 A beauty tliat shall mould her form 
 
 1. 31. — vital feeling's. "'Vital feelings of delight,' ob- 
 serve. There are deadly feelings of delight ; but the 
 natural ones are vital, necessary to very life. And tliey 
 must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital. Do not 
 think you can make a girl lovely, if you do not make her 
 happy. There is not one restraint you can put on a good 
 girl's nature — there is not one check you give to her in- 
 stincts of affection or of effort — which will not be indelibly 
 written on her features, with a hardness which is all the 
 more painful because it takes away the brightness from 
 the eyes of innocence, and the charm from the brow of vir- 
 tue." — Euskin, Sesame and Lilies, ii. § 71. 
 
 1. 36. — Here in this happy dell. " Observe, it is ' Nature ' 
 who is speaking- throughout, and who says, ' while she and 
 I together live.' " — Euskin, ib. 
 
 1. 39. — She died, and left to me. " How empty, desolate, 
 and colorless Nature, without Human Life present, becomes 
 to the Poet, we gather from the conclusion of Three years sli^ 
 grew.'''' — James Russell Lowell, TFortZiwori/i Soc. rr.,viii., 76. 
 
 1. 40.— this calm, and quiet scene. Calm, is the auth- 
 oritative reading (1805, '43, '46, etc.); yet 1802, Morley, anc 
 other recent editions read, " calm and quiet scene." 
 
W0RDSW0R7H: WRITTEN IN LONDON. 221 
 
 WEITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEJVIBEE, 1802. 
 
 Composition and publication. Wordsworth and his sis- 
 ter made an excursion to France in August of 1802. They 
 left London on July 30th, at early morning, saw the City 
 from Westminster Bridge — a sight that occasioned the 
 splendid sonnet (see Appendix) beginning, 
 
 Earth has not anything to show more fair. 
 The following day they arrived in Calais, where the several 
 Calais sonnets were MT-itten. They returned to England on 
 the Both of August, staying in London till the 22nd of Sep- 
 tember. W.'s interests at the time were strongly political, 
 ill favour of republican liberty. The poet has himself ex- 
 pressed the feelings that arose in him as he remarked the 
 contrast of France and England, the one still suffering from 
 the calamities of the devolution, the other glutted with 
 wealth and given over to the industrial spirit. "This 
 poem," he says, " was written immediately after my return 
 from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as 
 here described, Mdth the vanity and parade of our own 
 country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted 
 with the quiet, and I may say desolation, that the Revolu- 
 tion had produced in France. This must be borne in mind, 
 or else the reader may think that in this and the succeed- 
 ing Sonnets I have exaggerated the mischief engendered 
 and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth ■ It would 
 not be easy to conceive with what a depth of feeling I 
 entered into the struggle carried on by the Spaniards for 
 their deliverance from the usurped power of the French," 
 etc. — To Miss Fenwick (Knig-ht, ii. 300). 
 
 To this we maj- add the historian's account : — " Although 
 the debt had risen from 244 millions to 520, the desire for 
 peace sprang from no sense of national exhaustion. On the 
 contrary, wealth had never increased so fast. Steam and 
 canals, with tl_e inventions of Arkwright and Croinpton, 
 were producing their effect in a rapid development of trade 
 
222 NOTES. 
 
 and manufactures, and commerce found new outlets in the 
 colonies gained by the war." — Green, Short Hist., c. 18)2. 
 
 This poem was first publiihed in the volume of Poema^ 
 by William "Wordsworth, London, 1807. 
 
 The form of the Sonnet*. The word sonnet is derived, as 
 is the best form of the thing itself, from the Italian, — 
 sonetto, a short strain, abbreviation of suono, sound. The 
 first Englishmen to learn to use the sonnet structure were 
 Wyatt (1503-1542) and Surrey (1517-1547), poets steeped 
 in Italian literature. Among the Elizabethans, Spenser 
 and Shakspere were preeminent as writers of sonnets, as at 
 a later day Milton was among the Caroline poets. 
 
 Shakspere's sonnets, however, differ essentially in struc- 
 tural character from the sonnets of Milton. The Shakes- 
 pearian S0NN3T arranges its rimes abab cdcd efef gg, 
 and the whole rhythm progresses with almost even force 
 through its fourteen lines till clinched and ended in the 
 concluding couplet. The MiLTONiC SONNET agrees with 
 the Shakespearian in preserving an unbroken continuity of 
 rhythm throughout, but differs from it in rime-structure. 
 Its rimes are arranged abba abba, but the last six lines 
 rime with great freedom, always however avoiding a final 
 couplet. The normal Italian or Petearcan sonnet, while 
 similar to the Miltonic sonnet in rime-order, differs from 
 it and the Shakespearian sonnet in the peculiar movement 
 of its rhythm. The poem is broken into a " octave" (first 
 eight lines) and a " sestet" (last six lines), and the melody 
 rising with the major part, subsides and dies away in the 
 minor ; so that it may be described : 
 
 A sonnet U a wave of melody : 
 
 From heaving waters of the impassioned soul 
 
 A billow of tidal music one and whole 
 Floyvs in the " octave," then returning free, 
 
 *See Theodore "Watts, Ency. Britt.\ William Sharp, Sonnets ofthit 
 Century, Introduction, etc. 
 
WORDSWORTH: WRITTEN IN LONDON. 223 
 
 Its ebbing surg-es in the " sestet " roll 
 Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea. 
 
 — Theodore Watts. 
 These three forms — the Shakespearian, the Miltonic, and 
 the Petrarcan Sonnet — are the standard forms of English 
 sonnets. While they have formal differences, they agree in 
 requiring that the poem he of fourteen decasyllahic lines, 
 the evolution of one single thought or emotion, inevitable 
 in its progress, full of thought, dignity, repose, and splend- 
 idly sonorous. 
 
 "Swelling' loudly 
 Up to Its climax, and then dj'mg proudly." 
 
 Examples of the three kinds will be found in the Appen- 
 dix. W.'s, it will be seen, bears a close relationship to 
 Milton's. 
 
 Page 33. 1. 1, — O Friend ! etc. 1838 ed. alone reads, 
 
 O thou proud city ! which way shall I look, 
 
 which seems to show that the established reading " Friead " 
 has no particular personal reference. 
 
 1. 2. — Plain living, etc. These words are not vain on 
 the poet's part. He and his sister (see Introd.) in 1793 had 
 set about living their best life on an income of one hun- 
 dred pounds. 
 
 I note that a recent magazine poet borrows this line in the 
 following form, 
 
 Hardy with abstinence, with high thoughts divine. 
 
 — Marrion Wilcox, Like the Good Gcd. 
 
 1. 8. — No grandeur now in nature. Kead and compare 
 the sonnet (see Appendix) beginning, 
 
 The world is too much with us, late and soon. 
 
 1. 13. — fearful. Anxiously watchful lest evil should pre- 
 "vail. 
 
 1. 14. — pure religion breathing, etc. Religion, a gentle 
 force animating and guiding all family life. 
 
224 NOTES. 
 
 LONDON, 1802. 
 
 Composition and publication. This sonnet was written 
 and published in the same circumstances as the preceding. 
 Pag-e 34. 1. 1.— Milton. John Milton (1608-1674). W. had es- 
 pecially in his mind Milton's strenuous efforts in the cause 
 of Puritanism and jast government, on behalf of the Vau- 
 dois, and for the liberty of the press ; his conception of the 
 high calling of the poet, his intense moral strength, and 
 intellectual greatness ; the magnificence of his style and 
 the rich music of his verse ; the utter loneliness of his life, 
 when, blind and poor, he meditated his lofty epic, while 
 around him echoed the shouts of Eoyalists triumphins; 
 over the cause to which he had sacrificed his best years. 
 See Green, Short Hist., 451ff., 510ff., 575, 582ff. 
 
 There is a special appropriateness also in addressing 
 Milton in a sonnet. Prom Milton's sonnets "W. first leai-nt 
 many of the great qualities of his own. Elsewhere he 
 abundantly shows his reverence for his master : — 
 We must be free oi' die, who speak the tongue 
 That Shakespeare spake ; the faith and morals hold 
 Which Milton held. 
 
 — It is 7iot to be thought of. 
 
 That mighty orb of song, 
 The divine Milton. 
 
 — The Excursio7i, i. i-lOf. 
 
 1.2. — Eng-land is a fen. Por the other side of the 
 
 picture, see such poems as The Birkenhead : — 
 And when they tell you ' England is a fen 
 Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay, 
 Her nerveless bui-ghers lying an easy prey 
 For the first comer,' tell how the other day 
 A crew of half a thousand Englishmen 
 Went down into the deep in Simon's Bay ! etc. 
 
 —Sir Henry Yule (1820-1889.) 
 1. 4. — the heroic wealth of hall and bower. Hall an(3 
 bower are frequently conjoined in old literature ; the 
 former the characteristic place of the men, the latter of 
 
WORDSWORTH: LONDON, 1S02. 225 
 
 the women. Thus " the heroic wealth of hall and bowei' " 
 means, knightly men and gentle women, richly endowed 
 with the spirit of chivalry, are no more, and their de- 
 scendants have lost the right to inward happiness. 
 
 1. 4. — dower. This inward happiness was the gift and 
 result of noble action, as a dower comes by established, 
 even inherent right. 
 
 1. 5. — inward happiness. Notice W.'s insistence on the 
 inward life. It pervades his poetry. 
 
 That inward eye 
 Which is the hliss of solitude. 
 
 — / wandered lonely as a cloud. 
 
 The harvest of a quiet eye 
 That broods and sleeps on his own heart. 
 
 — A Poet's Epitaph. 
 
 With a eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 
 We see into the life of things. 
 
 — Tintern Abbey. 
 
 1. 8. — manners. Not knowledge of etiquette merely or 
 necessarily ; but ceasing to be " selfish men," being heartily 
 considerate of others. 
 
 1. 9. — like a Star, and dwelt apart. Cf. W.'s tribute to 
 
 Newton, — 
 
 The statue 
 
 Of Newton with his prism and silent face, 
 
 The marble index of a mind for ever 
 
 Voya-ging through strange seas of Thought, alone. 
 
 — The Prelude. 
 
 1. 10. — voice whose sound •vja.s like the sea. The mighty 
 splendour of Milton's blank verse. — the theme of many a 
 poet. 
 
 O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, 
 O skill 'd to sing of Time and Eternity, 
 God-gifted organ-voice of England, 
 Milton, a name to resound f'li ages. 
 
 — Tennyson, Experiments. 
 
 1. 14.— on herself. So in 1820, but 1807, on itself. 
 
226 NOTES. 
 
 TO THE DAISY. 
 
 Composition and publication. W. wi-Gie in all four poemg 
 addressed to the Daisy. They begin : 
 
 (i.) In youth from rock to rock I went. 
 
 (ii.) With little here to do or see. 
 
 (iii.) Bright Flower ! wliose home is everywhere, 
 
 (iv.) Sweet Flower ! belike one day to have. 
 
 Except the last, which as an elegy on the poet's bro- 
 ther John stands apart (1805) from the others, these 
 poems were written in 1802, in the orchard of Town- 
 end, Grasmere, shortly after W. took up his residence 
 there. The second and third poems " were overflowings of 
 the mind in composing the one which stands first." — W. in 
 ed. 1807. The first three poems were published in 1807. 
 They have much in common and should be read together. 
 The third poem is reprinted in the Appendix. 
 
 Page 35. 1. 1. — here. W. and his sister in Dec. 21, 1799, 
 settled in Grasmere, Cumberland, in Dove Cottage, at that 
 extremity of the village called Town-end, and lived there 
 till 1808. W.'s finest poetry was there written. (See In- 
 trod.) 
 
 1. 3. — Sweet Daisy ! oft. This is the reading of edd. 
 1807-1827, but variants are,— 
 
 1836-1843. Yet once again I tallc to thee, 
 
 1846-1849. Daisy ! again I tallc to thee, 
 
 The changes are chiefly intended to make a better con- 
 nection with the first poem, To the Daisy. 
 
 1. 10.— I sit and play, etc. Such is the reading from 
 1820 ; but 1807 
 
 Oft do I sit by thee at ease, 
 
 And weave a web of similies (sic). 
 
WORDSWORTH: THE SMALL CELANDINE. 227 
 
 Page 36. 1. 25. — cyclops (si'klops). From Lat. cyclops, Gk. 
 kvk\<o^, lit. ' round-eyed ' (ku'kAos, circle, iv//, eye.) In classical 
 mythology, a giant having one eye, shaped like a circle, 
 set in the middle of his forehead. 
 
 1. 30. — boss The convex projection in the centre of the 
 shield. 
 
 1. 41. — Bright Flower. Bright is substituted for Sweet 
 in 1836 ed. 
 
 1. 43. — fast. The editions have uniformly a comma 
 after fast, but it would better be a semicolon, to permit 
 the close association of 1. 44 with 1. 45. 
 
 THE SMALL CELANDINE. 
 
 Composition and publication. W. has three poems on the 
 Celandine, the first written April 30th, 1802, beginning, 
 
 Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, 
 Let them live upon their praises ; 
 
 the second, composed May 1st, 1802, beginning, 
 
 Pleasures newly found are sweet 
 When they lie about our feet ; 
 
 the third, our present poem, composed in 1804. All were 
 published in the volume of 1807. They stand therefore 
 among the beautiful lyrics of the Town-end, G-rasmere 
 period. 
 
 "W. classed this poem among "Poem? referring to the 
 Period of Old Age." 
 
 Subject of the poem. "It is remarkable," says W., in 
 the Fenwick note, " that this flower coming out so early in 
 the Spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in 
 such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in 
 
228 NOTES. 
 
 English verse. What adds much to the interest that 
 attends it, is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out 
 according to the degree of light and temperature of the 
 air." 
 
 The lesser Celandine, Celandine Crowfoot, Figwort, Pile- 
 wort, Ranunculus Ficaria, a sort of buttercup, has fig" 
 (L. /?cws)-shaped tubercles, heart-shaped leaves, and bright 
 yellow flowers usually of nine petals, blossoming as early 
 as March. " The flower loves the sunshine and light. 
 We generally flnd it closed from five in the evening until 
 nine in the morning, and also during wet or gloomy 
 weather. Its Celtic name, Grian (the sun), refers to this 
 point in its history." — Sowerby, i. 49. 
 
 Page 37.— Title. Ir. 1807, Common Pilewort. The title A 
 Lesson, in t\ie Golden Treasury, is Mr. Palgrave's invention. 
 
 1. 4. — himself. Previous to 1837, itself. 
 
 1. 13. — inly-muttered. Inly, inwardly ; used by Chaucer 
 and Spenser, etc. 
 
 But trembling every joint did inly qualte. 
 
 —Faery Queene, i. ix. xxiv. 
 
 1. 20. — spleen. The spleen was formerly regarded as a. 
 seat of the passions ; hence, ill-humour, spite. 
 
 1. 24. — Age might but take. Had W. in mind the French 
 proverb, Si jeunesse savait, si vieiUesse pouvait, H youth 
 only had wisdom, and age strength ? Knight compares 
 W.'s lines, 
 
 Thus fares it still in our decay : 
 And yet the wiser mind 
 Mourns less for what age takes away 
 Than what it leaves behind. 
 
 — The Fountain, 
 
WORDS IVOR Til: TO SLEEP. 229 
 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 Composition r.nd publication. This sonnet is the second 
 and best of three on the same subject, composed in 1806, 
 and published in 1807. The others begin 
 
 O gentle sleep ! do they belong to thee. 
 
 Fond words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep. 
 
 The subject with other poets. The lines recall numer- 
 ous invocations of like nature elsewhere : — 
 Iris to the God Sleep, — 
 
 Somne, quies rerum. placidisslme Somne Deorum, 
 Pax animi, quern cura fuglt. qui corda diurnis 
 Fessa ministeriis mulees, reparasque labori. 
 
 — Ovid, metamorphoses, xi. 62.3fF.. 
 
 The lament of King Henry (quoted in the Appendix) : 
 
 O sleep, O gentle sleep, 
 Nature's soft nui-se, how have I frighted thee, etc. 
 
 — II. Henry I V., iil. i^ 
 
 Macbeth's cry, — 
 
 Methought I heard a voice cry ' Sleep no more ! 
 Macbeth does murder sleep ' ; the innocent sleep, 
 Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
 The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath. 
 Balm of hurt minds, gi*eat nature's second course. 
 Chief nourisher in life's feast. 
 
 — Macbeth, ii. ii. 
 
 Sleep, death's counterfeit, nightly rehearsal 
 Of the great Silent Assembly, the Meeting of shadows, where no man' 
 Speaketh, but all are still, and the peace and rest are unbroken ! 
 Silently over that house the blessing of slumber descended. 
 
 — Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, Elizaheth. 
 
 For Sidney's sonnet on Sleep, see Appendix ; for Daniel's; 
 sonnet To Sleep, see Sharp's Sonnets of This Century. 
 
 1. 5. — I have thought of all by turns, etc. The reading, 
 of 1845. "W. found this line refractory. 
 
:230 NOTES. 
 
 1807. I've thought of all by turns : and still I lie 
 1827. By turns have all been thought of, yet I lie 
 1836. I thought of all by turns, and yet I He 
 
 ' ' Wordsworth probably did not quite like the ' do lie ' of 
 1845, but preferred it to beginning a line with ' I ' and end- 
 ing it with the double t vowel of ' I lie.' " — Dowden, iii. 334. 
 1. 8. — cuckoo's melancholy cry. Compare W.'s poem To 
 the Cuckoo, in the Appendix. The Poets have not always 
 regarded the song of the cuckoo as melancholy. 
 
 Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 
 No winter in thy year. 
 
 — Logan, To the Cuckoo. 
 
 Yet the solitary song, "the loud, guttural call in the 
 depths of the forest," — a " wandering voice " — justifies the 
 epithet. 
 
 1. 13.— between. So 1832 ; but 1807, betwixt. 
 
 INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBEIDGE. 
 
 Composition and publication. This sonnet is one of a 
 series on ecclesiastical subjects. "During the month of 
 December, 1820, I accompanied a . . Friend in a walk . . to 
 fix upon the site of a New Church which he intended to 
 erect. It was one of the most beautiful mornings . . Not long 
 after some of the Sonnets were composed. The Catholic Ques- 
 tion, .kept my thoughts in the same course ; and it struck 
 me, that certain points in the Ecclesiastical History of our 
 Country, might advantageously be presented to view in 
 verse." — "W., 1822. " My purpose in writing the series 
 was, as much as possible, to confine my view to the intro- 
 duction, progress, and operation of the Church in England, 
 :both previous and subsequent to the Reformation."'— W.'s 
 
WORDSWORTH: KINGS COLLEGE CHAPEL. 231- 
 
 note to Miss Fenwick, Knight ; vii. 2. " For the conveni- 
 ence of passing from one point of the subject to another 
 withoiit shock of abruptness, this work has taken the shape 
 of a series of Sonnets ; but the Eeader, it is to be hoped, 
 will find that the pictures are often so closely connected as 
 to have jointly the effect of passages of a poem in a form of 
 stanza to which there is no objection but one that bears 
 upon the Poet only— its difficulty . "—Pref. , ed. 1822. 
 
 The sonnet-sequence was published in 1822, entitled Ec- 
 clesiastical Sketches. It contained 102 Sonnets, of which 
 Inside King's College Chapel is No. xxxiii. of Pt. JR. Ad- 
 ditional poems made the total number 132, of which our 
 Sonnet is HI. xliii. It follows a general sonnet on Cathe- 
 drals, celebrating the beauty of the Everlasting Piles, and 
 precedes a second sonnet on King's College Chapel, depicting 
 especially the effect of its organ-music. 
 
 The subject of the sonnet. King's College, Cambridge, 
 and the magnificent Chapel, the glory of the University, 
 were founded in 1441 by Henry VI. (1421-1472). The 
 work of building the Chapel, interrupted by the murder of 
 the king, was continued with intermissions by Edward 
 lY., Richard III., and Henry VII., who was chiefly instru- 
 mental in bringing it to completion. It was finished 
 shortly after 1527. 
 
 The Chapel stands on the north side of the court, facing the 
 great Gothic hall of the College ; the Cam, spanned by a 
 single arched bridge, runs past on the west. Its dimen- 
 sions are noble, — in length 316 ft. , breadth 84 ft. , extreme 
 height, 146 ft. Towers rise at each angle. On either side 
 eleven buttresses, crowned with lofty pinnacles, separate 
 twelve magnificent windows. "The interior has a richly 
 vaulted roof of twelve divisions or severies, of the pattern 
 called fan tracery. In the centre of each division is a 
 pendant keystone, faced with a rose .... The spaces between 
 the windows are filled with niches and with roses, portcul- 
 lises, and fl<*ur-de-lis Throughout the building the stone 
 
■232 NOTES. 
 
 carvings are of astonishing boldness, and in the first style 
 of art." (See Cooper, Memorials of Cambridge^ I. 171fF., 
 where splendid engravings of the College and Chapel are 
 to be found.) 
 
 W., it will be remembered, was a student in St. John's 
 College, Cambridge. One of the two sonnets is the pro- 
 bable outcome of W.'s visit to Cambridge in November and 
 December of 1820. Knight, Life., iii. 53f. 
 
 Page 39. 1. 1. — the royal saint. It is said of Henry VI., that 
 " his misfortunes and meek piety greatly endeared him to 
 the common people, who reverenced his memory with in- 
 tense devotion. It was believed that miracles were wrought 
 at his tomb, and Henry VII. made an attempt to get him 
 canonized." — Cooper, I. 173. 
 
 1. 2. — the Architect. As usual with medieval architec- 
 ture, the architect's name is nowhere preserved. 
 
 1. 3.— Albeit. " All (though) it be," although. 
 
 scanty band. The first foundation provided for only 
 twelve scholars more or less. The number was soon in- 
 creased and determined at seventy, which is the number 
 to-day. These are chosen from students of Eton College. 
 
 1. 4. — white-robed scholars White-robed, 1822 ; white 
 robed, 1843, 1846. Clothed in surplice for divine service in 
 the Chapel. 
 
 1. 6f. — Give all thou canst, etc. " I would place first that 
 
 spirit which offers for such work precious things, simply 
 
 because they are precious ; not as being necessary to the 
 building, but as offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of 
 what is to ourselves desirable. . . .It is a spirit, for instance, 
 which of two marbles, equally beautiful, applicable and 
 durable, would choose the more costly, because it was so, 
 and of two kinds of decoration, equally effective, would 
 <5hoose the more elaborate because it was so, in order that 
 it might in the same compass present more cost and more 
 thought." — Euskin, Seven Lamijs of Architecture, chap. i. 
 
WORDSWORTH : TO A SKYLARK. 233 
 
 i. 9. — lofty pillars. Strictly there are no pillars ; yet the 
 buttresses of the walls are fashioned inside like pillars. 
 
 1. 10. — self -poised. '• This most singularly beautiful and 
 ingenious structure [the inner roof of stone] is so con- 
 trived that it has no dependence whatever upon the walls 
 .... the whole weight of the roof being supported by the 
 buttresses and towers alone .... Such a combination of 
 ingenuity with beauty, of lightness with stability, of archi- 
 tectural symmetry with mechanical skill, is probably 
 without a parallel in any part of the world." — The Cam- 
 bridge Guide, p. 77. 
 
 scooped into ten thousand cells. The vaulted roof is 
 divided into twelve parts of equal height, and each vault 
 is marked by lines converging (" that branching roof ") at 
 the buttresses that support it ; these lines are again cut by 
 ■concentric circles, and elaborate stone tracery fills every 
 space. 
 
 1. 11. — where music dwells. 
 
 But fi-om the arms of silence — list ! O list I 
 The music bursteth into second life ; 
 The notes luxuriate, everj' stone is kissed 
 By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife ; 
 Heart-thrilling strains. 
 
 —King's College Chapel, (second sonnet). 
 
 TO A SKTLAEK. 
 
 Composition ai^d publication. This lyric is one of the 
 hest poems of W.'s latest period, showing the " meditative 
 wisdom " of this period, while the earlier lyric on the same 
 subject (1805) shows his passionate joy in nature. It was 
 written at Eydal Blount, Grassmere, where W. had re- 
 moved in 1813. Its comi^osition is dated 1825 ; its publica- 
 tion 1827. 
 
234 NOTES. 
 
 The subject of the poem. "The bird that occupies the 
 second place to the nightingale in British poetical lit,era- 
 ture is the skylark, a pastoral bird as the Philomel is an 
 arboreal, — a creature of light and air and motion, the com- 
 panion of the plowman, the shepherd, the harvester, — 
 whose nest is in the stubble and whose tryst is in the 
 clouds. Its life affords that kind of contrast which the 
 imagination loves — one moment a plain pedestrian-bird, 
 hardly distinguishable from the ground, the next a soaring, 
 untiring songster, reveling in the upper air, challenging 
 the eye to follow him and the ear to soparate his notes. 
 
 The lark's song is not especially melodious, but lithe- 
 some, sibilant, and unceasing. Its type is the grass, where 
 the bird makes its home, abounding, multitudinous, the 
 notes nearly all alike and all in the same key, but rapid, 
 swarming, prodigal, showering down [cf. Coleridge, A.M.. 1. 
 358] thick and fast as drops of rain in a summer shower." 
 — John Burroughs, Birds and Poets. 
 
 0th ^r poems on the Lark. The Elizabethans first gave 
 fit expression to the charm of the Lark's song. 
 
 What is't now we hear ? 
 None but the lark so shrill and clear ; 
 Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings, 
 The morn not waking till she sings. 
 
 — John Lyly, Campaspe, v. 1. 
 
 Lyly was imitated by Shakspere in 
 
 Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings. 
 
 — Cymbeline, iii, ii. 
 
 James Hogg (1772-18S5) led the way to the modern lyrics. 
 (His Lark is reprinted in the Appendix.) In 1805, W.'s 
 first lyric To a Skylark, 
 
 Dp with me ! up with me into the clouds ! 
 was written. Then came Shelley's wonderful Ode to the 
 Skylark, 1820, and in 1825 the present poem was composed. 
 William Watson's new poem (see Appendix) is justly 
 admired. 
 
WORDSWORTH: TO A SKYLARK, 235 
 
 Page 40. 1. 5f. — Or, while thy wings aspire, etc. 
 
 So constant with thy downward eye of love, 
 Yet, in agrial singleness, so fice. 
 
 — A Moriiivg Exercise. 
 The lark now leaves his wat'ry nest 
 And climbing shaltes hir dewy wings. 
 
 — Daveuant. 
 
 11. 7-12. — To the last point, etc. This stanza, which be- 
 longed to the poem till 1843, was in 1846 transferred to A 
 Morning Exercise (composed 1828), of which it became the 
 eighth stanza. See final note. 
 1. 13. — her shady wood. 
 
 Thou, light-mnged Dryad of the trees, 
 
 In "orae melodious plot 
 Of becchen gi-een, and shadows numberless, 
 Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 
 
 — Keats, Ode to a Nigli-tin(jale. 
 
 1.16. — vnth instinct less divine. "Instinct" took the 
 place of " rapture " in 1827. 
 1. 18. — True to the kindred points, etc. Cf. 
 Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. 
 
 —Hogg, Tlie Lark. 
 
 Speaking of A Morning Exercise, W., in a note to Miss 
 Fenwick, remarked: "I could wish the last five stanzas 
 of this to be read with the poem addressed to the Skylark." 
 These stanzas are : 
 
 Hail, blest above all kinds ! — Supremely skilled. 
 Restless -nith fixed to balance, high with low. 
 Thou leav'st the halcyon free her hopes to build 
 On such forbearance as the deep may show ; 
 Perpetual flight, unchecked by earthly ties, 
 Leav'st to the wandering bird of paradise. 
 
 Faithful, though swift as lightning, the meek dove : 
 Yet more hath nature reconciled in thee ; 
 So constant with thy downward eye of love. 
 Yet, in aerial singleness, so free ; 
 So humble, yet so ready to rejoice 
 In power of wing and never-wearied voice. 
 To the last point of view, etc. 
 
233 NOTES. 
 
 How would It please old Ocean to partake, 
 With sailors longing for a breeze in vain, 
 The harmony thy notes most gladly make 
 Where earth resembles most his own domain I 
 Urania's self might welcome with pleased ear 
 These matins mounting towards her native sphere. 
 
 Chanter by heaven attracted, whom no Lars 
 To day-light known deter from that pursuit, 
 'Tis well that some sage instinct, when the stars 
 Come forth at evening, keeps Thee still and mute ; 
 For not an eyelid could to sleep incline 
 Wert thou among them, singing as they shine ! 
 
 WHY AET THOU SILENT ? 
 
 Compos'tion and publication. Composed in 1835 and 
 published in the same year. The circumstances of its pub- 
 lication are told by the poet as follows : — " In the month of 
 January when Dora and I were walking from Town-end, 
 Grasmere, across the Vale, snow being- on the ground, she 
 espied, in the thick though leafless hedge, a bird's nest half 
 filled with snow. Out of this comfortless appearance arose 
 this Sonnet, which was, in fact, written without the least 
 reference to any individual object, but merely to prove to 
 myself that I could, if I thought fit, write in a strain that 
 Poets have been fond of. On the 14th of February in the 
 same year, my daughter, in a sportive mood, sent it as a 
 Valentine, under a fictitious name, to her cousin C. W." — 
 W., to Miss Fenwick. 
 
 Pag-e 41. — Title. The poem is inderied in the edd. 1835, etc., 
 Why art thou silent. The title, " To a Distant Friend," 
 found in the Golden Treasury., is Mr. Palgrave's invention. 
 1. 6.— Bound to thy service, etc. The reading of 1846. 
 183.5-1843. (As would my deeds have been) with hourly care, 
 1. 8. — a mendicant, etc. A suggestion of Matth. xv. 27. 
 1. IS. — eglantine. (OFr. aiglantin, pertaining to aiglant, 
 3weet-briar.) The well-known sweet-briar. 
 
CAMPBELL: HOHENLINDEN. 237 
 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 HOHENLINDEN. 
 
 Composition and publication. Campbell's vibit to Uatis- 
 t)on brought him in view of the scene of the war of 
 France with Austria and Bavaria. He witnessed the 
 battles fought near Eatisbon and Ingolstadt, scenes which 
 he never forgot. But forced to retire from Eatisbon (see 
 p. 242), he saw nothing of the battle of Hohenlinden. 
 Two years later, 1802, while acting as secretary to Lord 
 Minto in London, he composed Lochiel and Hohenlinden. 
 These he printed anonymously, dedicated to his friend the 
 liev. Archibald Alison. 
 
 Historical basis of the poem. Napoleon had despatched 
 Moreau into Bavaria to operate against the Austro-Bavar- 
 ian forces. He was advancing upon the rivers descending 
 the Alps into the Danube when on the 3rd of December, 
 1830, he was attacked by the Austrian Archduke John. 
 The battle that ensued was a brilliant victory for the 
 French, and effected the armistice of Steier and the Peace 
 of Luneville (Feb., 1801). 
 
 Hohenlinden is a village and forest in Upper Bavaria, 
 near Ebersberg, twenty miles east of Munich.* " The 
 
 *We left the little village where we were quartered for the night and 
 took a foot-path which led across the coumry to the tieM of Hohenlin- 
 den, about six miles distant. The name had been familiar to me from 
 childhood, and my love for Campbell, with the recollection of the 
 school exhibitions, where "On Linden when the sun was low" had 
 been so often declaimed, induced me to make the excursion to it. 
 We traversed a huge forest belonging to the King of Bavaria, and 
 came out on a plain covered with grain-fields andbounded on the right 
 by a semi-circle of low hills. Over the tields, about two miles distant, 
 a tall minaret like spire rose from a small cluster of houses, and this 
 was Hohenlinden. To tell the truth, I had been expecting something 
 more. The " hills of blood-stained snow " are very small hills indeed, 
 and the " Iser rolling rapidly," is several miles off; it was the spot, 
 however, and we recited Campbell's poem, of course, and brought 
 away a few wild flowers as memorials. There is no monument or any 
 other token of the battle, and the people seem to have already forgot- 
 ten the scene of Moreau's victory and their defeat."— Bayard Taylor, 
 Views A-foot^ ch. xxv. 
 
238 NOTES. 
 
 space which lies between the Inn and the Iser, which is 
 from twelve to fifteen leagues in hreadth, is intersected in 
 its centre by this forest. Parallel to the course of the two 
 rivers, its woods form a natural barrier or stockade, six or 
 seven leagues long, and from a league to a league and a 
 half broad. Two great roads only, that from Munich to 
 Wasserburg, and that from Munich to Miihldorf traverse 
 that thick and gloomy forest, where the pine-trees ap- 
 proach each other so closely as in most places to render 
 the passage of cavalry, excepting in the great roads, im- 
 possible. The village of Hohenlinden is at the entrance of 
 the Munich side of the one defile, that of Mattenpott, at its 
 mouth, leading to Miihldorf." — Alison, History of Europe, 
 v. 41 9f. 
 
 The Austrian and Bavarian forces had crossed the Inn, 
 which flows from the Tyrol into the Danube, had advanced 
 into Bavaria, and had obtained some slight successes that 
 threw the French army under Moreau back upon Hohen- 
 linden, where a decisive battle was expected. When the 
 Austrian army advanced unsuspectingly through the dan- 
 gerous roads of the forest, Moreau prepared to attack them 
 as they issued from the defiles, and also to fall upon them 
 on the flank. The Imperial columns began their march two 
 hours before dawn, in the midst of a blinding snow-storm 
 that obliterated all road-marks and prevented the inter- 
 communication of the columns. The Austrian centre ap- 
 proached Hohenlinden about nine o'clock, but they were 
 met by Grouchy. The darkness of the storm hid the ranks 
 from each other, only the flashing of the guns revealing 
 the presence of the enemy. Driven back into the for- 
 est, the Austrians fought bravely, and "the contending 
 armies broken in single file, fought, man to man, with 
 invincible resolution." Meanwhile the other divisions 
 were crushed by Ney and Grenier, while Eichepanse fell on 
 the rear. " No words can paint the confusion that ensued 
 in the Austrian columns. The artillery drivers cut theii' 
 
CAMPBELL: HO HENLINDEN. 239 
 
 traces, and galloped in all directions into the forest; the 
 infantry disbanded and fled, the cavalry rushed in tu- 
 multuous squadrons to the rear, trampling under foot 
 whatever opposed their passage " (Alison). The Im- 
 perialists, weakened by the loss of above a hundred pieces 
 of cannon and fourteen thousand soldiers, took advantage 
 of the night to withdraw their shattered forces across the 
 Inn. Peace quickly followed this victory. 
 
 Page 42- 1- 3. — dark as vyinter. The poet thinks of the 
 gloomy side of the season, its clouded skies, sombre forests, 
 etc. The figure likewise calls up the blackness of the 
 stream in contrast with its snowy banks. 
 
 1. 4.— Iser or Isar (e'ser). Eises in the T3a'ol, below 
 Innsbruck, entering Bavaria it flows N. N. W. past Munich 
 to Freising, turns E. N. E. past Landshut and Landau, 
 and after a course of 190 miles joins the Danube below 
 Deggendorf. Its current is extremely rapid. 
 
 Campbell has a drinking song celebrating the "sunny 
 bowers " and " flowery gardens " of the Iser. 
 
 1. 15. — louder. "Louder was afterwards rejected for 
 volleying, but ultimately restored." — Beattie, i. 420n. We 
 presume " volle3''ing like" is meant. 
 
 Page 43. 1. 21. — level sun. — A favourite description of the 
 sun's rays at sunrise or sunset. Cf . Evangeline, 1. 490. 
 
 The glorious sun 
 Walks with level steps the spray. 
 
 — Br yard Taylor, Ariel. 
 
 1. 23. — Frank. The Franks, a Germanic tribe, subdu- 
 ing the Celts of Gallia, gave their name to the whole 
 people. Here used poetically for Frenchman. 
 
 Hun. The connection of the Huns with the Hungarians, 
 which Canipbell here makes, is very distant if not entirely 
 doubtful. The word stands here poetically for the Aus- 
 trians. 
 
240 NOTES. 
 
 1. 25. — On, ye brave, etc. Scott no doubt imitates th» 
 trumpet tones of these lines in Marmion, vi. xxxii. 
 
 Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ! 
 Were the last words of Marmion. 
 
 1. 27. — Munich {mil'nik). The capital of Bavaria, on 
 the Iser ; here poetically for the Bavarian army. 
 
 1. 28. — chivalry. The older and historically accurate 
 pronunciation {tchiv'al re) gives here a much stronger line. 
 The poet prohably used this pronunciation, which is still' 
 regarded by some {e.g., Skeat) as the better. 
 
 Dr. Duncan records some good-natured banter of Camp- 
 bell's friends at Liverpool over Hohenlinden : — "Surely," 
 said one, " Tou exceed all license when you say — 
 
 ' And louder than the bolts of heaven, 
 Far flashed then- red artillery ! ' 
 
 If the flash was so loud what must have been the report ? "^ 
 Campbell looked as if taken aback, not knowing whether 
 to consider the criticism as intended for a joke or earnest ; 
 but presently retorting the banter, he replied: — "If you 
 understood grammatical construction, you could not have 
 made that remark. Put it into prose, and how does it 
 read ? — ' Their red artillery, louder than the bolts of 
 heaven, flashed far.'" "Very good; but there is some- 
 thing else," said I, "which proves at least that you are 
 well skilled in the figure of bathos — 
 
 ' Then shook the hills with thunder riven, 
 Then flew the steed to battle driven ! ' 
 
 Oh what a falling off was there ! " " How could I help 
 it? " replied the poet, somewhat moved. " The battle be- 
 gan by a general discharge of artillery along the whole' 
 line ; and then, amidst the obscurity of the smoke, the 
 cavalry made their attack on the broken ranks of thfo 
 
CAMPBELL : YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. 241 
 
 euomy." "Well, parried," returned I, "[but] were 
 
 Milton alive, I think he might accuse you of theft,— 
 
 • Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave.' " 
 " Oh I know to what you allude," interrupted he, — 
 'Wave 
 Your tops, ye phies, in sig'n of worship wave.' 
 
 But do you call that a fault?" " Let that pass! " said I, 
 " but pray tell me, if your soldiers were buried ' feet down- 
 wards,' and what was the size of the ' turfs ' that covered 
 them, for you say — 
 
 ' And evei'y turf beneath his feet 
 Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.' " 
 
 "I can stand this no longer," cried the badgered Poet; 
 and, starting to his feet, made towards the door, adding, 
 " Oh, we poor poets ! what have we to endure ! " — Beattie, 
 i. 419ff. 
 
 YE MARINEES OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Composition and publication. "Mrs. Ireland, who saw 
 much of Campbell at this time [at Edinburgh, in 1799] 
 mentions that it was in the musical evenings at her mo- 
 ther's home, that he appeared to derive greatest enjoyment. 
 At these soirees his favourite song was "' Ye Gentlemen of 
 England,"* with the music of which he was particularly 
 
 »TE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Ye gentlemen of England 
 
 That live at home at ease, 
 Ah ! little do you think upon 
 
 The dangers of the seas. 
 Give ear unto the mariners, 
 
 And they will plainly shew 
 All the cares and the fears 
 
 When the stormy winds do blow. 
 When the stormy, etc. 
 
 If enemies oppose us 
 When England is at war 
 
 With any foreign nation, 
 We fear not wound or scar; 
 
 Our roaring guns shall teach 'em 
 
 Our valour for to know. 
 Whilst they reel on the keel. 
 And the stormy winds do blow. 
 And the stormy, etc. 
 
 Then courage, all brave mariners. 
 
 And never be dismay'd ; 
 While we have bold adventurers, 
 
 We ne'er shall want a trade ; 
 Our merchants will employ us 
 
 To fetch them wealth, we know ; 
 Then be bold — work for gold, 
 
 When the stormy winds do blow. 
 When the stormy, etc, 
 — ilartyn Parker, 1630. 
 
242 NOTES. 
 
 struck, and determined to write new -words for it. Herj^e 
 his noble and heart-stirring lyric of "Ye Mariners of 
 England," part of which, if not all, he is said to have 
 composed after one of these friendly parties. It was not, 
 however, until after he had retired to Eatisbon, and felt 
 his patriotism kindled by the announcement of war with 
 Denmark, that he finished the original sketch and sent it 
 home to Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle." — Beattie, 
 i. 264. 
 
 The immediate cause of the completion of the song was 
 the prospect of a war with the North. Napoleon had 
 gained supreme power as First Consul of France and the 
 Czar Paul of Russia, a Bonaparte enthusiast, aunounced 
 an armed neutrality in Oct. of 1800. Throughout this 
 year the Danes had been struggling against the British 
 right of search of neutral vessels. Sweden stood ready as 
 well to join the Neutral League. With the opening of the 
 spring of 1801, it was plain the fleets of the Northern 
 powers would be at the disposal of Napoleon to strike at 
 Great Britain. (See Green, bk. ix.) Campbell, who had 
 gone to the Continent in June, 1800, was driven from Eat- 
 isbon in October by the war between Austria and France, 
 and forced to return to Altona (near Hamburg). In the 
 group of strangers at Altona the prospect of the Northern 
 war was the topic of daily conversation and the inspira- 
 tion that bore him on to the completion of his splendid 
 patriotic lyric. It was sent to Mr. Perry and published 
 in the "Morning Chronicle " under the title "Alterations 
 of an old ballad ' Ye Gentlemen of England' ; and signed 
 " Amator Patriae." 
 
 Page 441. 1. 8. — winds do blow. Stormy tempests blow, was 
 the reading as late as 1830, but it was finally revised in 
 harmony with the original song, and so printed in 1840. 
 This applies to other instances of the refrain 11. 10, 18, 20 
 etc. 
 
CAMPBELL: YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. 243 
 
 1. 15. — Blake and mighty Nelson. Types of chivalrous 
 -courage and patriotism. Robert Blake (1.599-1657), British 
 -admiral, defeated the Dutch Admirals Tromp in the Downs, 
 De With and De Euyter at the mouth of the Thames, and 
 suffered partial defeat from Tromp, in 1652. He was 
 partially victorious over Tromp in the following year, 
 when he was dangerously wounded. Blake's final achieve- 
 ments were to extirpate the pirates from Tunis and to 
 annihilate the Spanish, fleet off Santa Cruz, dying shortly 
 -after this last victory. He lay buried in Westminster 
 Abbey till the Restoration took revenge on his bones. 
 " More even than by his glory and h.is success, the mem- 
 ory of Blake is dear to the English people by the tra- 
 •ditions of his chivalrous character and of his unselfish 
 patriotism." — Diet. Nat. Biog. 
 
 Nelson. Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), victorious in the 
 battle of Aboukir Bay, Copenhagen, Trafalgar. His name 
 and fame are household words. See Southey's Life of Nel- 
 son, a worthy tribute to a great hero, for details. 
 
 The poem was composed during the lifetime of Nelson, 
 so that this line, as originally writtep, ran 
 
 wnere iJlake, the boast of freedom, fell, 
 
 Page 45. 1. 21.— bulwarks. Before 1840, bulwark. Dut. 
 bolwerk — 5oZ, bole, tree-trunk, werk, work, a barricade of 
 logs ; hence, as here, rampart or mound for fortification. 
 
 1. 22. — No towers along the steep. "The great work, 
 then in progress, of fortifying every assailable point along 
 the Straits of Dover, w^estward, with Martello towers, pre- 
 sented a feature in our warlike preparations of which the 
 poet knew well how to take advantage." — Beattie, i. 341. 
 
 1. 25f. — with thunders the floods below. A peri- 
 phrasis for, she rules the stormy sea. The thunder of her 
 guns is much more fearful than the roar of the waves. 
 
244 NOTES. 
 
 native oak. Native merely as a characteristic tree of 
 England. The periphrasis is a favourite one for old' 
 British warships. 
 
 1. 31f. — meteor flag terrific burn. The language im- 
 plies the olden belief that appearances of meteors portend 
 disaster to individuals or the world. 
 
 Comets, importing change of times and states. 
 
 — Shakspere, /. Henry VI., i. 
 
 When beggars die, there are no comets seen ; 
 
 The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. 
 
 —Julius Caesar, ii. ii. 
 
 1. '6S. — dang-er's troubled night depart. See Introductory 
 Note. The poem voices the sentiment of England during 
 the Napoleonic struggle. Campbell, it is said, helped 
 greatly by his lyric to win Trafalgar. 
 
 1. 34. — Star of peace. 
 
 Star that bringest home the bee, 
 And sett'st the weary labourer free ! 
 If any star shed peace, 'tis thou. 
 
 That send'st it fi-om above. 
 Appearing when heaven's breath ana brow 
 Art) itfeet as her's ^ve Ic-ve-, 
 
 — Campbell. To the Evenina Star. 
 
CAMPBELL: BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. 245. 
 
 BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. 
 
 First draft of the poem. In a letter to Sir Waiter 
 Scott, March 27th, 1805, Campbell enclosed the first draft of 
 the Battle of the Baltic. It contained twenty-seven 6-1. stan- 
 zas, as against the eight 9-1. stanzas of the published form. 
 This earlier draft, preserved and printed in Beattie's Life, 
 ii. 42ff. is a distinctly weak version, and the cutting down 
 and revising gave wonderful vigour to thought, expression, 
 and rythmical swing. The mode of condensation may be 
 judged by comparing the first stanza of our poem with the 
 first two stanzas of the original. 
 Of Nelson and the north, 
 
 Sing the day ; 
 When, their haughty powers to 
 
 vex, 
 He engaged the Danish decks 
 And with twenty floating wreciss 
 
 Crowned the fray. 
 
 All bright, in April's sun, 
 
 Shone the day ; 
 When a British fleet came down. 
 Through the islands of the crown. 
 And by Copenhagen's town 
 
 Took their stay. 
 
 The weakness of much of this first draft may be judged 
 from such a stanza as this : — 
 
 Oieer ! cheer ! from park and tower, 
 
 London town ! 
 When the King shall ride in state 
 From St. James's royal gate. 
 And to all his peers relate 
 
 Our renown ! 
 
 Yet an occasional good line has disappeared with the bad : — 
 
 Of Nelson, — 
 
 For to him 'twas all the same — 
 Sport and war. 
 
 Of the sailors, — 
 
 You might know them for the kings 
 Of the deep. 
 
 Revision and publication. This first draft was ' ' com- 
 posed at short intervals during the winter and finished in 
 
246 NOTES. 
 
 April " [1805]. Condensed and thoroughly revised, it ap- 
 peared, in company with Gertrude of Wyoming , in the 
 volume of 1809, and was immediately set to music and sung 
 everywhere. 
 
 Historical note. Reference has already been made {Ye 
 Mariners, Introd. note) to the Northern Neutral League. 
 The British government, knowing that this League pro- 
 posed to hand over their fleets at Copenhagen, Eevel, and 
 Cronstadt to the French, sent Sir Hyde Parker, with 
 Nelson second in command, into the Baltic. Full details 
 of the operations, which resulted in the destruction of the 
 Danish fleet, may he read in Southey's Life of Nelson, 
 Clarke and Mc Arthur's Life of Lord Nelson, and Nicolas, 
 Letters and Despatches of Lord Nelson. 
 
 On the night of the 11th of April, 1801, after success- 
 iuUy passing Kronhorg Castle, which guards the Sound, 
 the British fleet anchored off Draco Point, within two 
 miles of the enemy's fleet and the defences of Copenhagen. 
 The next morning Nelson joined battle with the Danish 
 ships and batteries. In five hours fifteen of the seventeen 
 Danish vessels were taken or sunk. The victory resulted 
 in an armistice with Denmark, which gave the British 
 fleet the opportunity to advance against the Swedes and 
 [Russians. However the death of the Czar Paul and the 
 consequent dissolution of the Northern League made this 
 last step unnecessary. 
 
 Page 46. 1. 1. — Nelson and the North day's renown. Camp- 
 bell has not the classic accuracy of language of Words- 
 worth and Coleridge. Much must be interpreted kindly. 
 
 1. 8.— the Prince of all the land. Frederick, afterwards 
 the VL (1768-1838), regent for his father, Christian VH., 
 and nephew of George IH. of England. 
 
 1. 10. — leviathans. Late Lat. leviathan, from Heb. liv- 
 yuthdn, an aquatic monster ; in the Scriptures, possibly a 
 crocodile : hence any colossal aquatic animal ; hence, "'^t'l 
 
CAMPBELL: BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. 247 
 
 any colossal structure. Byron refers as well to " the oak 
 leviathans." — Childe Harold, iv. clxxxi. 
 
 1. 12. — sign of battle. " His Lordship called 'Is No. 
 
 16 (the signal for action) still hoisted ? ' The lieutenant 
 answering in the affirmative, Lord Nelson said, ' Mind you 
 keep it so.' " — Col. Stewart, in Clarke and McArthur's Life. 
 
 1. 14. — ten of April morn. " The action began at five 
 minutes past ten. In about half an hour afterwards the 
 first haK of our Fleet was engaged, and before half-past 
 eleven the Battle became general." — Col. Stewart. 
 
 1. 19f . — fiush'd To anticipate. The courage of the British 
 sailors glowed in anticipation of the fight. 
 
 1, 21. — her van. "At half-past nine the signal was given 
 to weigh in succession. This was quickly obeyed by the 
 Edgar." Then came the Polyphem.us, followed by the 
 Iris, Bellona and Russell, etc. — Col. Stewart. 
 
 Page 47. 1. 24. — adamantine. (From OFr. adamaunt, Lat. 
 adamas.) Like adamant, a real or imaginary metal of 
 excessive hardness. 
 
 1. 35. — in conflagration pale. "On our smoke clearing 
 away, the Dannebrog was found to be drifting in flames 
 before the wind, spreading terror throughout the enemy's 
 line." — Col. Stewart. 
 
 1. 39. — As he hail'd them. Interpret freely. Nelson, at 
 half-past two o'clock, when most of the Danish ships had 
 ceased firing, sent the following message with a flag of 
 truce : — 
 
 " To the brothers of Englishmen, the Danes. Lord 
 Nelson has directions to spare Denmark, when no longer 
 resisting, but if the firing is continued on the part of Den- 
 mark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set on fire all the 
 Floating-batteries he has taken, without having the power 
 of saving the brave Danes who have defended them." 
 
 The Prince Regent asked the precise meaning of the 
 despatch, and Nelson answered : " Lord Nelson's object in 
 
-248 NOTES. 
 
 sending on shore a Flag of Truce is humanity : he, there- 
 fore, consents that hostilities shall cease till Lord Nelson 
 can take his prisoners out of the Prizes, and he consents to 
 land all the wounded Danes, and to burn or remove his 
 prizes. Lord Nelson, with humble duty to His Royal High- 
 ness, begs leave to say that he will ever esteem it the great- 
 est victory he ever gained, if this Flag of Truce may be the 
 forerunner of a lasting and happy union between my most 
 gracious Sovereign and his Majesty the King of Denmark." 
 An armistice of fourteen weeks was thereupon concluded. 
 
 1. 45. — our King. George HI., who reigned from 1760 
 till 1820. 
 
 1. 46ff. — Denmark bless'd our chief. This was the cur- 
 rent notion in England. " Lord Nelson in consequence 
 went on shore, and was received by a brave and generous 
 people. .. .with the loudest and most general acclama- 
 tions." — Speech of Mr. Addington, Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, in the House of Commons, April 16th. But 
 Southey says, " There were neither acclamations nor mur- 
 murs." 
 
 Page 48. 1. 61f. — stormy steep, Elsinore. Dan. Helsingcr, a 
 town in Denmark on the island of Zealand, at a point near- 
 est (two-and-a-half miles) the coast of Sweden, twenty-four 
 miles from Copenhagen ; the scene of Shakspere's Ham- 
 let. KJronborg Castle is near by. 
 
 " Here, again, I must find fault with Campbell, splendid 
 lyrist, as he is. We should have been sailing 
 
 ' By thy wild and stormy steep, 
 Elsinore ! ' 
 
 only that the level shore, with its fair gardens and groves, 
 wouldn't admit the possibility of such a thing. The music 
 of the line remains the same, but you must not read it on 
 the spot." — Bayard Taylor, Northern Travel, chap. xix. 
 
 1. 67. — the gallant good Riou (re do'). Campbell added a 
 J^ote to his line ; ' ' Captain Eiou, justly entitled the gallant 
 
CAMPBELL: A THOUGHT SUGGESTED. 249 
 
 and the good, by Lord Nelson, when he wrote his de- 
 ■spatches." Nelson came to know him only shortly after 
 the battle, when he was struck by the fine condition of his 
 ■ship the Amazon. Eiou was given command of the frigates 
 in the battle, and endeavoured with them to take the place 
 -of the ships of the line that had run aground. His force 
 was unequal to it, and was called off. As the Amazon 
 showed her stern to the Trekroner a raking shot killed him. 
 •'He was sitting on a gun encouraging his men, and had 
 "been wounded in the head by a splinter .... Obliged to re- 
 
 ■treat he observed, 'What will Nelson think of us?' 
 
 His Clerk was killed by his side ; and \>j another 
 •shot several of the Marines shared the same fate. Eiou 
 then exclaimed, ' Come, then, my boys, let us dio toge- 
 ther I ' The words were scarcely uttered, when the fatal 
 •shot severed him in two. . . .A character of singular worth, 
 i-esembling the heroes of romance" (Col. Stewart). Nel- 
 son's despatch to Sii' Hyde Parker, the 3rd of April, refers 
 to ' ' the accidents which unhappily threw the gallant and 
 good Captain liiou .... under a heavy fire. The conse- 
 <iuence was the death of Captain E.iou, and many brave 
 officers and men" (Nicolas, iv. 3i3ff). 
 
 A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY THE NEW YEAE. 
 
 Composition and publication. This poem is not, I believe, 
 in any edition published in the poet's lifetime. It ap- 
 pears in the London ed. of 1857, with the title as above. 
 The sub-title on p. 49 is that of the Golden Treasury, — Mr. 
 Palgrave's invention. 
 Page 49. 1.11. — Ye stars, that measure life. A beautiful peri- 
 phrasis for Time, measured by the apparent revolution of 
 the stars. One recalls the line 
 
 And every sphere 
 That gems the starry girdle of the year. 
 
 — Campbell, Pleasures of Hope. 
 
250 NOTES. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 A PSALM OF LIFE. 
 
 Composition and publication. Longfellow's Journal, 
 July 26, 1838, reads : " I sit at an open window this bright 
 morning, and am also hajpy, though alone. Wrote a 
 ' Psalm of Life ' which I suppose will soon go into the 
 Knickerbocker or some other magazine." Later he wrote : 
 " I kept it some time in manuscript, unwilling to show it 
 to anyone, it being a voice from my inmost heart at a time 
 when I was rallying from depression." It was read to- 
 his college class in Harvard after a lecture on Goethe, and 
 published in the Knickerbocker Magazine, N.T., Sept., 1838. 
 
 Originally it bore under the title a motto from Crashaw 
 (1616-1650),— 
 
 ' Life that shall send 
 A challenge to its end, 
 And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend.' 
 
 This motto, however, does not appear in Voices of the 
 Night, 1839, where L. first gathered together his magazine 
 waifs. The text of the Psalm in this 1839 ed. has under- 
 gone no alteration. 
 
 Its reception. " It . . . . at once attracted attention. 
 Here was evidently a new strain in American poetry. It 
 has perhaps grown too familiar for us to read it as it was 
 first read. But if the ideas have become coinmonplace, it 
 has been well said that it is this poem that has made them 
 so. Those who remember its first appearance know what 
 wonderful freshness it had. It was copied far and wide. 
 Young men read it with delight ; their hearts were stirred 
 by it as by a bugle summons. It roused them to high re- 
 solve, and wakened them to a new sense of the meaning 
 
LONGFELLOW: A PSALM OF LIFE. 251 
 
 and worth of life. They did not stop to ask critically 
 whother or not it passed the line which separates poetry 
 from preaching, or whether its didactic merit was a poetic 
 defect. It was enough that it inspired them and enlarged 
 their lives." — Samuel Longfellow, Life^ etc., i. 271. 
 
 Page 50. The title. A Psalm of Life. L. published in the 
 Knickerbocker Magazine^ from Sept. 1838 till Oct. 1839, five 
 poems designated as Psalms : — A Psalm of Life, Sept. 1838 ; 
 A Psalm of Death (afterwards called simply, The Reaper 
 and the Flowers) and A Second Psalm of Life (afterwards 
 simply, The Light of Stars), Jan. 1839 ; Voices of the 
 Night, A Third Psalm of Life (Footsteps of Angels), May, 
 1839 ; The Fifth Psalm, A Midnight Mass for the Dying 
 Tear, Oct. 1839. Of these only the first and prototype has 
 retained its title. From the application of the word Psalm 
 to the various poems mentioned, it is clear that the word 
 is used very generally, like ode, sonnet, etc., and indicates 
 only a lyrical poem of a meditative or philosophic cast on 
 certain sober phases of human life. 
 
 Sub-title. The Psalmist. " The question has some- 
 times been asked. Who is the ' Psalmist ' to whom the 
 ' heart of the young man ' responds ? As none of the He- 
 brew Psalms is remembered as containing the combated 
 expression, it has been supposed that the word should have 
 been ' Preacher,' in reference to Ecclesiastes. But we have 
 the author's own word, written in after years, that ' the 
 Psalmist ' was neither David nor Solomon, but simply the 
 writer of this psalm. It was the young man's better heart, 
 answering and refuting his own mood of despondency." — 
 Samuel Longfellow, Life, i. 272f. 
 
 1. 1. — mournful numbers. Numbers for verses, from the 
 regalar number of the syllables ; hence, as here, any chant 
 or song. "Mournful numbers" would well describe the 
 Dies Irae or other mournful chant of the emptiness and 
 transiency of human life. 
 
2o2 NOTES. 
 
 1.2. — Life.... an empty dream. Not an exact biblical 
 phrase, yet reminiscent of " vanity of vanities " of Eccles. 
 i. 2: xii. 8; " all flesh is grass," Is. xl. 6; and of Ps. ex. 
 4ff., etc. 
 
 1. 3. — slumbers. Note the aptness of the word in describ- 
 ing people to whom life is a dream. This is the sleep of 
 death when we grow indifferent to the high purpose of life. 
 Prospero has a wider philosophic view before him when he 
 says,— 
 
 We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on ; and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 — Tempest, iv. i. 
 
 1. 4. — thing's are not what they seem. 
 
 Non semper ea sunt, quae videntur. 
 
 — Phsedrus (c. B.C. 30 — i4 a.d.), Fables, iv. 2. 
 
 1. 5. — real. Note the dissyllable, the proper pronuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 1. 7. — Dust thou art, etc. Gen. iii. 19 ; Burial Service, 
 Book of Common Prayer ; but especially Eccles. xii. 7. 
 
 1. 9. — Not enjoyment, and not sorrow. Cf. Prov. xxx. 8. 
 
 1. 10.— end or way. The object of life or the means by 
 which the goal of life may be obtained. 
 
 1. 11. — act. Knickerbocker italicizes, showing the poet's 
 desire of emphasis. Of. Eccles. ix. 10. 
 
 1. 13. — Art is long-, etc. Progress to perfection in art 
 is slow, but time goes fast, — a favourite aphorism of Long- 
 fellow. 
 
 6 /3ioS ^pa\v^, ri Se Texvr) fXiXKpri 
 
 —Hippocrates (B.C. 460-357), Aphorism 1. 
 
 Vltam brevem esse, long-am artem. 
 — Seneca, de Brev. Vitae, i. 
 
 The lyfe so short, the craft to long to lerne. 
 —Chaucer, Pari, of Foules, 1. 1. 
 
LONGFELLOW: A PSALM OF LIFE. 253 
 
 }.. ]4ff. — hearts. . . .like muffled drums. . . .grave. Drums 
 are muffled during the funeral march by stopping with a 
 cloth the vibration of the strings across the drumhead. 
 
 Our lives are but our marches to the grave. 
 
 — Beaumjnt and Fletcher, The Humorous Lieictenatit, in. 5. 
 
 But hark ! my pulse, like a soft drum, 
 Beats my approach, tells thee I come : 
 And slow howe'er my marches be, 
 I shall at last sit down by thee. 
 
 —Henry King (1691-1669), B. of Chichester, Elegy. 
 
 "Mr. Longfellow asserted that the Bishop's poem was 
 certainly not in his mind when he wrote, even if he had 
 ever read it, but the thought came with entire freshness 
 to him. — Samuel Longfellow, Life, i. 273 n. 
 
 Page 51. 1. 18. — bivouac of Life. Pronounce biv' do ah. Re- 
 peats the preceding line with the added suggestion of the 
 short duration of life, the necessity of vigilance against the 
 enemies of sloth and indifference. 
 
 1. 22.— Let the dead past, etc. Cf. Lulce ix. 60. 
 
 1.23. — Act, — act in the Present. Cf. the motto of 
 
 L.'s Hyperion (1838-9). — "Look not mournfully into the 
 Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the 
 Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Fu- 
 ture without fear, and with a manly heart." In the same 
 volume, iii. viii., the thought is expanded in connection 
 with the motto from Crashaw (see Introd. note) : — " It was 
 so with Flemming ; and from that hour forth he resolved 
 that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of 
 circumstance — no longer be a child's plaything in the 
 hands of Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He 
 resolved henceforward not to lean on others .... and be a 
 man among men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. 
 Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality ; I will work 
 in my own sphere .... This alone is Life." 
 
254 NOTES. 
 
 the living Present. As distinguished from the Past that 
 is dead and gone, and the Future that is but fancy. 
 
 11. 28, 29. — Footprints. Knickerbocker reads. Footsteps . 
 The construction is faulty. Lit. , the voyager, shipwrecked, 
 beholds, from his vessel on the high sea, footprints on the 
 shore. But the real meaning is clear and powerful. 
 
 In the Journal, March 9th, 1855, we learn that Lady 
 Byron has written to say ' ' a dying soldier on the field 
 before Sebastopool was heard repeating the line — 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time. 
 
 ' ' How brave is the world after all ! Its toiling multi- 
 tudes gladly take for their own a song that promises no 
 rest, but only cheers them on to be up and doing." — Rob- 
 ertson. 
 
 L 34. — A heart for any fate. 
 
 Here's a sigh to those who love me, 
 
 And a smile to those who hate ; 
 And, whatever sky's above me, 
 
 Here's a heart for every fate. 
 
 — Byron, To Thomas Moore. 
 
 1. 85. — still achieving pursuing. Ever accomplishing 
 
 something, yet ever ceaselessly pressing forward to new 
 achievements. 
 
 1. 36. — and to wait. 
 
 They also serve who only stand and wait. 
 
 —Milton, On his Blindnees. 
 
LONGFELLOW: A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. 255 
 
 A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 Composition and publication. — " The last day of sum- 
 mer. Began my college work ; classes unusually large. 
 In the afternoon a delicious drive with F. and C. [his wife 
 Frances and his first child] through Brookline, by the 
 church and 'the green-lane,' and homeward through a 
 lovelier lane, with barberries and wild vines clustering 
 over the old stone walls." — Longfellow, Journal^ Aug. 31, 
 1846. This reference to " the green lane." 1. 10, associates 
 the poem therefore with Brookline, the rich beautiful resi- 
 dential suburb to the south-west of Boston, and its Unitar- 
 ian Church. 
 
 The poem was written before the time of the entry in the 
 Journal. One would fancy it recalled days of courtship 
 or of early married life, which, as the poet took his second 
 wife in 1843, is not improbable. It was published in the 
 volume called The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems., Cam- 
 bridge, 1846, pp. 19-22. There are no changes from this 
 first printed version. 
 
 Page £2. 1. 9. — the highway to the to^vn. Apparently West- 
 ern Avenue, a splendid roadway, built in 1821. 
 
 1. 12. — O gentlest of my friends ! This seems to suggest 
 his wife, Frances Appleton Longfellow. In Hyperion she is 
 described : — • ' Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It 
 was such a calm, quiet face, with the light of the rising 
 soul shining so peacefully through it. At times it wore 
 an expression of seriousness — of sorrow even ; and then 
 seemed to make the very air bright with what the Italian 
 poets so beautifully call the lampeggiar delP angelico riso, — 
 the lightning of the angelic smile. And 0, those eyes — 
 those deep unutterable eyes, with ' down-falling eyelids 
 full of dreams and slumber,' and within them a cold living 
 light, as in mountain lakes at evening Every step, 
 
256 NOTES. 
 
 every attitude, was graceful, and yet lofty, as if inspired 
 by the soul within. And what a soul was hers ! A 
 temple dedicated to heaven, and, like the Pantheon at 
 Eome, lighted only from above. And earthly passions in 
 the forms of gods were no longer there, but the sweet and 
 thoughtful faces of Christ and the Virgin Mary, and the 
 Saints. — Hyperion., iii. iv. 
 
 1. 13. — linden trees. The American linden-tree, or bass- 
 wood, sweet in spring with odorous yellow blossoms. 
 
 Page 53. 1. 2ifT. — I saw the branches of the trees, etc. Lines 
 worthy of a place with, 
 
 A foot more light, a step more true, 
 Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew ; 
 E'en the light hare-bell raised its head, 
 Elastic from her airy tread. 
 
 — Scott, The Lady of tiie Lake, i. xviii. 
 
 For her feet have touched the meadows 
 And left the daisies rosy. 
 
 — Tennyson, Maud, xli. 
 
 1. '25f. — " Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares," etc. 
 Quoted from a favourite hymn of the Unitarian church 
 in America, written by an English poetess : — 
 
 Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares 
 
 Of earth and folly born ! 
 Ye shall not dim the light that streams 
 
 From this celestial morn. 
 
 To-morrow will be time enough 
 
 To feel your harsh controul ; 
 Ye shall not violate this day, 
 
 The sabbath of my soul. 
 
 Sleep, sleep forever, guilty thought I 
 
 Let fires of vengeance die ; 
 And, purged from sin, may I behold 
 A God of purity ! 
 
 —Anna Lsetitia Barbauld (1743-1825). 
 1. 31. — Like the celestial ladder. Cf, Evang., 1. 821. 
 The poet was fond to a fault of certain comparisons 
 
LONGFELLOW : THE DAY IS DONE. 257 
 
 and allusions, especially of comparisons and allusions drawn 
 from the Bible. The prevalence in his work of these bibli- 
 cal references is, without doubt, due to the Puritan back- 
 ground of New England life. The student of New England 
 literature will have noticed that this pectxliarity of style is 
 even more marked in the poetry of Longfellow's predeces- 
 sors. Here the religious associations make the comparison 
 very apt. 
 1. 39f . — For he spake of Ruth I thought of thee. 
 
 They sang of love, and not of fame ; 
 
 Forgot was Britain's glory : 
 Each heart recalled a different name, 
 
 But all sang "Annie Lawrie." 
 
 —Bayard Taylor, The Song of the Cam}). 
 
 Ruth the beautiful. See Buth, i-iv. 
 
 Page 54- 1. 49ff. — thoughts like pine trees, etc. The im- 
 agery is sombre here, suggesting the thoughts of pain, the 
 Weltschmerz, that dim all present joys. Yet behind this 
 cloud is the Gleam of Sunshine (cf. 1. 47) of her remembered 
 presence, shining on the happy past. 
 
 THE DAY IS DONE. 
 
 Composition and publication. On Nov. 26, 1844, L. 
 wrote to his father, " I have also in press a small volume 
 of poems, — a selection merely, of favorite pieces, — to be 
 called the Waif, with an introductory poem by myself." The 
 Waif, a Collection of Poems, was published in Cambridge, 
 Christmas of 1844, dated 1845, containing various stray 
 floating pieces along with poems of Herrick, Shelley, Brown- 
 ing, etc. The Proem, or Introduction, is the present poem. 
 It was republished in The Belfry of Bruges, etc., under its 
 present title. From these earliest texts there are no varia- 
 tions. 
 
 Balfe's pretty music for this song was written in 18""'' 
 
258 NOTES. 
 
 Keat's sonnet, The Day is Gone, is a treatment of the 
 same theme in a very different spirit. 
 
 Page 56. 1. 5.— the lights of the village. Cambridge itself, 
 frequently referred to in the Journal as " the village," and 
 only about 1853 (see Journal, Sept. 21) turning into a city. 
 
 1. 16.— thoughts. An archaic sense, anxious thoughts, 
 cares (1. 42). Cf. " Take no thought for your life, what ye 
 shall ea.t."— Matt. vi. 25. 
 
 1. 29. — long days of labor, etc. 
 
 To scorn delights, and live laborious days. 
 
 —Milton, Lycidas, 1. 73. 
 
 THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIES. 
 
 Composition and publication. In the town of Pittsfield 
 in western Massachusetts, stands the mansion formerly 
 (till 1853) belonging to the Appletons. It is an old-fash- 
 ioned country-house standing back from the street among 
 splendid trees. One of its greatest ornaments was a great 
 clock on the stairway. 
 
 When Longfellow in 1843 married Frances Appleton, 
 daughter of Nathan Appleton of Boston, they spent part 
 of their wedding journey with Mrs. Longfellow's relatives 
 at Pittsfield in the family mansion. There L. saw the 
 clock of our poem, and learned those incidents of the his- 
 tory of the Appleton family, which he afterwards embodied 
 in its verses. On the sale of the family mansion the old 
 clock was reserved and brought to Boston, " where it still 
 stands in the hallway of Mr. Thomas Appleton's residence." 
 
 In his Journal, Nov. 12, 1845, L. wrote : '• Began a 
 poem on a clock, with the words, " Forever, never " as the 
 burden ; suggested by the words of Bridaine, the old French 
 missionary, who said of eternity, " C'est una pendule," etc 
 
LONGFELLOW: THE OLD CLOCK. 259 
 
 Tlie poem was first printed in The Belfry of Bruges, etc. 
 The text has not varied since its first publication. 
 
 Page 57. — The motto. " Eternity is a clock the pendulum 
 of which says and repeats ceaselessly these two words only, 
 in the silence of the tombs : Ever ! never ! Ever ! never ! " 
 
 Jacques Bridaine (1701-1767). Pronounce sAafc 6re-da7z' . 
 Educated at the Jesuit College of Avignon, France, a mis- 
 sionary priest of wonderful eloquence, force and imagina- 
 tion, devoting himself to evangelical work throughout the 
 towns of Central and Northern France. 
 
 The extract is the exordium of a sermon on Eternity, 
 preached at St. Sulpice. It was preserved by Cardinal 
 Maury and printed by La Harpe, Cours de litter ature. The 
 •concluding words are equally powerful : " And ever during 
 these awful revolutions one reprobate soul cries : What 
 time is it? And the voice of another replies. Eternity." 
 
 I. 3. — antique. Note the unusual accent here and in 
 Evang., 1. 93. This accentuation was once very common, 
 hence antic, which is the same word as antique (Ft. antique, 
 L. antiquus). 
 
 How well in thee appears 
 The constant service of the antique world. 
 
 — Shakspere, As You Like It, ii. iii. 
 
 The differentiation of spelling and accent accompanied 
 the differentiation of meaning. 
 
 portico. An open porch or piazza, the roof of which is 
 supported by pillars. 
 
 Page 58. 1. 35. — His great fires. Hospitality personified as 
 the host. 
 
 The fire, with well-dried logs supplied. 
 Went roaring up the chimney wi(3e ; 
 The huge hall-tahle's oaken face, 
 Scrubb'd till it shone, the day to grace, 
 Bore then upon its massive board 
 No mark to part the squire and lord, etc. 
 
 — Scott, Uarmion, vi. (lutrod.) 
 
260 NOTES. 
 
 1. 37. — skeleton at the feast. " In social meetings among: 
 the rich, when the banquet is ended, a servant carries 
 round to the several guests a coffin, in which there is a 
 wooden image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble 
 nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two in length. 
 As he shows it to each guest in turn, the servant says, 
 ' Gaze here, and drink and be merry ; for when you die, 
 such will you be.'" — Herodotus, i. 78, speaking of the- 
 Egyptians (tr. Eawlinson). The same feature of banquets is 
 described in Petronius, Satyricon^ 34 ; Plutarch, etc. Nu- 
 merous references are in the Bible likewise, — 2. Corinth, 
 XV. 82, etc. 
 
 1. 43f. — O golden prime time ! 
 
 That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince. 
 
 — Shakspere, Richard III., i. ii. 248. 
 
 In sooth it was a goodly time, 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 —Tennyson, Recollections of the Arabian Nights, 
 
 prime. Fr. prime, IjSkt. prima, the first hour; henGe^ 
 here, youth in its highest development. 
 
 PB.ge 59- 1. 61. — long since. 1846, long-since , 
 1. 66. — Where all parting. Revel, xxi. 4. 
 L 69. — horologe {hor'o lodge). Time-piece. (OFr. horo- 
 loge, Mod. Fr. horloge, clock; L. horologium\ Gk. hvrUf. 
 hour, lego, I speak.) 
 
LONGFELLOW : THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 26 r 
 
 THE FERE OF DEIFT-WOOD. 
 
 Composition and publication. L.'s Journal reads under 
 September 29, 1846: "A delicious drive with F. through 
 Maiden and Lynn to Marblehead, to visit E. W. at the 
 Devereux Farm by the sea-side. Drove across the beauti- 
 ful sand. What a delicious scene ! The ocean in the sun- 
 shine changing from the silvery hue of the thin waves - 
 upon the beach, through the lighter and the deeper green, 
 to a rich purple en the horizon. We recalled the times 
 past, and the days when we were at Nahant. The Deve- 
 reux Farm is by the sea, some miles from Lynn. An old- 
 fashioned farm-house, with low rooms and narrow windows 
 rattling in the sea-breeze. After dinner we drove to 
 Marblehead,- -a strange old place on a rocky promontory, 
 with narrow streets, and strange, ugly houses scattered at 
 random, corner -wise and every -wise, thrusting their- 
 shoulders into the streets and elbowing the passers out of 
 their way. A dismantled fort looks seaward. We ram- 
 bled along the breast-works, which are now a public walk, 
 and asked in vain for the reef of Norman's Woe, which is. 
 nevertheless, in this neighborhood. On returning to the 
 Devereux Farm we sat on the rocks and listened to ' the 
 bellowing of the savage sea.' " 
 
 The outcome if this visit was the poem The Fire of 
 Drift-Wood, vhlch appeared in Seaside and Fireside, 1850. 
 
 Page 6o. — Sub-title. Marblehead. " Marblehead is a back- 
 bone of granite, a vertebra of syenite and prophyry thrust 
 out into Massachusetts Bay, in the direction of Cape Ann, 
 and hedged about with rocky islets. It is somewhat shel- 
 tered fi om the weight of north-east storms by the sweep of 
 the cape, which launches itself out to sea, and gallantly 
 receives the first bufTetings of the Atlantic. The promon- 
 tory of Marblehead may once have been a prolongation of; 
 
•262 NOTES. 
 
 Cape Ann, the whole coast hereabouts looking as if the 
 ocean had licked out the softer parts, leaving nothing that 
 was digestible behind. This rock, on which a settlement 
 was begun two hundred and fiftj' odd years ago, performs 
 its part by making Salem Harbor on one hand, and another 
 for its own shipping on the east, where an appendage 
 known as Marblehead Neck is joined to it by a ligature of 
 sand and shingle. The port [1. 5] is open to the north- 
 east, and vessels are sometimes blown from their anchor- 
 age upon the sand banks at the head of the harbor, though 
 the water is generally deep and the shores bold. At the 
 entrance a light-house [1. 7] is built on the entrance point 
 of the Neck ; and on a tongue of land opposite is Fort Se- 
 vyall [1. 7] a beckoning finger and a clenched fist. . . . 
 
 "The beach is the mall of Marblehead. It opens upon 
 Nahant Bay, and is much exposed to the force of soath-east 
 
 .gales. Over this beach a causeway is built The Neck 
 
 is the peculiar domain of a transient population of care- 
 worn fugitives from the city [Boston lies 18 miles to the 
 ■south west]." — Drake, New England Coast., p. 228ft'. 
 
 1. 5. — we saw the port. Of Marblehead. " In a letter in 
 1879 to a correspondent who had raised a matter-of-fact 
 objection, Mr. L. readily admitted that the harbor and the 
 lighthouse .... could not be seen from the windows of the 
 farm-house." — Note in Riverside ed. 
 
 1. 6. — old-fashioned, silent town. " I began to have some 
 notion of the maze of rocky lanes, alleys, and courts. Cap- 
 rice seems to have governed the locality of a majority of 
 the houses by the water-side, and the streets to have ad- 
 justed themselves to the wooden anarchy. .. .or else the 
 houses must have been stranded here by the flood." — 
 Drake, p. 238. The town has taken to making shoes, and 
 is losing in part its silent antique character. 
 
 1. 7. — dismantled fort. Fort Sewall, built in 1742, re- 
 43uilt during the American Civil War. 
 
 _1, 31. — the wreck of stranded ships. The fire of ocean 
 
LONGFELLOW- RESIGNATION. 263 
 
 drift-wood is the most beautiful of all open fires. No other 
 wood has sach clear, pale, many-coloured flames to mark 
 its burning. 
 
 1. 43. — long-lost ventures. Venture was formerly often 
 used with the special sense of something sent over seas in 
 
 trade. 
 
 My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 
 Nor to one place. 
 
 — Shakspere, Merchant of Venice, i. i. 
 
 Here it is used of the ship itself. 
 
 RESIGNATION. 
 
 Autobiographical signifiance. Besignation, while repre- 
 senting to us the chastened feelings of fathers and mothers 
 in general on the loss of beloved children, acquires addi- 
 tional interest from its connection with the poet's own 
 life. This poem is the expression of Longfellow's feelings, 
 on the death of his infant davighter Frances. In his jour- 
 nal he chronicles the incidents of her short life. " Oct. 80, 
 1847. Fanny was christened .... She looked charmingly, 
 and behaved well throughout. Sept. 4, 1848. Fanny very 
 weak and miserable. Which way will the balance of life 
 and death turn ? lOth. A day of agony ; the physicians 
 no longer have any hope ; I cannot yet abandon it. Mo- 
 tionless she lies ; only a little raoan now and then. 11th. 
 Lower and lower. Throughout the silent desolate room 
 the clocks tick loud. At half-past four this afternoon she 
 died.... Her breathing grew fainter, fainter, then ceased 
 without a sigh, without a flutter — perfectly quiet, perfectly 
 painless. The sweetest expression on her face. 
 
 The room was full of angels where she lay ; 
 And when they had departed she was gone. 
 
 12th. Our little child was buried to-day. From her nur- 
 sery, down the front stairs, through my study and into the 
 
■264 NOTES. 
 
 library, she was borne in the arms of her old nurse. And 
 thence, after prayer, throTigh the long hall to her coffin 
 and grave. For a long time, I sat by her alone in the 
 darkened library. The twilight fell softly on her placid 
 face and the white flowers she held in her little hands. In 
 the deep silence, the bird sang from the hall, a sad strain, 
 a melancholy requiem. It touched and soothed me. Nov. 
 12th. I feel very sad to-day. I miss very much my dear 
 little Fanny. An unappeasable longing to see her comes 
 over me at times, which I can hardly control." 
 
 In the autumn of the year 1848, Resignation was written, 
 and appeared as the first poem of the part By the Fireside 
 in the volume, Seaside and Fireside, Boston, 1850. No 
 changes have been made in this earliest text. 
 
 The poem bears a close relationship in phrase and 
 in thought to Vaughan's poem, They are all Gone, quoted 
 in the Appendix, with which it should be compared. 
 
 iPage 62. 1. 7. — The heart of Rachel. Eachel stands here 
 as a type of the bereaved mother. See Jerem. xxxi. 15 and 
 Matth. ii. 18. 
 
 1. 9. — Let us be patient. One of the poet's favourite 
 virtues is patience. Cf. Ps. ofL., 1. 36 ; Evang., 1. 725, etc. 
 
 1. 10. — not from the ground arise. Like noxious exhala- 
 tions, born of earth. " Although affliction cometh not 
 forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the 
 .•ground." Job v. 6. 
 
 1. 14. — We see but dimly, etc. Cf. 1. Corinth, xiii. 12. 
 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
 Until death tramples it to fragments. 
 
 —Shelley, Adonais. 
 
 1. 15.— funereal tapers. Used as typical of all outward 
 signs of sorrow and death. It is customary with the Ro- 
 man Catholics to surround the coffined dead with burning 
 •candles. 
 
LONGFELLOW: RESIGNATION. 265 
 
 ■funereal. Suitable to a funeral, dismal, mournful. 
 
 1. 17. — There is no Death. . . .transition. 
 
 Life, which, in its weakness or excess, 
 
 Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence. 
 
 Or death, which, seeming darkness, is no less 
 
 The self-same light, although averted hence. 
 
 — Longfellow, Birds of Killingworth. 
 
 1. 19. — the life elysian. Elysium or the Elysian Fields 
 Tepresented paradise to the Greeks. Amidst its groves and 
 on its meadows set with asphodel, wander the blessed 
 dead, heroes who died in battle, the noble poets, the bene- 
 factors of humanity. 
 
 Page 63. 1. 22. — school. Not a dignified w^ord in this con- 
 nection, but elevated by the following description — 
 ■•a great cloister" — into something massive, antique, in- 
 spiring awe and veneration. 
 
 1. 25. — cloister. Strictly, a covered walk adjoining the 
 cells of a monastery, usually alongside the inner silent 
 quadrangle ; here, the monastery or convent itself. 
 
 1. 33f. — we walk -with her, etc. Accompany her day 
 by day in thought, keeping close the bond of love with 
 ■which nature unites parents and child. 
 
 1. 41.— in her Father's mansion. A biblical phrase; 
 cf. John., xiv. 2. 
 
 Page 64. 1. 47.— like the ocean, etc. Cf. Evang., 1. 182. 
 
 1. 51 — By silence sanctifying, etc. The progress of 
 thought throughout the poem should be clearly studied, so 
 that the culminating effect of the final stanza may be 
 clearly realized. Death, however it appears, is the work 
 of heaven not earth ; it really means a fuller life in Para- 
 dise ; to mourn is therefore to be rebellious against God ; 
 yet the impulse of grief is at times too strong to be wholly 
 repressed; there remains for us, then, only to purify and 
 sanctify this grief through patience and silence. 
 
206 NOTES. 
 
 THE BUILDEKS. 
 
 Composition and publication. " Finished a poem called 
 ' The Builders.' "—Longfellow's Journal, May 9tli, 1846. 
 It was published in Seaside and Fireside, Second Part, pp. 
 55-57, and has remained without change throughout all 
 subsequent editions. 
 
 The interpretation of the poem. The poem stands in 
 close relation of thought to the Ladder of St. Augustine, 
 yet there is a difference. The one is inspired preaching 
 on the necessity of doing each day our best, so that 
 we may attain the heights of intellectual and spiritual 
 being. The latter, however, is in the first place devoted 
 to the spiritual life, to the rise of moral being, consequent 
 on our living down our faults, our mistakes, our vices, 
 growing in moral strength by the struggle. In the closing 
 stanzas of the poem the thought reverts to the theme of 
 The Builders, the need of doing our utmost. The two 
 poems and the Psalm of Life are eminent instances of 
 Longfellow's didactic poetry, which is conscious preach- 
 ing, yet so fraught with genuine right feeling and touched 
 with such grace of expression and delicacy of allusion, 
 that it achieves the almost impossible task of being, in 
 addition to preaching, poetry of inspiration. 
 
 The allegory that pervades this poem is that of a great 
 temple reared by humanity with its achievements. If we 
 are true builders our deeds will enter as perfect parts into 
 this temple, which will then be fit as for the dwelling of the 
 gods ; if we are negligent, then our lives will be but as 
 " blocks of stumbling " to ourselves and to our successors. 
 If our deeds to-day are wise and good, they will amply 
 sustain our deeds of to-morrow, and we rising with our ris- 
 ing deeds at last shall attain the fullest perfection of which 
 life is capable. The reader of this poem, as with many 
 of the poems of Longfellow, must be satisfied with the truth 
 
LONGFELLOW : THE BUILDERS. 2G7 
 
 of general impression, not striving to find minute truth in 
 every detail of the allegory. 
 
 Page 65. 1. 1. — architects of Fate. In the sense of the old 
 poet who wrote, — 
 
 Man is his own star, and the soul that can 
 Render an honest and a perfect man 
 Commands all light, all influence, all fate. 
 Nothing to him falls early, or too late, 
 Our acts our angels are, or good or ill. 
 Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. 
 
 — Fletcher, Honest Man's Fortune, 
 
 Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. 
 
 —Young, Night Thoughts, vi. 
 
 Page 65. 1. 2. — ■walls of Time. The achievements of human- 
 ity through all ages, symbolized as a temple or palace of 
 Time, ever in course of erection, ever finishing, yet ever 
 unbuilt again ; or, like Arthur's Camelot, 
 
 The city is built 
 To music, therefore never built at all, 
 And therefore built for ever. 
 
 — Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette. 
 
 1. 10. — Time is with materials filled. Our deeds lie 
 within the "walls of Time," but are a useless cumber to 
 the edifice till we employ them to build up our life and 
 the life of humanity. 
 
 1. IB. — shape and fashion these. Using the knowledge 
 and the experience we have gained to help us, while we 
 ceaselessly do the duties the present lays upon us. 
 
 Page 66. 1. 23. — house, where Gods may dwell. A suggestion 
 of " Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," 1. Cor. 
 vi. 19. Yet also a suggestion from 1. 20. This stanza, 
 strengthened by the reference to the perfectiou of ancient 
 building, resumes the thought of 1. 16. Imperfections may 
 pass unnoticed with men, but the great structure of hu- 
 manity will have to bear the scrutiny of the gods, who 
 
2C8 NOTES. 
 
 may sometimes inhabit it. As our bodies are temples of 
 the Holy Spirit, so the mighty spiritual world or temple of 
 art, science, civilization, created by men through all the 
 ages, may at last become fit habitation for the gods them- 
 selves. 
 
 1. 25. — Else our lives are incomplete. Cf. " The building 
 up of life with solid blocks of idleness, as I do here, is a 
 poor kind of architecture." — L., Journal.^ -A-Ug. 27th, 1851. 
 
 1.29. — Build to-day, etc. Here the poem seems to depart 
 from its main theme to speak of each individual life, no 
 longer a part of the temple of humanity, but, as it were, 
 its own individual edifice, capable of completeness and per- 
 fection. 
 
 1. 34. — turrets. Suggesting completion of building as 
 well as height of attainment. 
 
 1. 35. — Sees the world, etc. The imaginery of the last 
 lines is a picturesque delineation of the attainment of the 
 highest. Compare the allegory of the youth climbing the 
 mountain in Excelsior. 
 
 THE LADDEE OF ST. AUGUSTESTE. 
 
 Composition and publication. A poem from Birds of 
 Passage, Flight the First, published in The Courtship of 
 Miles Standish, and Other Poems, 1858, and written some 
 3^ears before. The only change from the text of this early 
 date is in the punctuation of 1. 44. 
 
 Page 67. 1. 1. — Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said. Pro- 
 nounce aug' us ten. St. Aurelius Augustinus (354-430), the 
 greatest and most influential of the Latin fathers of the 
 
 . Church. After years of study, not free from vice, Augus- 
 tine was converted at Milan by St. Ambrose, and returned 
 to his home in Tagaste, Numidia, to organize a religious 
 
LONGFELLOW : THE LADDER. 269 
 
 community. Elected bishop of Hippo, he gave himself up 
 to ceaseless labours, taking a chief part in the great religi- 
 ous controversies of the time, and leaving behind him an 
 immense mass of controversial literature, letters, sermons 
 And commentaries. 
 
 Longfellow in a note, ed. 1864, says : " The words of St. 
 Augustine are, De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si 
 vitia ipsa calcamus." — Sermon m. , De Ascensione. The re- 
 ference is, I believe, inexact. 
 
 1. 3f . — we can frame a ladder, etc. Tennyson voices this 
 thoTiglit in the opening lines of In Memoriam, — 
 
 I held it truth, with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 
 
 He is thought to refer here to Goethe, whose life and writ- 
 ings are a great exemplar of the principle. It is interesting 
 to notice that Milton uses the same imagery, in a different 
 •connection however. 
 
 In contemplation of created things 
 By steps we may ascend to God. 
 
 — Paradise Lost, v. 511f. 
 
 L 16. — Irreverence for the dreams of youth. 
 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing Boy, 
 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 
 
 He sees it in his joy ; 
 The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
 
 Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 
 
 And by the vision splendid 
 
 Is on his way attended ; 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 
 —Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality. 
 
 Page 68. 1. 24. — right of eminent domain. Lit., the supreme 
 right of the sovereign or state over private property, by 
 
270 NOTES. 
 
 virtue of which it can, with certain restrictions, take pos- 
 session of such property for public purposes on paying 
 compensation. As used here figuratively, it denotes not 
 more than an indisputable right to fame. 
 
 1. 29ff . — pyramids flights of stairs. The smooth outer 
 
 casings of the pyramids have in many cases been removed, 
 revealing the massive layers of square-cut stones, rising 
 stair-like to the apex. 
 
 1. 34. — bastion. Lit., " A mass of earth faced with 
 sods, brick, or stones, standing out from a rampart, of 
 which it is a principal part." It consists of two flanks 
 which command the wall lying between two bastions. The 
 poet picturesquely calls up by the word the greatest moun- 
 tains of the mountain-chain. 
 
 1. 37ff. — The heights by great men, etc. 
 
 Fame i3 the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
 
 (That last infirmity of nohle mind) 
 
 To scorn delights, and live laborious days. 
 
 — Milton, Lycidas. 
 
 1. 44. — to higher destinies. Editions as late as 1864 have 
 a period at the end of the stanza. 
 
 1. 47. — rising on its wrecks. Cf. The Builders, 1. 11, n. 
 
 THE WAEDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. 
 
 Composition and publication. ' ' Copied a poem I have 
 just written, — The Warden of the Cinque Ports." — L., 
 Journal, 1852, Oct. 14th. It formed one of the poems of 
 Birds of Passage in the volume of The Courtship of Miles 
 Standish, and Other Poems, 1858, pp. 131-134. 
 
LONGFELLOW : THE WARDEN. 271 
 
 Subject of the Poem. This poem is a mark of that sor- 
 row that thrilled the English-speaking world when the 
 great figure of the Duke of Wellington passed away. After 
 years of victories in India, the Peninsula, and Belgium, 
 and years of service as a minister of the Crown, he died 
 on September 14th, 1852, at the age of eighty-three. " An- 
 other year passed, and then the Duke faded away peace- 
 fully at Walmer, in September, and after lying in state at 
 Chelsea Hospital, was solemnly buried by the side of Nel- 
 son in St. Paul's Cathedral. All the "nations in Europe, 
 except Austria, were represented at his grave ; and as the 
 organ peals ceased and the mighty multitude separated, 
 the whole world felt not only that an epoch had visibly 
 ended, but that a great captain and a supremely dutiful, 
 honest man, leaving behind him a stainless record, had 
 gone from them for ever." — Hooper, Wellington^ p. 254. 
 
 Tennyson's great poem, Ode on the Death of the Duke of 
 Wellington, lends additional interest to this poem. 
 
 Page 69. Title. The Warden of the Cinque Ports. The 
 
 Cinque Ports (pronounced sink, preserving the Ol'r. pro- 
 nunciation) are the chief coast-towns immediately op- 
 posite France, — Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Eomney, in Kent, 
 and Hastings, in Sussex. They were erected by the Con- 
 queror into a separate jurisdiction and endowed with 
 special privileges in return for furnishing the king with 
 ships for the royal service. The administration— civil, 
 military, and naval — of the Ports was vested in a Warden, 
 or Lord- Warden. The Municipal Eeform Act did away 
 with the special privileges of the Cinque Ports, reducing 
 them to the condition of other municipalities. 
 
 " The Lord- Warden's jurisdiction, in relation to civil 
 suits and proceedings, was abolished in 1835; but he still 
 presides in the court of Shepway, and appoints justices of 
 the peace within the jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports. Hia 
 
272 NOTES. 
 
 official residence is Walmer Castle, near Deal, a structure 
 of Henry VlII.'s time; and here, as warden, the Duhe of 
 Wellington lived every autumn from 1829 till his death at 
 it in 1852 " (Chambers). 
 
 1. 13. — couchant {cow' tshant). Crouching, ready to 
 spring. 
 
 1. 21. — the burden. The refrain, repetition of the 'all's 
 well.' 
 
 Page 70. 1. 27. — embrasure. The sloping or bevelled open- 
 ing in a parapet, or wall. In fortifications it permits the 
 easy firing of the guns. 
 
 1. 31. — Field-Marshal. — The highest military officer un- 
 under the Commander-in-Chief. After his victory of Vitoria, 
 1812, Wellington received the baton of Field-Marshal from 
 the Prince-Eegent. On the death of the Duke of York^ 
 1827, he was made Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 1. 47. — intimated. The justification of this prosaic word 
 in this passage is the poet's desire to indicate the impas- 
 sive matter-of-fact of nature, and thus by contrast to 
 deepen the shade of the preceding thought. 
 
Longfellow : evangeline. 273 
 
 EVANGELINE, 
 
 Historical note.* The question of the justice of the re- 
 moval of the Acadians has been decided at the tribunal of 
 history, and the necessity of that cruel proceeding gener- 
 ally admitted even by historians of this humanitarian age. 
 It is well therefore at the outset to clear our historical 
 consciences on the subject, so that we may enjoy the last- 
 ing memorial that Longfellow's fancy has raised to that 
 unfortunate people undisturbed by its historical inaccuracy. 
 This is especially necessary when the expatriation is an im- 
 plied blot on that Government whose policy of colonization 
 throughout the world has been a policy of conciliation. 
 
 Cadie, Acadie, is the French corruption of the Micmac 
 Indian word signifying place, corrupted likewise by the 
 English into quoddy^ as in Passamaquoddy. It designated 
 roughly the region in which in 1604 De Monts planted 
 the first French colony of Port Royal. This colony was not 
 left undisturbed, for in 1620 the English took possession of 
 Acadia, which they had long claimed by virtue of Cabot's 
 discoveries of 1497. A Scotch colony (hence Nova Scotia) 
 took the place of a French colony at Port Eoyal. In 
 1632, however, Charles I. gave the country into French 
 hands, and the same year De E,azilly, to the dismay of the 
 English colonists of Massachusetts, resumed the work of 
 French colonization, this time at La Have. In 1642, 
 
 *For fuller treatment, see Raynal, Histoire philosophique — des 
 Europiens dans les deux Indes, Paris, 2i)d ed. 1775; Haliburton, His- 
 torical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1829 ; Akins, 
 Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 1869; Anderson, ''Evangeline" 
 and " Tlie Archives of Nova Scotia;" or the Poetry and Prose of 
 History, Trans. Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec, 1869; Hannay, The 
 History of Acadia, Lond., 1880; Archibald, The Expulsion of the 
 Acadians, Collections of Nova Scotia Hist. Soc, v., 1887. Smith, His- 
 tory of America, v. ; Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe ; Kingsford, 
 History of Canada. The documents in justitication of the Acadians 
 are largely reinforeed by Casgrain, Collect, de doc. inid., i-iii. Qu6bef , 
 1888-1890. 
 
274 NOTES. 
 
 Charnisay recolonized Port Royal, and established his 
 supremacy over the south coast of what is now New Bruns- 
 wick. Under Cromwell the English once more became 
 masters of Acadia, but once more by a Stuart, in the 
 Treaty of Breda, 1667, was the country restored to 
 France. The total number of European inhabitants in 
 1671 was only 441, chiefly settled at Port Eoyal. In ten 
 years the population had doubled under the attractions of 
 fisheries and fur-trading. But the prosperity of the colony 
 was interfered with by Continental disputes, Port Eoj^al 
 being twice captured by the English, once by Phips in 1690, 
 and again by Nicholson in 1710. Finally the treaty of 
 Utrecht, 1713, gave "all Nova Scotia or Acadia" to Great 
 Britain. 
 
 But what was Acadia ? To the English it meant Nova 
 Scotia and the coiintry north to the French dominion on 
 the St. Lawrence. The French contended it meant the 
 lower part of Nova Scotia, including the settlements of 
 Port Eoyal, Minas, and Chignecto. Ultimately the dis- 
 pute over boundaries resulted in war. But meanwhile, 
 even witliin the territory they admitted was no longer 
 theirs, the French Government resolved that the English 
 should have little joy of their French subjects. By the 
 Treaty of 1713 the Acadians could within a year remove 
 from the country with their property, or, if they preferred, 
 remain as subjects of the British Crown. They resolved 
 to remain ; but hoping ever for the restoration of the coun- 
 try to France, they secretly resolved to take no oath of 
 allegiance as British subjects. They were, they maintained. 
 Neutrals. In 1715 the oath of allegiance was tendered 
 them and refused. In 1720 it was once more tendered, 
 and again refused. The French of Canada and Cape Bre- 
 ton meanwhile were backing up the Acadians and inciting 
 the Micmacs and Malicites to continual attacks on the 
 English of New England and Nova Scotia. On the acces- 
 sion of George II. the requisition of an oath of allegiance 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 275 
 
 was again made necessnry. It was again generally re- 
 fused, but by 1730 General Phillips had prevailed upon all 
 the Acadians to take the oath, perhaps on the understand- 
 ing that it should not require them to bear arms. 
 
 In 1744 war broke out between England and France. 
 Immediately an expedition left Louisburg, Cape Breton, 
 ■to reduce the English of Acadia. When the Indians co- 
 operating with the French arrived before Annapolis, the 
 Acadians withdrew all help from the garrison. Aid came 
 from Boston, however, and all attacks were repulsed. The 
 Acadians, it is true, had not actually risen in arms ; 
 for, as they said, they were living under a "mild and 
 tranquil government." 
 
 In 1745, Louisburg, the 'Dunkirk of America,' the 
 home of privateers that preyed on New England commerce, 
 was destroyed by General Pepperell and an army of artizans 
 and farmers, under orders from Governor Shirley of 
 Massachusetts (see Evan., 1. 249, n.) The Acadians, who 
 had illegally sent supplies to the French fortress, refused 
 to supply it now that it was British. When De Villiers 
 made his successfiil attack on the Massachusetts troops at 
 Grand Pre, it was Acadians who gave him information and 
 lielp, and the Acadians as a body resisted all efforts of the 
 Lieutenant-Governor Mascerene to bring the guilty to 
 punishment. In this state of affairs, rapidly growing 
 ■critical, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, restored Louis- 
 burg and Cape Breton to France, and gave a new incite- 
 ment to the hostile temper of the Acadians. 
 
 Cornwallis, how^ever, became Governor of Nova Scotia 
 in 1749, founded a town and capital at Halifax, and 
 "looked to the safety of the colony by demanding the cus- 
 tomary oath of allegiance of the Acadians. The Acadian 
 •deputies asked exemption from bearing arms, even should 
 the Province be attacked. The Governor insisted that all 
 should take the unconditional oath before the 25th of 
 October. He was answered, — ' ' The inhabitants have 
 
276 NOTES. 
 
 resolved not to take the oath." Meanwhile the French, re- 
 lying on their interpretation of the Treaty of Utrecht, 
 fortified the Isthmus, and stirred up the Indians to attacks 
 on the English. La Loutre, missionary to the Micmacg 
 and Vicar-general of Acadia, made himself notorious m 
 these Indian intrigues, and by threats of Indian attacks 
 and excommunication from the Church kept the simple 
 Acadians in a state of chronic rebellion. In 1750 they 
 asked leave to quit the Province. Cornwallis refused per- 
 mission till peace was established, lest the forces of the 
 enemy should be increased. The same year the fortress ofi 
 Beau Sejour (see Evan. 1. 249, n.) rose on the Isthmus, . 
 threatening the safety of Nova Scotia. Then the boundary- 
 dispute Avas transferred to the tribunal of war. Governor 
 Shirley of Massachusetts at once concerted measures with 
 Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia to drive the- 
 French from the Fundy Basin. Troops were enlisted ini 
 the New England colonies, and Moncton, Winslow, and 
 Scott with 2,000 men left Boston on the 23rd of May, 1755.. 
 Joined by 300 regulars at Annapolis, they captured Pont a 
 Buot, Beau Sejour and Fort Gaspereau, clearing the French' 
 from the Isthmus. Three hundred Acadians found in arms 
 in these places were ofl'ered free pardon if they would take' 
 the oath of allegiance ; they i-ef used. 
 
 But there was left this body of eight thousand people,, 
 all secretly, some openly hostile to the Government. 
 How could the Province be made safe from these? Law- 
 rence resolved that the Acadian trouble should end. The- 
 oath was sternly required of the Acadian deputies. They 
 refused to take it. " Cn the one side was the full enjoyment, 
 of their lands, the free exercise of their religion, and the- 
 protection of the British flag, coupled with the condition 
 that they would become British subjects ; on the other side- 
 was exile and poverty. They chose the latter." Monckton; 
 was given charge of the Acadians of the Isthmus, Wins- 
 low of those of Minas (Grand Pre), Handfield, those of 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. -l-.l 
 
 Annapolis (Port Royal). Of the three, only Col. Winslow 
 was completely successful. However 3,000 Acadians were 
 taken prisoners liy the New England troops, safely and care- 
 fully embarked en transports, and sent as a public charge 
 to the colonies of Massachusetts, Per.nsjdvania, Mary- 
 land, Virginia, the Carolinas, and even the Biitish West 
 Indies. Some of the exiles, tempted by the French popula- 
 tion on the Mississippi made their way to Louisiana, where 
 their descendants are to-day a numerous and peculiar peo- 
 ple. Most of the Acadians, after great hardships, returned 
 to their brethren in Nova Scotia who had escaped trans- 
 portation or had not emigrated to Canada, and eventually 
 became a prosperous, loyal population, as their hundred 
 thousand descendants to-day are, a bulwark of our state. 
 
 Such is the story of the Acadians, as history sees it in 
 the light of the documentary evidence. Those who would 
 attach odium to Nova Scotia that ordered, or New England* 
 that executed the expulsion should weigh the words of a 
 great soldier and a humane man, fully cognizant of all the 
 facts, — Although it is a disagreeable part of duty we are put 
 upon, I am sensible it is a necessary one.f 
 
 The composition and publication of " Evangeline." Haw- 
 thorne in his American Note-books, Oct. 24, 1839, makes 
 this entry : — " H. L. C[onolly] heard from a French-Cana- 
 dian [Mrs. Haliburton] the story of a young couple in 
 
 * If the expulsion be a stain on the annals of Nova Scotia, it is a 
 stain from whicti Massachusetts cannot be free. It was a Massachu- 
 setts governor who devised the scheme. It was the soldiers of Mas- 
 sachusetts that drove the French from their encroachments in our 
 territory beyond the Missequash. It was Massaclmsetts officers, and 
 Massachusetts soldiers, who carried out the decree of e.\piilsion, at 
 the heart and centre of the Acadian settlements, at that very Grand 
 Pre which the poet has made a household word. It was Massa- 
 chusetts vessels, chartered from Massachusetts merchants, officered 
 a,nd manned by Massacliusett's captains and crews, that carried the 
 poor AcadUuis'into e.xile. It is clear, therefore, that if there be any 
 scutciieon smnrched by the transaction, it is specially that of the 
 country and home of the poet."— Archibald, N.S. Hist. Soc. v. 1.5. 
 
 t Lieut. -Col. John Winslow to Lieut. -Gov. Lawi-ence (Haliburton. i. 
 ?32 ; N. S. Hist. Soc. iii. 85). 
 
•278 NOTES. 
 
 Acadia. On their marriage-day all the men of the pro- 
 vince were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a 
 proclamation. When assembled, they were all seized and 
 shipped off to be distributed through New England, among 
 them the neAv bridegroom. His bride set off in search of 
 him ; wandered about New England all her lifetime ; and 
 at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his 
 death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed her like- 
 wise." Once when Hawthorne and Mr. Conolly dined at 
 Graigie House, Mr. Conolly told the story, and expressed 
 his regret that he had vainly endeavoured to interest Haw- 
 thorne in it. Longfellow remarked to Hawthorne, " If you 
 really don't want this incident for a tale, let me have it 
 for a poem." And Hawthorne consented. 
 
 It is easy by the help of Longfellow's Journal to follow 
 the composition of the poem : — 1845, Nov. 28th. — Set about 
 ' Gabrielle,' my idyl in hexameters, in earnest. I do not 
 mean to let a day go by without adding something to it, 
 if it be but a line. F. and Sumner are both doubtful of the 
 measure. To me it seems the only one for such a poem. 
 1845, Dec. 7th. — I know not what name to give to — not 
 my new baby, but my new poem. Shall it be ' Gabrielle,' 
 or ' Celestine,' or 'Evangeline'? 184G, Jan. 12th.— The 
 vacation is at hand. I hope before its close to get far 
 on in Evangeline. Two cantos are now done, which 
 is a good beginning. A2}. 5th. — After a month's cessa- 
 tion resumed Evangeline, the sister of mercy. I hope 
 now to carry it on to its close without a bi^eak. Dec. 
 10th, 1846. — Made an effort, and commenced the second 
 part of Evangeline. Dec. 17th. — Finished this morning, 
 and copied ithe first canto of the second part of Evan- 
 geline. The portions of the poem which I write in the 
 morning, I write quickly, standing at my desk here [by 
 the window], so as to need no copying. What I write at 
 other times is scrawled with a pencil on my knee in the 
 dark, and has to be written out afterwards. 1847, Jan. 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 27 O 
 
 2^< A.— Finished second canto of Part 11. of Evangeline (see 
 Evang. 1. 873 n.). Feb. 1st. — Worked busily and pleasantly 
 on Evangeline,— canto third of Part 11. It is nearly finished. 
 Feb. 23rd. — Evangeline is nearly finished. I shall com- 
 plete it this week with my fortieth year. Feb. 21th. — Evan- 
 geline is ended. I wrote the last lines this morning. 
 
 Evangeline was published in 1847. The text of the poem 
 was constantly under the poet's eye, and received slight 
 polishing touches from edition to edition. The present 
 text is that of the Quarto Illustrated Edition, the last 
 issued under the poet's hand. I have examined numerous 
 editions, 1st, 6th, 9th, etc., and give all the variations in 
 the notes. 
 
 Sources. The general theme of the poem is, we have 
 seen, founded on a traditional story. For the historical 
 setting the poet had recourse to Haliburton, Historical and 
 Statiatical Account of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1829. The 
 Arcadian picture of the inhabitants of Grand Pre rose 
 from the fanciful political sketch of the Abbe Eaynal. 
 Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania His- 
 torical Collections, Darby's Geographical Description of 
 Louisiana, Gayarre's History of Louisiana, and Kipp's 
 Early Jesuit Missions in North America, and even a Pano- 
 rama of the Mississippi {Journal, Dec. 17, 19, 1846) helped 
 the poet through the last part, at least " so far as facts 
 and local coloring go." {Journal, Jan. 7, 1847). 
 
 Metre. The classical hexameter (Gk. hex, six, metron, 
 measure), the metre of the ancient epics, the Iliad, the 
 Odyssey and the ^neid, means an unrimed line of six feet, 
 the first four of which are dactyls ( — ^-^ ^^, i. e. long' 
 
 syllable followed by two short syllables) or spondees ( ), 
 
 the fifth almost invariably a dactyl, and the sixth usually a. 
 spondee. For example the opening line of the Sneid, — 
 
 Arma virumque caiio, TrOjae qui primus ab Oris 
 would be read 
 
-280 NO TES. 
 
 The ending of a word within the foot, cuts the measure, 
 and the one chief cutting (caesura) has a csesural pause (||). 
 The general formula for the classical hexameter is then 
 
 Imitations of this metre have not been lacking in any- 
 modern literature. The most famous of German hexame- 
 ters is Goethe's lovely idyll of Hermann und Dorothea, be- 
 ;ginning :— 
 Hab' ich den Markt and die Straszen doch nie so einsam gesehen ! 
 1st doch die Stadt wie gekehrt ! wie ausgestorben ! nicht funfzig 
 Daucht mir, bleiben zuriick von alien unsern Bewohnern. 
 
 In. English, Coleridge, Southey, Clough, Kingsley, to 
 mention only writers of this century, were all writers of 
 hexameters. A few lines from two of these are not out of 
 iplace as comparisons with Longfellow's manner. 
 
 Tiiere is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist 
 Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books), 
 Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great 
 
 mountains, 
 Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped, 
 Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample 
 Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heather5' slopes on both sides: 
 Broad and fair the stream, with occasional fnlls and narrows : 
 But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river, 
 Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite. 
 Scarce hy a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward, 
 Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it- 
 
 — Clough, The Botliie (Hut) of Tober-na-Viiolich, 1848. 
 Over the sea, past Crete, on the Syrian shore to the southward, 
 Dwells in the well-tilled lowland a dark-haired JEthiop people, 
 Skilful with needle and loom, and the arts of the dyer and carver. 
 
 —Kingsley, Andromeda. 
 It is not liard to see that the effect of the English hexa- 
 jneter is decidedly different from the effect of the classical 
 -hexameter. English words are never perfect spondees, 
 ,and even fairly perfect spondees are rare. Metre in Eng- 
 jlish is primarily a relation of accented and unaccented 
 
LONGFELLOW: EVANGELINE. 281 
 
 syllables, and accent need not imply a long syllable. 
 Hence in any lengthy work English hexameters are bu t a 
 ^translated classical hexameter — a substitution of accented 
 syllables for long syllables, of English iambic (' x) for 
 -spondee.* 
 
 In seeking a metre for a poem on the expulsion of the 
 Acadians, Longfellow naturally took as a model the metre 
 -of that idyll which depicts the sufferings of the Lutherans 
 •expelled from Salzburg, — Hermann und Dorothea. It is 
 no slight testimony to his metrical genus that he has used 
 the hexameter with such delicate modulations, such sweet- 
 mess and variety of rhythm, such harmony of theme and 
 •expression that one may say that, by a poem as widely 
 xead as any of this age, he has enriched English poetry 
 with a new instrument of expression. 
 
 Translations. No better proof of the charm of Evange- 
 line could be given than the numerous translations that 
 have been made. Germany has at least six versions, 
 Sweden three, France three, Italy two, Portugal two, in 
 addition to versions in Danish, Spanish, and Polish. In 
 LeMay's translation we have a national interest. From it 
 ■and from a German version I draw these few lines. 
 
 Salut, vieille forgt ! Noyes dans la p6nombre 
 Et drapes tierement dans leur feuillage sombre, 
 Tes sapins resineux et tes cedres altiers 
 Qui se bercent au vent sur le bord des sentiers, 
 Jetant a chaque brise, une plainte sauvng-e, 
 Ressemblent aux chanteurs qu'entendait un autre kge, 
 Aux Druides anciens dout la lugubre voix 
 S'elevait propbetlque au fond d'immenses bois ! 
 Et I'oc^an plaintif vers ses rives brumeuses 
 
 *0f the genuine ancient, or pure dactylic hexameter verse, the Eng- 
 lish language is altogether incapable ; not only because no language 
 whose poetry is founded on elocutional principles can, \\ithout most 
 igross solecism, exactly imitate the rhythm of a language whose poetry 
 is founded on the rules and practice of nmsic, but there are not a 
 sufficient number of pure dactyles and pure spondees in the English 
 iaiiguage to make the imitation possible for any length of time. — 
 Blackie, HnrcB Hellevicm, p. 233. See also Arnold, Oti TransLating 
 ■Homer, and Spedding, Reviexos and Discusnions. 
 
282 NOTES. 
 
 S 'avarice en agitant ses vagues eciiiii('n«o«9, 
 Et de profond sonpirs s' ^levferent de si s flots 
 Pour r^pondi-e, O forfit, b. tes tiistes sanglots. 
 — L. Pamphile Le May, Evangdine, 2me ed., QnShec, 187&. 
 
 Dies ist des Urwaldes Pracht ! Die \\ispeniden Tannen und Fich- 
 
 ten, 
 Moosigen Bartes, im Kleid, das ^vWn. and verschwommen it* 
 
 Zwielicht, 
 Stehen Druiden gleich sie, mit dtister prophetisdien Stimmpii 
 Stehen wie Haifner sie grau, mit Barten Uber die Brnst hin. 
 Laut aus dem Abgrunde rauschet die wilde See in der Nahe 
 Und im Echo vei'hallet des Waldes Jammer und Klage. 
 
 —Evangeline, tibersetzt von Karl Knortz, Leipzig, ]8T2, 
 
 Page 71. 1. 1. — This is the forest primeval. Already the 
 words have come to have the suggostiveness of the opening 
 phrase of the Iliad or the jEneid (Holmes). 
 
 1. 2 — garments green. The absence of rime throws the 
 poet upon subtler devices of musical undertone. These 
 fall, it will be noticed, into three chief classes, instances of 
 which constantly recur, giving rise to the characteristic 
 style of the poem. They are : — first. Alliteration, the riming 
 of initial sounds, as here ; second, Repetition of words and 
 phrases, often in the form of anaphoras, as in 11. 3, 4 ; 7, 9; 
 16, 17, etc.; and third, Refrain, or the recurrence, time and 
 again, of particular modes of thought or strains of melody. 
 This last lyrical characteristic constitutes one of the great- 
 est charms of the poem. 
 
 1. 3, — Druids. Priests of the Celtic peoples of Gaul and 
 Britain. Cf. Evang., 1. 890. " The Druids— for that is the 
 name they give their magicians — hold nothing more sacred 
 than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it. .. .It is very 
 probable that the priests may have received their name 
 from the Greek name for that tree [drus, oak]. The mis- 
 tletoe, however, is rarely found upon the robur [oak] ; and 
 when found is gathered with rites replete with religious 
 awe. . . .On the fifth day of the moon. . . .clad in a white 
 robe, the priest ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELLNE. 283 
 
 ■with a golden side, which is received by others in a white 
 cloak." — Pliny, xvi. (Bohn). 
 
 eld. Here, olden times, antiqiiity (AS. ceZc/u, age). An 
 archaic word favoured by Spenser and Thomson, in tlie 
 sense however of old age. 
 
 cursed Eld: The cankerworm of writs. 
 
 — Spenser, F. Q. iv. ii. xxxiii. 
 The whitening snows 
 Of ^•enerable eld. 
 
 — Thomson, Castle of Indolence, li. xxxi. 
 
 1. 5. — its rocky caverns. An imaginative touch. Hali- 
 burton says of the coast of Nova Scotia : " The appearance 
 of the sea coast is generally inhospitable, presenting a bold 
 rocky shore. . .The southern margin is rugged and broken, 
 with very prominent features, deep indents and craggy 
 islands, and ledges inserted into the sea .... The features of 
 the northern coast are soft and free from rocks " (ii. 3). 
 
 1. 6. — answers the wail. Inversions for emphasis and 
 metre are so frequent in Evangeline as to form a marked 
 characteristic of the poem. 
 
 1. 8. — Leaped like the roe. A biblical comparison. 
 ''Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains .... My 
 beloved is like a roe," Song of Solomon ii. 8f. This simile 
 is thought to anticipate the tragedy of the story. 
 
 Page 72. 1. 15. — nought but tradition remains Grand-Pre. 
 
 Pronounce gron{g)' pra' , The village was situated on the 
 iiinas Basin, near the east bank of the estuary of the Gas- 
 pereau. " JSTo traces of it are now to be seen, except the cel- 
 lars of the house?, a few aged orchards, and willows." — 
 Haliburton, ii. 115. These still mark the ancient site, 
 near the present village of Grand Pre. In the outskirts 
 at the cross-roads the credulous stranger is now shown the 
 site of Basil's forge. The men of the village were only 
 nine in number in Winslow's list (N.S. Hist. Coll.., iii. 122). 
 
 1. 18. — sung by the pines. The first touch of refrain ; 
 cf. 1. 1 and 1. 2, n. 
 
 1. 19. — Acadie {ah ca de'). See Historical Note. 
 
284 NOTES. 
 
 PART TliE FIRST. 
 
 1. 20. — the Acadian land. The halo which surrounds the 
 memory of the Acadians, who represent, as it were, a re- 
 turn of the golden a^e;e, is entirely due to the Abbe Guil- 
 laume Eaynal (1713-1796). An ardent supporter of the 
 people in the times preceding the French Revolution, Eay- 
 nal deepened the impression of the miserable condition of 
 the French peasantry under Louis XVI. by his picture of 
 Arcadian happiness of the French colonists in the New 
 World. His work, Histoire philosophique .... des Europeens 
 dans les deux Indea, was published in 1770. His description of 
 Acadia is transferred bodily into Haliburton's history, 
 and is used as poetic material by Longfellow. 
 
 History has shown the Acadians to have been supersti- 
 tious, quarrelsome, litigious, — by no means the qualities 
 attributed to them by the Abb6 and the poet. 
 
 Basin of Minas. Pronounce me'nas. The eastern arm 
 of the Bay of Fandy. The tides rise with tremendous 
 current at the entrance (see 1. 29, n.), where the dangerous 
 tidal wave is called the bore. 
 
 1. 22f.— Vast meadows, etc. " The settlement of the 
 Acadians extended from the mouth of the Gaspereau river 
 to within two miles of Kentville. Satisfied with the abun- 
 dant crops which were gathered from their diked fields, 
 they gave themselves but little trouble in the cultivation 
 of the upland, and seldom extended their clearings beyond 
 the view of the meadows. They had enclosed and culti- 
 vated all the Great Prairie [i.e. Grand Prf\. which then 
 contained 2,100 acres, besides smaller marshes in the Gas- 
 pereau, and the Horton river." — Haliburton, ii. 116. 
 
 Page 73. 1. 23.— Giving- the village its name, and pasture. 
 
 Notice the construction with two senses of " o-ive " 
 
 (zeugma). Other instances (11. 173, 408, etc.) show this to 
 ,be a stylistic peculiarity of the poem. 
 
LONGFELLOW: EVANGELINE. 285 
 
 flocks -without number. " These immense meadows were 
 •covered with numerous flocks. They computed as many 
 ■as sixty thousand head of horned cattle." — Haliburton, i. 
 171 (from Raynal). 
 
 1. 24. — dikes. "Their method was to plant five or six 
 rows of large trees in the places where the sea enters the 
 marshes, and between each row to lay down other trees 
 lengthwise on top of each other, and fill up the vacant 
 spaces with clay, so well beaten down that the tide could 
 not pass through it. In the middle they adjusted a flood- 
 o-ate in such a way as to allow the water from the marsh to 
 flow out at low tide." — Hanney, p. 283. 
 
 1. 29. — Blomidon. Haliburton, ii. 4, speaks of the " high 
 lands, known by the name of the North mountain, which 
 is washed by the waters of the Bay of Fundy [south shore]. 
 Cape Blomedon, whicli terminates this chain of hills, pre- 
 ■scnts a grand and imposing appearance ; its perpendicular 
 front is of a dark red colour, and its head may often be 
 above the mists by which it is encircled." Its height seen 
 (Baedeker) is six hundred and seventy feet. With Cape 
 Sharp on the north side, it guards the wild entrance to the 
 Basin of Minas. 
 
 BLOMIDON. 
 
 This is that black rock bastion, based in surge, 
 
 Pregnant witli agate and \\\\\\ amethyst, 
 Whose foot the tides of storied Miiuis scourge, 
 
 Whose top austere withdraws into its mist. 
 This is that ancient cape of tears and storm. 
 
 Whose towering front inviolable frowns 
 ■O'er vales Evangeline and love keep warm — 
 
 Whose fame thy song, O tender siiiyer, crowns. 
 Yonder, across these reeling tields of foam. 
 
 Came the sad threat of the avenging ships. 
 What profit now to know if just the doom, 
 
 Though harsh ! The streaming eyes, the praying lips. 
 The shadow of inextinguishable pain. 
 The poet's deathless music— these remain ! 
 
 — Chai'les G. D. Roberts, Songs of Common Day. 
 
286 NOTES. 
 
 1. 30.— sea-fog-s. " The cloud capt summit of the loftj 
 cape that terminates the chain of the North mountain." — 
 Haliburton, ii, 115. 
 
 1. 33.— Strongly built were the houses. " Their habita- 
 tions, which were constracted of wood, were extremely 
 convenient, and furnished as neatly as substantial farmers' 
 houses in Europe." — Haliburton, i. 171 (from Eaynal). 
 The poet's description is a reminiscence as well of scenes 
 in Normandy. (Of. Outre-mer, i. ) It recalls in the ' pro- 
 jecting gables ' a feature of the peasants' houses of Quebec, 
 and of the Acadians of Louisiana to-day. See 1. 891, n. 
 
 hemlock. As late as 1869, this read, chestnut. 
 
 1. 34. — the peasants of Normandy. The poet assumes 
 that the Acadians were chiefly of Norman origin, and 
 moulds all details of costumes, superstitions, etc., in har- 
 mony with his assumption. But see 1. 209, n. 
 
 1. 34. — the Henries. France took possession of Acadia 
 and began her attempts at colonization in the reign of 
 Henry IV. (1553-1610) of Erance. His predecessor was 
 Henry III. (1551-1586). 
 
 1. 37. — dormer-windows. Vertical windows inserted in the 
 sloping roof. (OFr. dormeor, Lat. dormitorium, a sleeping 
 room.) 
 
 Page 74. 1. 39. — snow-white caps. The visitor to French 
 country districts never fails to notice, especially on mar- 
 ket days, the picturesque muslin headgear of the women, 
 elaborate, starched, pure white. 
 
 kirtle. Either an upper or lower outer garment ; usually, 
 however, the outer petticoat. 
 
 1. 40f. — spinning the golden Flax. " Their usual clothing 
 was in general the produce of their own flax, or the fleeces 
 of their own sheep ; with these they made common linen 
 and ooarse cloths." — Haliburton, i. 171 (from Eaynal). 
 
 1. 49. — The Angelus. For the Angelus-bell ; cf. Evang., 1. 
 508. Angelus domini nuntiavit Marice, etc., is the Latin 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 287 
 
 rendering of Lvke i. 28. The first word is taken as the 
 name of a short exercise in commemoration of the Incar- 
 nation, which is said by IlQman Catholics at morning, 
 noon, and sunset. The bell rang (thrice three strokes) to 
 indicate the time of the exercise is termed the Angelus- 
 bell, or simply, the Angelas. 
 
 Page 75- 1. 52. — Thus dwelt together in love, etc. " Their 
 manners were of course extremely simple. Whatever 
 little differences arose were settled amicably by the elders 
 . . .E,eal misery was unknown, and benevolence anticipated 
 the demands of poverty. Every misfortune was relieved, 
 as it were, before it could be felt and without ostenta- 
 tion on the one hand and withoiit meanness on the other. 
 It was, in short, a society of brethren ; every individual 
 of which was equally ready to give, and to receive, what 
 he thought the common right of mankind." — Haliburton, 
 i. 171f. (from Eaynal). 
 
 1. 56. — dwellings were open as day and the hearts 
 
 He hath ca tear for pity and a hand 
 Open as day for melting charity. 
 
 — Shakspere, //. Henry IV., iv. iv. 
 
 1. 59. — Benedict Bellefontaine Pronounce bel' fon tun'. 
 
 1. 63. — An oak snow-flakes. Like good old Adam, — 
 
 My age is like a lusty winter 
 
 Frostly but kindly. 
 
 — As You Like It, ii. iii. 
 
 Page 76. 1. 66. — black as the berry.... on the thorn. The 
 sloe or blackthorn. Its berries have a blackish bloom. 
 
 1. 70. — ale. However "their ordinary drink was beer 
 and cyder, to which they sometimes added rum." — Hali- 
 burton, i. 171 (from E-aynal). 
 
 1. 72. — priest with his hyssop. In the Roman Catholic 
 service, while the choir sings Asperges me hyssopo, et mun- 
 dabor, Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall 
 be cleansed, Ps. li. 7, the priest sprinkles the congregation 
 
288 NOTES. 
 
 with holy water. The exact nature of the scripturai' 
 hyssop (see Hehr. ix. 19) is not known. The modern 
 hyssop, growing freely in gardens, is an aromatic plant, 
 with blue purple flowers (liyssopus officinalis). 
 
 1. 74. — chaplet. "The rosary is divided into three 
 parts, each consisting of five decades [groups of ten], and 
 known as a corona or chaplet." — Cath. Diet. But pop- 
 ularly the word is taken as the name of the whole rosary 
 or string of beads used by Roman Catholics in counting 
 their prayers. 
 
 missal. ( OFr. missal.. Late Lat. viissalis, of the missaf 
 mass.) The book containing the various prayers, collects, 
 epistles, gospels, etc., necessary in the service of the mass. 
 
 Page 77. 1. 84. — Sycamore. In America, the buttonwood 
 or plane-tree, the largest deciduous tree of the United 
 States ; it abounds on the banks of the great rivers of the 
 middle states .... sometimes called the Cotton Tree, from 
 the wool which covers the underside of the young leaves 
 (Chambers). It is not a Nova Scotia tree (Michaux, N. A. 
 Sylva.) 
 
 wood-bine. Honeysuckle, called wood-bine or wood-bind 
 from its habit of twining about trees. 
 
 1. 87. — penthouse. Shed with sloping roof and usually 
 open sides. The word is corrupted from pentice, OFr. 
 appentis, from Lat. appendicium, appendage. 
 
 Page 78. 1.93. — wain. AS. iccegn, hence the same word, 
 now archaic, as wagon. (Cf., for a similar vocalization of 
 g, AS. fceger, fair.) 
 
 antique. See Old Clock on the Stairs, 1. 3, n. 
 
 1. 94.— seraglio (ser al' yo). Lit., the palace of the Sul- 
 tan, of which the harem or women's palace forms a part. 
 The allusion is of course to the latter. 
 
 " They reared a great deal of poultry of all kinds, which 
 made a variety in their food at once wholesome and plenti- 
 ful." — Haliburton, i. 171 (from Eaynal). 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 289 
 
 1. 96. — the penitent Peter. Malth. xxvi. 74f ; see A Gleam 
 of Sunshine, \. 31, n. The purpose of an allusion is to 
 deepen the impression of the thought by apt and harmo- 
 nious suggestion of well-known scenes or incidents. It is 
 necessary that these contain elements of a similar, and yet 
 much more impressive nature, otherwise the allusion will 
 either seem far-fetched or add nothing to the impressiveness 
 of the thought. The story of Peter has no harmonious 
 connection with the thought of 1. 95, 
 
 1. 100. — dove-cot with its meek innocent inmates. The 
 
 picture of the dove as the symbol of faithfulness in love is 
 an ' amiable error ' of the early fathers, continued by the 
 curious medieval bestiaries, without alas ! any warrant in 
 science. 
 
 1. 102. — noisy weathercocks. Compare the lovely pic- 
 ture of silence suggested by "the silent weathercock," 
 A.M., 1. 479. 
 
 1. 107. — touch. . . .the hem of her garment. See Luke viii. 
 43f. 
 
 Page 79. 1. 111. — Patron Saint. During the middle ages it 
 came to be believed that particular saints were specially 
 watchful over particular trades, or places, or persons ; they 
 were accordingly designated patron saints. 
 
 1. 115. — Gabriel Lajeunesse. Pronounce ^ra' breel lali' zhit 
 nes' . 
 
 1.118. — the craft of the smith in repute. Especially 
 
 was it held in repute among warlike nations, as the myths 
 of Vulcan, Weland, etc., show. Longfellow sings the 
 glory of the smith's calling in The Village Blacksmith, and 
 scatters references to it through many other poems, 
 Nuremberg, To a Child, etc. The poet's great-great-grand- 
 father was a blacksmith, but he might well on other 
 grounds praise this noble craft of workers in iron. 
 
 Page 80. 1. 120. — Father Felician (jfe lish' an ), The name 
 
290 NOTES. 
 
 (from L. /eZix, happy) is suggestive of his character and 
 influence. " We are now happy to recognize in Father 
 
 Felician the faithful minister of the Master the apostle 
 
 of peace and good-will among men, and who was the type 
 of such priests as M. Bailly whom the English delighted 
 to honor." — Anderson, p. 26f. 
 
 1. 122. — Plain-song-. Simple music sung in unison, used 
 in the Christian church from very early times. " Ihis 
 body of melodies includes a great variety of material 
 adapted not only to every part of the liturgy, but to the 
 several seasons of the Christian year. Plain-song melo- 
 dies are distinguished by adherence to the medieval modes, 
 \ij independence of rhythmical and metrical harmony. 
 Their eli'ect is strikingly individual, dignified and devo- 
 tional. The style as such is obligatory in the service of 
 the Eoman Catholic Church" ((Jent Diet.). 
 
 1. 128. — Lay like a fiery snake. A reference to the tire 
 which must be expanded by heat before being placed on 
 the wheel. 
 
 Page 8i. 1. 133. — nuns going into the chapel. Other French 
 sayings of a like kind are, — " They are guests going to a 
 wedding, Soldiers going to war." — Malfroy, Poemes de L. 
 
 1. 137. — wondrous stone. Longfellow drew his many 
 references to the superstitions of the Acadians chiefly from 
 Conten po pidaires , prejuges^ patois, piroverhes, noms de lieux, 
 de I'arrondissement de Bayeux [Normandy] .... par Fre- 
 i6ric Plaquet, Eouen (1825), 2nd ed. 1834. I translate the 
 extracts. 
 
 Concerning the swallow, Pluquet writes : — " Swallow. 
 Li the eye of one of the young ones is put out, she (the 
 swallow) seeks on the sea-shore a little stone with which 
 she restores its sight. He who is fortunate enough to And 
 
 the stone in the nest possesses a miraculous remedy." 
 
 Tr. from Contes, etc., p. 42. 
 
 1. 142.— ripened thought into action. Those who came 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 291 
 
 in contact with him were stimulated to undertake what 
 ■else had remained a thought. 
 
 1. 144. — "Sunshine of St. Eulalie." St. Eulalie, a young 
 Spanish maiden (290-D03) who died a martyr during the 
 persecutions of Diocletian. See the third Crown-song of 
 Prudentius. The popular saying concerning her feast-day 
 — the 12th of February — is preserved by Pluquet. 
 
 ' ' Sainte-Eulalie — 
 
 Si le soleil rit le jour de sainte Eulalie, 
 II y aura pommes et cidre &, folie. 
 [If the sun laughs on St. Eulalie's day, there will be apples and 
 •eider in abundance.] 
 
 — Pluquet, Contes, p. 130. 
 
 n. 
 
 Page 82. 1. 149. — the sign of the Scorpion. A reminiscence 
 of Chaucer, who was fond of indicating seasons by the posi- 
 tion of the sun in the zodiac. The sun appears to enter 
 his course through the stars of the Scorpion on the 23rd 
 of October, so this line can be reconciled only with diffi- 
 culty with 11. 152, 158. 
 
 1. 159. — Birds of passage. Migratory birds. 
 
 1. 153. — as Jacob of old. (Jew. xxxii. 24ff. Cf. Evang.,l. 
 m, n. 
 
 1. 159. — Summer of All-Saints Various French names 
 for Indian summer are derived from the saint's days near 
 which the fine days come : — I'ete de la Toussaint, the sum- 
 mer of All-Saints (feast-day, Nov. 1st ) ; Pete de la Saint- 
 Denis, (feast-day, Oct. 9th); Vitedela Saint-Martin (feast- 
 day, Nov. 11th). 
 
 Page 83. 1. 162.— restless heart of the ocean. A refrain from 
 1. 5. 
 
 1. 169.— sheen. Cf. A.M., 1. 56, n. 
 
 1. 170. —the plane-tree the Persian adorned. ' ' Where it 
 quits Phrygia and enters Lydia the road separates ; the 
 
292 NOTES. 
 
 way on the left leads into Caria, while '.hat on the right 
 conducts to Sardis. . . .Xerxes, who chose this way, found 
 here a plane-tree so beautiful, that he presented it with 
 golden ornaments, and put it under the care of one of his 
 Immortals. — Herodotus, vii. 31 (Eawlinson). The story is 
 commented on by jElian, Various Stories, ii. 14. 
 
 Page 85. 1. 194. — Into the sounding- pails, etc. Notice the 
 onomatopoetic effect. The following line has been com- 
 pared as depicting the same subject. 
 
 And you came and kissed me milking the cow. 
 
 — Tennyson, Queen Mary, iii. v. 
 
 1. 197. — valves. Leaves of a folding door. 
 
 Page 86. 1. 206. — As shields of armies the sunshine. 
 
 The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 
 And flamed upon the brazen greaves 
 Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
 
 —Tennyson. The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 I. 207. — carols of Christmas. The noeJs of French peas- 
 ants are a distinct order of composition, some of great 
 antiquity and beauty. 
 
 1. 209. — Their Norman orchards Burgundian vine- 
 yards. Normandy is the countiy of apples as Burgundj' 
 (Central Eastern France) is of the grape. " In Normandy 
 the young people almost always sing while at their work- 
 in Burgundy the grape gatherers make the slopes resound 
 with their joyous songs." — Malfroy, Po'-'mes de Longfellow. 
 
 The Acadians however, were neither Normans nor Bur- 
 gundians. " The people of Acadia are mainly descen- 
 dants of the colonists who were brought out to La Have 
 and Port Eoyal by Isaac de Eaziily and Charisay between 
 the years 1633 and 1638. The former brought out some 
 forty families of colonists, and the latter twenty families 
 most of whom appear to have remained in Acadia, and 
 commenced the cultivation of the soil. These colonists 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 293- 
 
 came from E.ochelle, Saintonge and Poitou, so that they 
 were drawn from a very limited area in the west coast of 
 Erance, covered by the modern departments of Vendee 
 and Charente Inferieure .... They came from a country of 
 marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial dikes, 
 and they found in Acadia similar marshes which they 
 dealt with in the same way." — Hannay, p. 282f. Add to 
 this that sixty individuals from E,ochelle in 1671 and sixty 
 or seventy others, mostly disbanded soldiers, chiefly from 
 Paris, 1686-1710, joined the earlier colonists. Hannay, p. 
 291. 
 
 1. 211.— Spinning- flax, etc. Cf. 1. 40ff. The simplest 
 form of spinning is that by the use of the distaff and 
 spindle. A bunch of flax is held on a staff, one end of 
 which is stuck in the belt. The spindle, a smaller piece of 
 wood, having the thread attached, is made to revolve and 
 remove from the spinner, thus drawing out a twisted 
 thread from the flax. In the spinning-wheel the spindle 
 revolves by means of a wheel moved by an occasional push 
 of the hand. 
 
 Page 87. 1. 217.— The clock clicked. Cf. Old Clock on the 
 Stairs, \. 17f. 
 
 1. 223. — Basil. Pronounce, baz' il. 
 
 1. 228. — The harvest moon. The full moon nearest the 
 21st of September, the autumnal equinox. " At that sea- 
 son the moon, when nearly full, rises for several conse- 
 cutive nights at about the same hour." — Cent. Did. 
 
 Page 88. 1.234. — a horseshoe. "Horseshoe found brings 
 happiness." — Pluquet, Contes, p. 41. Everybody knows it 
 is a sure protection against witches. 
 
 1. 237.— the English ships. See 1. 524, n. 
 
 1, 238. — the Gaspereau. Pronounce gas' per 6. In 
 King's County, entering the Minas Basin on the west 
 of the peninsular site of Grand Pr6. It rises in Lake 
 
594 NOTES. 
 
 Gaspereau, flows through grand and beautiful scenery till 
 
 "alluvial meadows form the peaceful valley through 
 
 which the river meanders with a gentle current until 
 
 within a short distance of the post road, when salt marsh 
 is formed by the mingling of its waters with the returning 
 tide."— Haliburton, ii. 120. 
 
 1. 239ff. — commanded to meet in the church. This de- 
 vice was preferred to hunting the people into captivity. 
 "At a consultation held between Colonel Winslow and 
 Captain Murray, it was agreed that a proclamation should 
 be issued at the different settlements, requii'ing the attend- 
 ance of the people, at the respective posts on the same 
 day ; which proclamation shoiild be so ambiguous in its 
 nature, that the object for which they were to assemble 
 could not be discerned ; and so peremptory in its terms as 
 to ensure implicit obedience." — Haliburton, i. 175. 
 
 Winslow's proclamation called the assemblage of the 
 people of Grand Pre, Minas, E.iver Canard, etc. : — "His 
 Excellency being desirous that each should be satisfied of 
 
 his Majesty's intentions We order all .... to attend at 
 
 the church at Grand Pre, on Friday, the fifth instant [of 
 September, 1775] at three o'clock in the afternoon." — lb. i. 
 176. 
 
 1. 240.— his Majesty. George II., who reigned 1727-1760. 
 
 1. 249. — Louisburg-. In Cape Breton, on the south-east 
 coast. When Acadia became English by the treaty of 
 Utrecht, 1713, the French built this town as a military 
 and naval station. It was taken by the New England 
 forces in 1745, restored by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 1748 ; finally besieged and won by the English in 1758. 
 
 Beau Sejour. Pronounce 6J sa s/iJor'; lit. , Fair Abode. 
 A powerful French fort built at the head of Cumber- 
 land Basin, on the north bank of the Misseguash, the 
 present bo^-ndary of the provinces of Nova Scotia and 
 New Brunswick. Its erection was begun in 1750, and was 
 intended, with smaller forts at Bale Verte, Pont a Buot 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 295 
 
 etc., to afford a complete line of defence for the Isthmus. 
 La Loutre made it the headquarters of his intrigues with 
 French, Acadians, and Indians. In 1754, the colonial 
 forces (see Introductory Historical Note) laid siege to Beau 
 Sejour. Verger surrendered the place in a few days, and its 
 capitulation was accompanied by the fall of Pout a Buot, 
 Fort Gaspereau, etc. The expedition was therefore a com- 
 plete success. Beau Sejour was renamed Cumberland. 
 To-day the traveller sees "a ruined magazine and the 
 ramparts and embrasures of an ancient fortress .... they 
 represent the last effort of France to hold on to a portion 
 of that Province, which was once all her own." — Hannay, 
 p. 369. 
 
 " About three hundred Acadians were found in Fort 
 Beau Sejour when it was surrendered, and a number of 
 others came in afterwards and yielded up their arms. 
 They were offered free pardon .... provided they would 
 take the oath of allegiance ; but they all refused." — Han- 
 nay, p. 381. 
 
 Port Royal. The noble harbor at the mouth of the 
 Annapolis E-iver caused Cham plain who discovered it 
 (1604) to name it Port Eoyal. The ancient capital of 
 Acadia was founded there in 1604. (See Introductory His- 
 torical Note.) It was finally lost by the French in 1710, and 
 was renamed by the English Annapolis Eoyal, in honour 
 of Queen Anne. After 1749 Halifax was made the capital. 
 
 1. 252. — Arms have been taken from us. "During the- 
 Spring and Summer of 1755 a demand was made on the 
 Acadians to deliver up their guns to the English com- 
 mandants of the respective forts. This demand was pretty 
 generally complied with." — Hannay, p. 389 ; cf. Halibur- 
 ton, i. 192. 
 
 Page 90. 1. 259. — night of the contract. The necessary pre- 
 liminary of marriage was the drawing up of the marriage 
 contract, stipulating the dower of the bride, etc. 
 
296 NOTES. 
 
 1. 260.— Built are the house, etc. "As soon as a young 
 man arrived at the proper age, the community built 
 him a house, broke up the lands about it, and supplied 
 him with all the necessaries of life for a twelvemonth. 
 There he received the partner whom he had chosen, and 
 who brought him her portion in flocks."— Haliburton, i. 
 172 (from Eaynal). 
 
 1. 261.— g-lebe. (OFr. glebe, glebe.) Strictly, farming 
 land belonging to the parish church ; hence, as here, any 
 farming land (an archaic sense) ; cf. " the stubborn glebe," 
 •of Gray's Elegy. 
 
 1. 263. — Rene Leblanc (re ncV le blonig)'). This char- 
 acter is partly historical. In the petition of the exiled 
 Acadians of Pennsylvania to the King, they allege as 
 •proof of their fidelity to the British Crown that ' • par- 
 ticularly Rene Leblanc (our public notary), was taken 
 prisoner by the Indians when actually travelling in your 
 Majesty's service, his house pillaged, and himself carried 
 to the French fort, from whence he did not recover his 
 liberty, but with great difficulty, after four years cap- 
 tivity." — Plaliburton, i. 189. " As to poor father Leblanc, 
 I shall, with your Excellency's permission, send him to 
 my own place."— Winslow to Lawrence [ib. i. 332). But 
 .apparently he did not escape the fate of the others. 
 According to the petition, " He was seized, confined, and 
 brought away, with the rest of the people, and his family 
 consisting of twenty children, and about one hundred and 
 fifty grand-children were scattered in different colonies, so 
 that he was 2^ut on shore at New York ivith only his wife 
 ■and two youngest children, in an infirm state of health, 
 from whence he joined thi-ee more of his children in 
 Philadelphia, where he died without any more notice 
 being taken of him than any of u.s, notwithstanding his 
 many years labour and deep sufferings for your Majesty's 
 service." — ib. i. 194 i. 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 297 
 
 1. 269. — notary public. In France, a public officer who 
 receives and draws up contracts, wills, and other legal 
 obligations, — a function not quite the same as that of our 
 notaries-public. 
 
 Page 91. 1. 274. — Children's children, etc. "Evangeline 
 contains one line, — 
 
 Chanting the hundredth Psalm— that grand old Puritan Anthem, 
 which is metrically perfect ; but this is an isolated in- 
 stance .... 
 
 Children's children sat on his knee, and heard his great watch 
 tick, 
 is almost as bad as can be." — London Daily News, iu Ken- 
 nedy's Life, etc. The perfect line is, however, from Miles 
 Standish, and incorrectly quoted. 
 
 his great watch tick. Cf. Evang. 1. 217, n. 
 
 1. 276.— in an old French fort. See 1. 263, n and 1. 303. 
 
 1.280. — Loup-garou. Pronounce /oo 6'a/t roo'. {Loup+ 
 varou ; Lat. lupus, and Germanic, wer, man, hence wolf- 
 man.) "The loup-garou, varou or warou, which appears 
 to be the tuerivoff of northern peoples, is a man changed 
 into a wolf by the power of some sorcerer. This trans- 
 formation lasts three or seven j^ears ; he runs principally 
 .at night, and he can be freed from his enchantment only 
 by wounding him with a key till the blood comes. The 
 -old Norman laws, speaking of certain crimes and their 
 punishments, add : Let the guilty be Avolf ' warqus esto,'' 
 that is to say, let him be pursued, and killed like a wolf. 
 That perhaps is the origin of the loup-rjarou.'''' — Tr. from 
 Pluquet, Contes, p. 15. 
 
 The notion of the Aver-wolf (A.S. wer-wolf) is however 
 much older than the Norman laws. Cf. the storj- of 
 Lycaon, the Arcadian king, and that of Niceros, in Pet- 
 ronius. Sat., 61. See Dr. Smith, The Wer-Wolf, Pub. Mod. 
 
298 NOTES. 
 
 Lang. Assoc, 1894. Transformation was either volnntaiy 
 for the indulgence of bestial desires, or involuntary under 
 the influence of magic. 
 
 1. 281.— goblin .... to water their horses. ' ' The gobelin, 
 a kind of familiar genius or spirit inhabiting farms, who 
 leads horses to water, feeds them, protects some of them 
 specially, awakens the lazy servants, overturns furniture, 
 puts it out of place and gives vent to bursts of laughter. 
 Almost always he is invisible ; only sometimes he takes 
 the form of a fine black horse, presenting himself all 
 saddled and bridled on the highway ; but woe to the rider 
 who bestrides the unlucky animal ! he kicks up his heels, 
 wheels about, carried off his rider and disappears at last in 
 a pool or quagmire." — Tr. from Pluquet, Contes, p. 14f. 
 
 1. 282. — Letiche. The Letiches, says Pluquet, p. 13, are 
 " animals of a gleaming whiteness, which appear only at 
 night, disappear as soon as you try to touch them, and do 
 no harm. They are, people say, the souls of children who 
 have died unbaptized. I think they are nothing else than 
 the ermine of our regions, a little animal of surprising " 
 agility." The ermine is also called the white martin. 
 
 Page 92. 1. 281. — on Christmas eve the oxen talked. Sou- 
 vestre relates among his Breton tales one that involves 
 this superstition. A beggar lying in a stable, one mid- 
 night on Christmas eve, overheard the ass saying, " Well, 
 cousin, how have things gone with thee since I spoke to 
 thee last Christmas ? " The ox responded in a surly tone, 
 — " Was it worth while for the Trinity to give us speech on 
 Christmas eve to recompense us for our ancestors' presence 
 at the birth of Christ, if we are to have a hearer like this 
 vagabond." The talk then passed to the magic powers of 
 five-leaved clover, etc. , which the beggar endeavoured later 
 to turn to account. — Le Foyer breton, Les Fierres de Plou- 
 hinec, ii. ISiff. 
 
 " A belief was long current in Devon and Cornwall, and 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELLNE. 299 
 
 perhaps still lingers both there and in other remote parts 
 of the country, that at midnight, on Christmas eve, the 
 cattle in their stalls fall down on their knees ia adoration 
 of the Infant Saviour, in the same manner as the legend 
 reports them to have done in the stable at Bethlehem. 
 Bees were said also to sing in their hives." — Chambers's 
 Book of Days, ii. 736f . The same superstition is in Lan- 
 cashire, except that the bees hum the Hundredth Psalm. 
 — Harland, Lancashire Folk-lore^ p. 223, etc. 
 
 1. 285. — fever was cured by a spider. ' ' Fever. People 
 cure it by wearing for nine days on the breast a living- 
 spider, shut up in a nut-shell." — Tr. from Pluquet, Contes, 
 p. 41. 
 
 1. 286. — four-leaved clover. " Four-leaved clover ren- 
 ders one invisible." — Pluquet, Contes, p. 45. 
 
 1. 290. — Father Leblanc. His technical title as a notary 
 would be Master, Maitre ; but see 1. 263, n. He had ' cent 
 raisons' to be called father (cf. 1. 273). 
 
 1. 297. — God's name. Nom de Dieu is still a common 
 French exclamation, — an abbreviation of ati {sacre) nom 
 de Dieu ! in God's name. 
 
 Page 93. 1. 306ff. — Once in an ancient city. What follows is 
 the substance of an old Florentine story that has been 
 employed in the Pie voleuse, a melodrama by Caigniez and 
 Daubigne (1815), which ends happily, however, and in the 
 Gazza ladra (' Thievish Magpie'), an opera of Eossini (1817). 
 This digression is technically an Episode, or subordinate 
 narrative, arising from the main action but not essential 
 to it. It is a favourite device of the classical poets to 
 lend variety to their story. 
 
 Page 94. 1. 315. — Ruled with an iron rod. Bev. ii. 27. 
 
 1. 324. — magpie. A bird very like a crow, but usually 
 blue in colour with bars of black and white (hence the 
 word " pied "). Its nest, usually built in high trees, is made 
 
300 NOTES 
 
 of sticks plastered inside with earth and lined with grass. 
 The bird's propensity to carry off glittering articles has 
 given rise to many stories, of which the present is the 
 most famous. 
 Pag-e 96. 1. 343.— window's embrasure. See Warden of the 
 Cinque Ports, 1. 27, n. 
 
 1. 354.— nine, the village curfew. (OFr. courfeu, for cou- 
 vrefeu, ' cover- fire.') The custom of ringing a bell at 
 eight or nine at night to signify that lights and fires are 
 to be put out, appears to have been general in Europe, 
 even before the time of William the Conqueror, and to 
 survive even to-day in a modified form (the ringing of the 
 bell) in parts of France and America. 
 
 Page 97. 1. 367. — the precious dower. A French girl rarely 
 marries without a dowry suitable to her class of life- It 
 is thei'efore an object of the greatest forethought and care. 
 
 Page 98. 1. 371.— like the tremulous tides. Of. AM., 1. 417ff. 
 1. 381. — out of Abraham's tent. Oen. xxi. 14. Cf. A 
 Gleam of Sunshine, 1. 31, n. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Page 99. 1. 384. — wavering shadows. 
 
 Among the long, black rafters 
 The wavering shadows lay. 
 
 — Longfellow, The Bridge. 
 1. 386. — golden gates of the morning 
 
 See how the morning opes her golden gates, 
 And takes her farewell of the glorious sun. 
 
 — Shakspere, ///. Henry VI. ii. i. 21. 
 
 Page 100. 1. 397.— simple people, who lived" like brothers. 
 See 1. 52, n. 
 
 1. 404.— stript of its golden fruit. 1st ed.-9th. Bending 
 with golden fruit ; but changed to present reading about 
 1867. 
 
L ONGFELL OIV: E VANGELINE. 
 
 301 
 
 Page lOi. 1. 413. — Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, etc. Pro- 
 nounce too la boor zhioah' de char' tre ; lit., all the citi- 
 zens of Chartres (in the department of Eure-et-Loir, 
 fifty miles S. W. of Paris). The name of a song composed 
 by Du Caurroy (1549-1609), master of the royal music to 
 Henry IV. It has the following words. The English 
 translations of this and the following piece are from the 
 Hiverside Evangeline. 
 
 You remember CybelS, 
 Wise the season 3 to unfold ; 
 Very fair, said men, was she, 
 Even when her years grew old. 
 
 Vous connaissez Cyb61e 
 ■Qui sut fi.xer le Temps ; 
 On la disait fort belle, 
 M6me dans ses vieux ans. 
 
 ■Cette divinity, quoique dejk 
 graiid'meve 
 Avalt les yeux doux, le teint 
 
 frais, 
 Avaitmgme certains attraits 
 Ferme comme la Terre. 
 
 A grandame, yet by goddess 
 birth 
 She kept sweet eyes, a color 
 
 warm 
 And held through every- 
 thing a charm 
 Fast like the earth. 
 
 Air and words are to be found in La Cle du Caveau, Pierre 
 Capelle, Paris, 1847. 
 
 Le Carillon de Dunquerque. Pronounce le cah're yon{g)' 
 dedun Tcerh'e. A special tune played by the chiming clock 
 of Dunkirk ; also the song sung to that tune. The music 
 a,nd words are printed in the CU du Caveau^ cited above. 
 
 Imprudent, t^m^raire 
 A I'instant, je I'espfere 
 Dans mon juste courroux, 
 Tuvastomber sous mes coups ! 
 
 — Je brave ta menace. 
 
 — Etre moi ! quelle audace ! 
 
 Avance done, poltron ! 
 
 Tu trembles ? non, non, non. 
 — J'^touffe de col fere ! 
 — Je lis de ta colore. 
 
 Reckless and rash. 
 Take heed for the flash 
 Of mine anger, 't is just 
 
 To lay thee with my blows in the 
 dust. 
 
 — Your thi-eats I defy. 
 
 —What ! You would be 1 1 
 Come, coward ! I'll show— 
 You tremble ? No, no ! 
 
 — I'm choking with rage ! 
 
 — A fig for your rage. 
 
 " Looked over the Eecueil de Cantiques a I'usage des 
 Missions, etc., Quebec, 1833. . . .Other airs are Le Carillon 
 
302 NOTES. 
 
 de Dunquerque ; Charmante Gabrielle, Tous les Bourgeois 
 de Chartres."'— L., Journal, Ap. 29, 1829. 
 
 1. 414.— wooden shoes. The >iahols of the French peas- 
 antry. 
 
 Page 102. 1. 430.— their commander. Lieutenant-Colonel 
 .John Winslow, born in Plymouth, Mass., 1702, died 1774; 
 after General Pepperell, "the most distinguished military 
 leader in New England of that period." 
 
 1.432. — "You are convened this day," etc. Col. Wins- 
 low's address is preserved in his MS. Letter-book (Mass. 
 Hist. Soc, Boston*), and incorporated in Haliburton, of 
 which L. makes a free poetical rendering. It reads : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, — I have received from His Excellency Go- 
 vernor Lawrence, The King's Commission, which I have 
 in my hand, and by his orders you are convened together 
 to manifest to you, his Majesty's final resolution to the 
 French inhabitants of his Province of Nova Scotia ; who, 
 for almost half a century, have had more indulgence 
 granted them than any of his subjects in any part of his 
 dominions ; what use you have made of it you yourselves 
 best know. The part of duty I am now upon, though 
 necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and 
 temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who are of 
 the same species ; but it is not my business to animadvert 
 but to obey such orders as I receive, and therefore, without 
 hesitation, shall deliver you his Majesty's orders and 
 instructions, namely — that your lands and tenements, 
 cattle of all kinds and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited 
 to the Crown ; with all other your effects, saving your 
 money and household goods, and you yourselves to be re- 
 moved from this his Province. 
 
 " Thus it is peremptorily his Majesty's orders, that the 
 whole French inhabitants of these Districts be removed • 
 
 *It is now reprinted with the original spelling and punctuation in 
 A'. jS. Hist. Coll., 111. 94f. 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 303 
 
 and I am, through his Majesty's goodness, directed to 
 allow you liberty to carry off your money and household 
 goods, as many as you can without discommoding the ves- 
 sels you go in. I shall do everything in my power that all 
 those goods be secured to you, and that you are not mo- 
 lested in carrying them off ; also, that Avhole families 
 shall go in the same vessel, and make this remove, which I 
 am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, as easj- 
 as his Majesty's service will admit ; and hope that in 
 whatever joart of the world you may fall, you maybe faith- 
 ful subjects, a peaceable and happy people. I must inform 
 you that it his Majesty's pleasure that you remain in 
 security under the inspection and direction of the troops 
 that I have the honour to command." 
 
 "And he then declared them the King's prisoners." — 
 Faliburton, i. 176f. 
 
 Pag^e 104. 1. 456. — V7e never have sworn them allegiance. 
 
 See Introd. Historical Note. 
 
 Pag-e 105. 1. 4S6. — tocsin. (OFr. toquesin, — toquer^ to strike), 
 signal of alarm by ringing of a bell ; hence the alarm-bell 
 itself. 
 
 Again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's tliront. 
 
 — Longfellow, Belfry of Bruges. 
 
 the clock strikes. Cf. The Old Clock on the Stairs, 1. 
 18f. Judging from the many references, the clock seems 
 to have had a carious fascination for the poet. 
 
 1. 476. — Father, forgive them. Luke, xxiii. 34. 
 
 Page 106. 1. 484. — Ave Maria {ah' ve mar e' ah). Hail. 
 Mary ! A devotion of the Eoman Catholic Church, in 
 reference to the salutation Ave [Maria], gratia plena, of 
 Luke i. 28. 
 
 1. 486. — like Elijah. 2 Kings, ii. 11. Gleam of Sunshine, 
 1. 31, 71.; Evang., 1. 96, n. 
 
 1. 490. — level rays. See Hohenlinden, 1. 21, n. 
 
S04 NOTES. 
 
 Page 107. 1. 492.— emblazorfed its windows. Emblazon, or 
 blazon {Ud'zn), generally denotes to describe, depict or 
 paint armorial bearings, as on a shield (OPr. blazon, 
 shield); but is also used in a more extended sense of paint- 
 ing or depicting in gorgeous colours. 
 
 Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars. 
 
 —Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 
 
 1. 499. — her spirit within. A biblical phrase ; cf . Isaiah 
 xxvi. 9 ; Job xxxii. 18, etc. 
 
 Page 108. 1. o'07. — the Prophet descending. Exodus xxxiv, 
 29-35. 
 
 1. 511. -till. Kead until 1837, until. 
 
 Page 109. 1. 524ff. — Four times the sun had risen, etc. " The 
 preparations having been all completed, the 10th of 
 September was fixed upon as the day cf departure. The 
 prisoners were drawn up six deep, and the young men, ont* 
 hundred and sixty-one in number, were ordered to go first 
 on board of the vessel. This they instantly and peremp- 
 torily refused to do, declaring that they would not leave 
 their parents ; but expressed a willingness to comply with 
 the order, provided they were permitted to embark with 
 their families. The request was immediately rejected, and 
 the troops were ordered to fix bayonets and advance towards 
 the prisoners, a motion which had the effect of producing 
 obedience on the part of the young men, who forthwith 
 cr-iimenced their march. The road from the chapel to the 
 shore, just one mile in length, was covered with Avomen 
 and children ; who, on their knees, greeted them as they 
 passed with their tears and their blessings ; while the 
 prisoners advanced with slow and reluctant steps, weep- 
 ing, praying, and singing hymns. — This detachment wa» 
 followed by the seniors, who passed through the same 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 305 
 
 scene of sorrow and distress. In this manner was the 
 whole male part of the population of the District of Minas 
 put on board the five transports, stationed in the Kiver 
 
 Gaspereaux As soon as the other vessels arrived, their 
 
 wives and children followed, and the whole were trans- 
 ported from Nova-Scotia. . . .The volumes of smoke which 
 the half expiring embers emitted, while they marked the 
 sight of the peasant's humble cottage, bore testimony to 
 the extent of the work of destruction. For several succes- 
 sive evenings the cattle assembled round the smouldering 
 ruins, as if in anxious expectation of the return of their 
 masters ; while all night long the faithful watch dogs of 
 tlie Neutrals howled over the scene of desolation ; and 
 mourned alike the hand that fed, and the house that had 
 sheltered them." — Haliburton, i. 179ff. 
 
 Page III. 1. 552. — voices of spirits. Always associated with 
 music, as in the pictures of Paradise in the Scriptures. 
 
 Page 112. 1. 569.— in the confusion. " The hurry, confusion 
 and excitement connected with the embarkation." — Hali 
 burton, i. 180. 
 
 Page 113. 1.570. wives were torn. "Parents were separ- 
 ated from children and husbands from wives, some of 
 whom have not to this day met again." — Petition of the 
 Pennsylvania Acadians, Haliburton, i. 194. 
 
 1. 577. — kelp. The largest and coarsest sea-weeds. 
 
 1. 579. — leaguer. Archaic. The camp of a (besieging) 
 army. 
 
 1. 582. — its nethermost caves. See 1. 5, n. 
 
 Page 114. 1. 589. — Silence reigned, etc. Refrain from 1. 48ff. 
 
 1. 597. — shipwrecked Paul. Acts, xxvii. 22ff ; xxviii. 1. 
 
 Melita {mel' it a). Gk. MeAiVa, the ancient na/ae of the 
 
 island of Malta. A bay near La Valetta stiii bears the 
 
306 NOTES. 
 
 name of St. Paul, commemorating the tradition that he 
 was shipwrecked there. 
 
 1. 601.— face of a clock. Cf . 1. 466, n. 
 
 1. 605.— Benedicite {hen e dis' it e). The imperative 2nd 
 pi. of benedicere, to bless. The beginning of the Latin 
 benediction of the Eoman Catholic Church. 
 
 1. 607. — on a threshold. Quarto edition, on the thres- 
 hold. 
 
 1. 610.— Raising his tearful eyes. Until 1867, Eaising 
 his eyes, full of tears. 
 
 Page ii6 1. 615. — Titan-like. The Titans were fabled to be 
 the children of Uranus aud Gsea. They waged war against 
 Chronos and Zeus whose thunderbolts finally subdued them. 
 In attempting to scale Heaven they piled mountain upon 
 mountain, — Pelion on Ossa (cf. "piling huge shadows," 
 1. 616). They were not hundred-handed, which properlj'- 
 applies to their relative Briar'eus, who fought against 
 them. 
 
 1. 621. — gleeds. (AS. gled, a glowing coal.) Burning 
 coals. 
 
 Page 117. 1. 631. — or forests. Frequently misprinted, of 
 forests. 
 
 Nebraska. Or Platte Eiver, formed from two streams 
 rising in Colorado, which meet in Nebraska. It joins the 
 Missouri below Omaha. 
 
 Page 118. 1. 645. — woke from her trance. Only the Quarto 
 ed. has, awoke. 
 
 Page 119. 1. 651.— without bell or book. Without the funeral 
 bell or burial service from the missal. 
 And each St. Clan- was buried there. 
 
 With candle, with book, and with kneel, 
 Put tlie sea-caves rung-, and tlie wild waves sun°- 
 The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. 
 
 —Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, vi. xxiJi. 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 307 
 
 The phrase is in common use after the sentence of excom- 
 munication, it being followed by the closing of the book, 
 jangling of the bell, and throwing down of the candles. 
 
 1. 659. — Lo ! with a mournful sound, etc. Cf. 1. 5 and 
 J. 2, ». 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 Page 120. 1. 668. — household gods. A classical allusion to the 
 Lares, Manes, and Penates, or househcld gods of the Ro- 
 mans, divinities of each hearth and family. To remove 
 their images would denote therefore the removal of the 
 family, with all that was most precious in their home life. 
 
 1. 669. — without an end, and example. See Introduc- 
 tory Note. Most people would prefer being temporarily 
 •exiled with the Acadians to being massacred with the 
 Huguenots of France under Louis XIV. or the Jews of 
 Spain under Ferdinand. 
 
 1. 674. — savanna. OSp. savana^ lit., plain covered with 
 •snow, but used by the early Spanish settlers to designate the 
 treeless plains of North America. The word is in common 
 use in the Southern Atlantic States, especially in Florida. 
 
 1. 675. — Father of Waters. Mississippi ; Ind. Miche Sepe, 
 Great Eiver, Father of Waters. 
 
 1. 676. — Seizes the hills ocean. 
 
 The meanings of the homeless sea, 
 
 The sound of streams that swift or slow 
 
 Draw down .iEonian hills, and sow 
 The dust of continents to he. 
 
 — Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxxv. 
 
 Alluvial land forms a very large portion of Louisiana. 
 Darby constantly speaks of the rivers washing away the 
 bluffs, of immense tracts of land made by alluvion. 
 
 1. 677. — mammoth. Gigantic extinct species of elephant, 
 remains of which are found in Europe and in North 
 
308 NOTES. 
 
 America. The burial of bones in the alluvial deposits o^ 
 great rivers is scientifically accurate. 
 
 Page 122. 1. 705. — Coureurs-des-Bois. Pronounce coo rer' 
 id hwah'; lit., Eunners of the Woods. Bush-rangers, men 
 engaged in trading in furs with the natives ; for the most 
 part of French or French and Indian origin. 
 
 1. 707. — Voyageur. Pronounce vwah yah zher' . The- 
 name given to men who transported the furs and supplies- 
 from one trading post to another (from voyager, to travel). 
 
 Louisiana. At the time of the expulsion of the Acadian^ 
 Loiiisiana was a colony of France, settled by the French,, 
 who discovered it, in 1699. All the land west of the Miss- 
 issippi passed by the French cession of Louisiana in 
 1762 entirely into the hands of Spain. Of this immense- 
 region Louisiana, then extending from the Gulf and the 
 ancient Spanish possessions on the Mexican frontier north- 
 ward to the 49th parallel (that is, to the present British 
 possessions) became again French in 1801, and was sold in 
 1803 to the United States. The price paid, something lik& 
 sixteen million dollars, shows how unpopulated and un- 
 knoAvn was this immense region, the acquisition of which 
 doubled the domain of the United States, 
 
 Page 123. 1. 7li. — Baptiste. Pronounce ha-test' . 
 
 1. 712. — to braid St. Catherine's tresses. St. Catherine 
 is the name especially of two favourite virgin saints, the 
 one who lived in Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth 
 century, the other at Sienna, Italy, 1347-1380. Both were 
 brides of Christ. 
 
 The origin of the expression coiffer saint Catherine, to 
 remain unmarried, is obscure. One suggestion is that it 
 was believed that bridesmaids who arranged the bride's- 
 hair would soon marry. Hence to remain to dress St. 
 Catherine's tresses (who never married) would be equiva- 
 lent to not marrying at all. A more probable solution is 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 309' 
 
 that in France, Spain, and Italy, it -was the practice, not 
 yet given over, for maidens to braid the tresses of the 
 saints' images in the church. Therefore when a girl did 
 not marry it was said that she would stay to braid St. 
 Catherine's tresses. So it was said of bachelors that they 
 would remain to bear St. Nicholas' cross. — Quitard, in 
 Larousse, Diet. XlXme Sitcle. 
 1. 720.— affection never was wasted. 
 
 I hold it true, what'er befall ; 
 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 
 
 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 — Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxvii. 
 
 Ich habe genossen das irdische Gliick 
 Ich habe gelebt und geliebet. 
 
 —Schiller, Piccotomini, ii. ii.- 
 
 Page 124. 1. 725. — Sorrow and silence are strong. 
 
 Oh fear not in a world like this, 
 
 And thou shall know ere long, 
 Know how sublime a thing it is 
 
 To suffer and be strong. 
 
 — Longfellow, The Light of Stars. 
 
 1. 732. — shards. (AS. sceard, shard, tile.) Fragments of 
 pottery, etc. (cf. potsherd, Job, ii. 8). 
 
 1. 733. — O Muse. The invocation is in the manner of 
 the classical poets ; frequent in the ^neid. It seems an- 
 tiquated here. 
 
 1, 785ff. — a streamlet's course, etc. An interesting par- 
 allel is furnished by Wordsworth's description of Coleridge's 
 conversation, which he comiDared to " a majestic river, the 
 sound or sight of whose course you caught at intervals ; 
 which was sometimes concealed by forests, sometimes lost 
 in sand ; then came flashing out broad and distinct ; and 
 even when it took a turn which your eye could not follow, 
 yet you always felt and knew that there was a connection, 
 in its parts and that it was the same river." 
 
310 NOTES. 
 
 n. 
 
 Page 125. 1. 741.— The Beautiful River, The Ohio. Ind. 
 Ohiopekhanne, White Stream, perhaps in allusion to the 
 white waves raised by the wind. Longfellow translates 
 the French name of the river. In Bonne's map, 1717, in 
 Gayarre the stream is marked Ohio ou la Belle E. 
 
 the Wabash. A large tributary of the Ohio, entering it 
 on the north bank, not far above latter's junction with 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 1. 743. — golden stream. The Mississippi is tinged yellow 
 with the muddy waters of the Missouri. 
 
 -Page 126. 1. 749. — kith. (AS. r'pth, acquaintance.) In the 
 phrase ' kith and kin,' one's own people, one's kindred. 
 
 few-acred. Cf. 1. 994. 
 
 1. 750. — Opelousas {op e loo' sas). The capital of the 
 parish of St. Landry, La., sixty miles west from Baton 
 Kouge. It is situated in the midst of immense meadows, — 
 the prairies of Opelousas, Grand Prairie, Mamon, Calcasin, 
 etc., several million acres in extent (Darby, p. 97ff.). 
 
 the Acadian Coast. " Between the 1st cf January and 
 the 13th of May, 1765, aboiit six hundred and fifty Aca- 
 dians had arrived at New Orleans, and from that town 
 had been sent to form settlements in Attakapas and Ope- 
 lousas. — Gayarr6, History of Louisia^ia, p. 122. In the 
 month of February, 216 Acadians arrived in Louisiana. . . 
 Implements of husbandry were distributed to them at the 
 cost of the Government, and they were authorized to form 
 settlements on both sides of the Mississippi, from the Ger- 
 man Coast up to Baton Rouge, and even as high as Point 
 Coupee. Hence the name of Acadia Coast, which a portion 
 of the banks of the river still bears." — Id., p. 132. 
 
 1. 755. — chutes {shoot). (Fr. chtite, fall, cataract, etc.) On 
 the lower Mississippi, a narrow channel with free current, 
 
 plume-like Cotton-trees. The cotton- wood, any Anieri- 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 3U 
 
 can poplar. The seeds grow in catkins, covered with 
 cotton-like fibre, giving the tree its name. The plume-like- 
 appearance of the poplar has often been remarked. 
 
 1. 761. — Shaded by china-trees. We are indebted to a 
 gentleman of Mississippi for the following description : — 
 " The China- tree (Melia Azedarach) is a tree of the same- 
 family as the mahogany, of quick growth, of about thirty 
 feet in height ; leaves, bright green ; flowers, lilac, star- 
 shaped, in clusters, and fragrant ; fruit or berries, bright 
 glassy green, in clusters, yellow and wrinkled when ma- 
 tured, seed covered with a cheesy pulp bitter-sweet in taste,, 
 intoxicating to birds, which are often found in great num- 
 bers in a helpless condition from eating the fruit. . . . ; tim- 
 ber, soft and of not much use. There is a variety known 
 as the Umbrella China.-tree from its shape, which is the- 
 ornament of many of the towns in the south." 
 
 The literature of the Southern States has many references- 
 to the (Pride of) China trees. In Mr. Cable's novel Bona- 
 venture, which depicts the Acadians of Louisiana, we read 
 of "Farms, each with its low-roofed house nestled in a 
 planted grove of oaks, or, oftener. Pride of China trees"' 
 (p. 1). " Only an adventitious China-tree here and there 
 had been stripped of its golden foliage and kept but its 
 ripened berries, with the red birds darting and fluttering 
 around them, like so many hiccoughing Comanches about, 
 a dram-seller's tent" (p. 180). 
 
 Page 127. 1. 766. — Bayou of Plaquemine. Pronounce bl' dd^ 
 plak men'. A bayou is a stagnant or sluggish channel, an 
 inlet or outlet of a lake or river, etc. 
 
 " The Bayou Plaquemine leaves the Mississippi river 
 twenty-two miles below Baton Rouge, flows to the west 
 fifteen miles and falls into the Atchafalaya. The channet 
 of this bayou is ... . the communicating route between the- 
 inhabitants of Opelousas, and . . . . the Mississippi. " — Darby ^ 
 p. 50. 
 
512 NOTES. 
 
 1. 768.— like a net-work of steel. " The infinite number 
 of natural canals, that everywhere pervade the state of 
 Louisiana, near the sea coast and the margin of the large 
 rivers, running into each other like net work." — Darby, 
 p. 141. 
 
 1. 771.— banners on the walls. As in Henry VII.'s 
 
 Chapel in Westminster Abbey. "Along the sides of the 
 
 .chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the Bath 
 
 above these are suspended their banners, emblazoned Avith 
 armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendour of gold 
 and purple and crimson, with the cold gray fretwork of 
 the roof." — Irving, Sketch Booh. 
 
 1. 772. — Death-like the silence. " To have an idea of the 
 dead silence, the awful lonesomeness, the dreary aspect of 
 this region, it is necessary to visit the spot. Animated 
 nature is banished ; scarce a bird flits along to enliven the 
 scenery. Natural beauty is not wanting, the varied wind- 
 ings and intricate bendings of the lakes relieve the same- 
 ness, whilst the rich green of the luxuriant growth of 
 forest trees, the long line of woods melting into the dis- 
 tant sky, the multifarious tints of the willow, cotton, and 
 other fluviat trees, rendered venerable by the long trains 
 of waving moss, amuse the fancy." — Darby, p. 136 (near 
 Atchafalaya). 
 
 1. 775. — the moonlight. The strain of pathos enters here, 
 making a refrain from 1. 349ff. 
 
 Page 128. 1. 782. — mimosa (mi mo' so). A large genus of 
 plants (some 280 species), some of which have leaves that 
 close when touched. The best known of these is the sen- 
 sitive-plant, "a branching annual one or two feet in 
 height, having a great many small leaflets, which are 
 highly sensitive when touched." 
 
 :Page 129. 1. 801.— Canadian boat-songs. " Canadian" is used 
 
LONGFELLOW . EVANGELINE. 313 
 
 loosely here, as if applicable to all the French inhabitants 
 of Canada and Acadia ; perhaps also in 1. 992. 
 
 1. 803. — While. The first nine editions read, And. 
 
 Page 130. 1. 805. — whoop of the crane. The American or 
 Whooping Crane winters in the South, 
 
 1. 807. — Atchafalaya. Pronounce, atch ah fa W a. It is 
 :a Choctaw word, meaning the long river, from hucha, 
 'river, and falaya long.— Gallatin, in Schoolcraft, Onedta, 
 p. 158. The chief of the three outlets of the Mississippi 
 west of the terminal months or "passes." It begins at 
 ■the junction of the Red Eiver with the Mississippi, runs 
 ■southward for 200 miles, " winding from lake to lake, from 
 -swamp to swamp, to the shallow waters of the Gulf, west 
 ■of the passes" (Eeclus, N. Amer. , iii. 239 f.). 
 
 1. 809. — lotus. A general name for the water-lily. The 
 white water-lily is referred to in 1. 808. The yellow water- 
 lily in Southern waters easily satisfies the poet's present 
 description. See Harper's Mag., a'^cI. Ixxviii. 
 
 1. 8il. — magnolia. The laurel magnolia is found for 
 three hundred miles up the Mississippi. It is usually 
 ■seventy feet in height, bearing magnificent foliage and 
 white, sweet-smelling flowers, seven or eight inches broad, 
 and of great beauty. — (Michaux, N. A. Sylva, ii. 8ff.) 
 
 1. 816. — Wachita willows. Pronounce wah' she tah. 
 '■'■ The Ouachitta flows out of the forest between the Mis- 
 ■sissippi and Red Rivers, and is lost in the delta of the 
 Mississippi." — Darby, p. 42. Willows are frequent on the 
 river-banks of Louisiana, but I find no indication of the 
 particular species indicated by the poet. 
 
 Page 131. 1. 820. — trumpet-flower. A climbing shrub with 
 clusters of beautiful trumpet-shaped yellowish red flowers. 
 Longfellow's house, in July of this year, had a blossoming 
 trumpet-flower embowering the whole corner of the piazza. 
 1. 821. — the ladder of Jacob. Cf . A Gleam of Sunshine, 1. 
 SI, n. 
 
314 NOTES. 
 
 Page 132. 1. 837.— palmettos. Name of many specie? or 
 palm haviag large fan-shaped leaves. 
 1. 839. — All. Early readings, And. 
 
 Pag-e 133. 1. 856. — Teche. Pr(M:ouiice tehsh (e almost as a). 
 This bayou begins in St. Landry parish, of which Opel- 
 ousas is the chief town, wiuds southward for one hundred 
 and eight miles to the Atchafalaya, where it is two Jiun- 
 dred yards wide and twenty or thirty feet deep. " The 
 great body of the present inhabitants of Attacapas are 
 ranged along the T§che. The rich emigrants that are 
 removing have generally turned their attention to the 
 Teche."— Darby, Louisiana, p. 142f. (1817.) 
 
 St. Maur. For St. Mary's, one of the two towns of the 
 district mentioned by Darby. 
 
 St. Martin. "St. Martin, on the west bank of tha 
 T^che, in the parish of the same name, is the largest 
 [town], containing perhaps 100 houses." — Darby, p. 159. 
 
 Page 134. 1. 865. — his golden wand. The wand used in trac- 
 ing the figures of magic by which the sorcerer effects his- 
 charm. 
 
 1. 873. — mocking-bird, wildest of singers. Longfellow 
 writes in the Journal, Jan. 26, 1847: — "Finished second 
 canto of Part II. of Evangline. I then tried a passage of it 
 in the common rhymed English pentameter. It is the> 
 song of the mocking-bird : 
 
 Upon a spray that overhung the stream. 
 The mocking-bird, awakening from his dream, 
 Poured such delirious music from his throat 
 '• That all the air seemed listening to his note. 
 
 Plaintive at first the song began, and slow ; 
 It breathed of sadness, and of pain and woe ; 
 Then, gaiheringall his notes, abroad lie Hung 
 
 The multitudinous music from his to7igue, 
 
 As, after showers, u sudden gust again 
 
 Upon the leaves shakes down the rattling rain." 
 
LONGFELLOW: EVANGELINE. 315 
 
 Page 135 1. 878. — Bacchantes. Women celebrating with wild 
 orgies the festivals of Bacchus, god of wine. They danced 
 wildly with streaming hair, singing and Avaving a staff 
 (thyrsus) entwined with ivy and crowned with a pine-cone. 
 
 Round about him fair Bacchantes, 
 
 Bearing cj'mbals, flutes and thja-ses, 
 Wild from Naxlan groves or Zante's 
 
 Vineyards, sing delirious verses. 
 
 — Longfellow, Drinking So7i!j. 
 
 1. 884. — the Teche. .green Opelousas. Fee 1. 750, n., and 
 1. 856, n. The Opelousas prairie, perennially green, of over 
 a million acres, beginning thirteen miles N. w. of Opelousas, 
 and extending south for nearly sixty miles. The T^che 
 
 flows through part of it " Here you behold those vast 
 
 herds of cattle which affVrd subsistence to the natives .... 
 It is certainly one of the most agreeable views in nature, 
 to behold from a point of elevation, thousands of horses 
 and cows, of all sizes, scattered over the interminable 
 mead intermingled in wild prof usion .... grazing in a sea 
 of ])lenty. If the active horseman that guard them would," 
 etc. — Darby, p. 106. 
 
 m. 
 
 Page 136. 1. 889. — Spanish moss. Or Long-moss {Tillandsia 
 usneoides), " with gray filiform stems and leaves, forming 
 dense pendulous tufts which drape the forests of the south- 
 ern United States" {Cent. Diet.). 
 
 1. 890.— Druids.— See 1. 3 n. 
 
 Yule-tide. Christmas-time. Geol was the AS. name of 
 the heathen festival of the winter solstice, commemorated 
 by burning large fires. The Church gave it a Christian 
 character. Pliny does not say the Druids cut the mistle- 
 toe especially at Christmas ; Longfellow confuses the later 
 custom. 
 
 1. 891. — house of the herdsman. Describing the Acadian 
 houses on the upper Teche, Scribner's, Jan., 1880, reads : — 
 
316 NOTES. 
 
 " Embowered in groves of china trees you will find com- 
 fortable houses, which are always built in the same plain 
 cottage stj'le, weather-boarded without and plastered 
 within, and with the inevitable galerie or porch in front. 
 They vary in nothing but size." 
 
 1.899. — dove-cots .... love's perpetual symbol. See 1. 
 100, n. 
 
 Page 137. 1. 910. — Stood a cluster of trees, etc. 
 
 1st ed. Stood a cluster of cotton-trees with coidag-e of grape- 
 vines. 
 
 ' ' Timber along the rich margin of the Teche is gener- 
 ally composed of hickory, sycamore. .. .oak. .. .elm, lin- 
 den, laurel magnolia. .. .The muscadine grape-vine and 
 smilax are found entwined round those large forest trees." 
 —Darby, p. 98, 
 
 1. 911. — Just where the woodlands meet, etc. See 1. 
 884, n. 
 
 1. 912. — Spanish saddle. The saddle-tree is higher in 
 bow and back than in the English saddle. The stirrups 
 have likewise heavy leathern guards. 
 
 Pag^e 140. 1. 952. — Adayes {ah da' es). " Adaes, Adaize, a 
 tribe of Indians, who formerly lived forty miles south- 
 Avest from Natchitoches, in the area of country, which now 
 constitutes a part of the republic of Texas. — Schoolcraft, 
 Onedta, p. 160. Among these Indians, missions were 
 established by Spanish Jesuits from Mexico, which were 
 abandoned in 1693. Twenty years later Spanish Fran- 
 ciscans founded four stations in the same field. Of these 
 San Miguel de Cuellar, called also San Miguel de los Adaes, 
 was situated on the Sabine River (present boundary of 
 Texas and Louisiana), forty miles south-west of Natchi- 
 toches. Apparently a fort rose near by, for mention is 
 made of the Presidio of Adaes (Bancroft). In Shea's Catho- 
 lic Missions in Avierica, the station is termed Adayes. 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 317 
 
 1. 953. — Ozark Mountains. They run north-east to 
 south-west, through what is now Missouri, Arkansas, and 
 Texas. In Schoolcraft's Omnia there is a narrative Ad- 
 ventures in the Ozark Mountains, which may have fur- 
 nished some materials for 11. 1078ff. 
 
 Page 141.- 1. 960.— Michael the fiddler. See 1. 408. 
 
 1. 961. — Olympus (5 Urn' pus). A mountain on the bor- 
 ders of Macedonia and Thessaly, fabled to be the favourite 
 home of the gods. 
 
 Page 142. 1. 970. — ci-devant (se de von{g)'). Fr. , lit., here- 
 before ; hence, former, of the past. 
 
 1. 974. — go and do likevvise. Luke, x. 37. 
 
 1. 980. — the dewy moon. Cf. Milton's " dewy eve." Here 
 the refrain enters again from 1. 369. 
 
 Page 143. 1. 984. — Natchitoches {nacke tosh'). Originally a 
 French settlement among the Natchez Indians. It is in 
 Louisiana, on the Eed Eiver. 
 
 1. 991. — All the year round the orange-groves. The 
 ■orange tree is remarkable in bearing at the same time 
 blossoms, ripening and ripe fruit. 
 
 Page 144. 1. 1004. — the fever. The scourge of the South, 
 the yellow-fever. 
 
 1. 1006. — Cured by a spider. See 1. 285, n. 
 
 1. 1009. — Creoles. Native-born inhabitants of the West 
 Indies or Spanish America, born of Spanish or French 
 parents. 
 
 Page 145. 1. 1019. — the giddy dance. Until the Quarto ed. 
 this read, the dizzy dance. 
 
 Page 146. 1. 1025. — the sound of the sea, etc. The refi-ain 
 of the sea enters again, mingled with the strain descrip- 
 tive of the moonlight. Here too the continued suspense 
 arising from the reader's interest in Evangeline's search 
 
318 NOTES. 
 
 reaches its climax (11. 1023-1058) ; henceforth it will mod- 
 erate with the growing certainty that the search will prove 
 vain. The whole passage may be regarded as the centre 
 of the poem. Artistically it is very effective. 
 
 1. 1033. — Carthusian. The order of Carthusian monks 
 was founded (1805) by St. Bruno (1040-1101) at Chartreuse, 
 near Grenoble, France. It enjoins a most austere life ; 
 monasteries to be built in isolated districts, the monks 
 to live in almost perpetual silence, etc. 
 
 1. 1037.— the shade. Until 1867, the brown shade. 
 
 Page 147. 1. 1041.— stars, the thoughts of God. Cf. 1. 352. 
 1. 1044. Upharsin. Lit. ' they are lacking ' ; see Dan. 
 V. 5-28. 
 
 Page 148. 1. 1057. — Patience, etc. A refrain in form from 
 1. 5f. 
 
 oracular caverns of darkness. Allusion to the caves of 
 the sibyl of Cumse and the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, etc. , 
 as well as to the forest of oracular oaks of Dodona, Epirus. 
 
 1. 1060. — Bathed his shining feet. Adaptation of Luke, 
 vii. 38; John, xii. 3. 
 
 1. 1063.— the Prodigal Son. Luke, xv. 11-32. 
 
 1. 1064.— the Foolish Virgin. See 1. 800. Allusion to 
 Matth. XXV. 1-13. 
 
 Page 149. 1. 1068.— they follow. As late as 1876, they fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 1. 1069.— like a dead leaf. Eefrain from 1. 13. 
 
 1. 1071.— found they the trace. Until latest editions, 
 Found they trace. 
 
 J. 1074.— Adayes. See 1. 952, n. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Page ISO. 1. 1082.— Oregon. Or Columbia Eiver, 1400 miles 
 in length, flowing from the Canadian Eockies through 
 Washington and Oregon into the Pacific. 
 
LONGFELLOW: EVANGELLNE. 319 
 
 Walleway. The poet has changed the name for the 
 sake of the metre. — the Wallawalla, a small river rising 
 on the north border of Oregon, tributary to the Columbia 
 Eiver. 
 
 Owyhee (o wV he). A tributary of the Snake River, which 
 is itself a tributary of the Oregon. 
 
 1. 1083. — Wind-river Mountains. Part of the Kockies, 
 in "Wyoming. 
 
 1. 1084.— Sweet-water Valley. The valley of the Sweet- 
 water River in "Wyoming, one of the upper branches of the 
 Nebraska. 
 
 1. 1085. — Fontaine-qui-bout. Pronounce fon (g)' tan he 
 boo' . ' The Gushing Fountain.' Name of a stream that 
 rises in Pike's Peak and flows into the Arkansas. 
 
 the Spanish sierras. Part of the Rockies, chiefly in New 
 Mexico. 
 
 Page 151. 1. 1091. — amorphas. Shrubs of the bean family, 
 bearing spikes of purple or violet flowers. Bastard indigo 
 is another name for the plant. 
 
 1. 1092. — -wandered. Here and in the following line 
 until 1876 the poet had, wander. The change is signifi- 
 cant of the progress of western civilization. 
 
 1. 1094 — Fires that blast. " The highland tracts of the 
 
 Ozark range look, in their natural state, more sterile 
 
 than they actually are. from the effect of autumnal fires. 
 These fires, continued for ages by the natives, to clear the 
 ground for hunting, have had the effect, etc. — Adventures 
 in the OzarTc Mountains, Oneota, p. 116. 
 
 1. 1095. — Ishmael's children. Ishmael, son of Abraham 
 and Hagar {Gen. xxi. 14ff.), is the reputed ancestor of the 
 Arabs ; a proverbial comparison arises therefrom for the 
 nomadic Indians. 
 
 1. 1098, — Like the implacable soul of a chieftain, etc. A 
 possible reminiscence of Virgil, speaking of Turnus when 
 slain by JEnes-s. 
 
320 NOTES. 
 
 Vitaque cum genitu fugit indignata sub umbras. 
 
 [\nd his indignant soul fled lamenting amid the shades.] 
 
 Mneid, xii. 952. 
 
 See Notes and Queries, 6th Ser., vol. viii. (Feb. 23, 1884> 
 
 Page 152. 1. 1106.— At the base of the Ozark Mountains. 
 
 That is, beginning at the northern and western slopes of. 
 the Ozarks, the original destination of Gabriel. 
 
 1. 1114. — Fata Morgana (/«/t'<a/i mor gah'na). Lit., the 
 Fairy Morgana, sister of King Arthur, and an important 
 character in medieval Arthurian i-omance. One of her 
 works of magic was supposed to be the mirage, the Castle- 
 of the Fairy Morgana, seen in the straits of Messina. On 
 a clear calm morning the spectator, standing on the Cala- 
 brian coast and looking towards the straits sees for a brief 
 time, mirrored in the unequally heated layers of air over 
 the Mediterranean, the objects of the Sicilian coast, some- 
 times gorgeously coloured. The spectacle is greeted by the 
 natives with cries of Morgana ! Morgana ! Longfellow's 
 poem entitled Fata Morgana may be compared. 
 
 1. 1119. — Shawnee. The Shawnees were a vagrant tribe 
 of Algonquin Indians, chiefly dwelling between the E,ed 
 River, tributary of the Mississippi, and the Canadian, 
 liiver, tributary of the Arkansas. 
 
 Page 153. 1. 1120. — Camanches. The more usual title i& 
 Comanches, a fierce and predatory tribe of Shoshonean 
 stock, who dwelt in (present) Texas, between the Eed River 
 and the Kio del Norte. 
 
 Page 154. 1.1139. — the tale of the Mowis {mrV wes). A 
 legend of the Ojibways, narrated by Schoolcraft. A 
 proud and noted belle in an Indian village rejected a hand- 
 some suitor. To humble the arrogant beauty the rejected 
 lover gathered up all the bits of rags and finery he could 
 secure, and by the aid of his guardian spirit fashicned 
 them into beautiful garments, which he filled with bones 
 
LONGFELLOW: EVANGELINE. 321 
 
 and earth cemented with snow, making the whole into the 
 likeness of a handsome warrior, Moowis, the Dirt or Eag 
 ;^^an. He led Moowis to the village, where the handsome 
 stranger woed and won the haughty maiden. The morn- 
 ing after the wedding the stranger announced that busi- 
 ness called him into a distant region. His bride insisted 
 on accompan3''ing him. They set out, the husband ahead, 
 out of sight of his wife. The sun began to shine, and the 
 wife following his path found his mittens, his moccasins, 
 all turned to rags, but though she wandered on despair- 
 ing she caught no glimpse more of Moowis. " Moowis, 
 Moowis, you have led me astray — you are leading mj 
 astray." And with this cry she continued to wander in 
 the woods. — Schoolcraft, Oneota, New York, 1845, p. 381f. 
 Tales of a Wigwam. 
 
 1. 1145. — the fair Lilinau {le le no'). An Ojibway legend, 
 told by Schoolcraft. Leelinau, the favourite daughter of a 
 mighty hunter, dwelt on the shore of Lake Superior. She 
 took no interest in the sports of her companions but de- 
 lighted to haunt the forest of pines on the shore, a grove 
 sacred to the Indian fairies. At last her parents suspected 
 that some evil spirit had power over her, and set a day for 
 her wedding a young chief. Leelinau however refused to 
 marry him. Eetiring under her favourite pine-tree and 
 leaning against the trunk, she heard the tree whisper that 
 he was her lover, and would guard her and keep her if she 
 would rove a fairy with him. The night before her wed- 
 ding day she stole off in her best garments to her lover 
 with the Green Plume. One night fishermen by the S^jirit 
 Grove descried something like the figure of Leelinau, 
 and as they landed they saw the lost girl with the green 
 plumes of her lover waving over her forehead, as they 
 glided through the pines. — Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, 
 N. Y., 1839, ii. 77ff. 
 
 Page 156. 1. 1167. — Black Robe chief. The cassocked priest. 
 
322 NOTES. 
 
 The French Catholic missions were begun on the Missis- 
 sippi by Marquette, 1673. (See Parkman, Jesuits in North 
 America.) 
 Page 157. 1. 1182.~susurrus. Lat. susurrus, murmuring, 
 whispering, from susurro, I whisper. 
 
 Page 158. 1. 1194.— suns. The priest adopts the Indian mode 
 of reckoning. 
 
 1. 1199.— some lone nest. Cf. Wordsworth's Why art 
 thou Silent, p. 41. 
 
 Page 159. 1. 1213ff.— Blushed at each blood-red ear, etc. " If 
 one of the young female huskers finds a red ear of corn, it 
 is typical of a brave admirer, and is regarded as a fitting 
 present to some young warrior. But if the ear be crooked 
 and taper?yig to a point, no matter what colour, the whole 
 circle is set in a roar, and wa ge rain is the word shouted 
 aloud. It is considered as the image of an old man stoop- 
 ing as he enters the lot," etc. — Schoolcraft, Oneota, p. 254. 
 The whole situation is expanded in Hiawatha, xiii., q.v. 
 
 Page 160. L 1219. — compass-flower. This reference gave the 
 poet a great deal of trouble. In the first ed. he described 
 the plant as ' the delicate flower ' ; ' Its leaves all point to 
 the north ' ; it is the flower ' that the finger of God has siis- 
 pended Here on its fragile stalk.' In the sixth ed. it became 
 ' a delicate plant ' ; in 1867, ' its leaves are turned to the 
 north ' ; in 1869, ' that the finger of God has planted ' ; in 
 1867, ' in the houseless wild.' The whole difficulty arose 
 from the fact that the original description scarcely charac- 
 terized the Silphium laciniatum, or compass-plant, which 
 is neither delicate nor elegant. It is "a tall rough-bristly 
 perennial herb of the aster family of the American 
 prairies, whose larger lower leaves are said to assume a 
 vertical position with their edges turned north and soutli. 
 Called also Polar-plant." See Stand. Diet., which con- 
 tains an engraving. 
 
LONGFELLOW: EVANGELINE. 32n 
 
 J. 1225. — The blossoms of passion. If not entirely figu- 
 rative, this refers to the Passion-flower, a genus of plants 
 chiefly met in the warm districts of America, with gorge- 
 ous flowers which early Spanish settlers thought repre- 
 sented our Lord's passion, " the filamentous processes 
 being taken to represent the crown of thorns, the nail- 
 shaped styles the nails of the cross, and the fine anthers 
 the marks of the wounds." Some species have narcotic 
 properties (1. 1224.) 
 
 1. 1226. — nepenthe {ne penth' e). (Gk. vr;, not, 7rei/9o5, grief.) 
 ' ' A drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring f orgetf ulness 
 of every sorrow. Whoso should drink a draught thereof, 
 when it is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let 
 fall no tear down his cheeks, not though his father and 
 mother died." — Odyssey., iv. 219ff, tr. Butcher and Lang. 
 
 asphodel-flowers. The white asphodel, a sort of lily 
 with a pale blossom. It grows freely in waste places, such 
 .as burial-grounds, and so became associated with death. 
 See Odyssey^ xi. 539 ; xxiv. 13. 
 
 Others in Elyslan valleys dwell 
 Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 
 
 — Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters. 
 
 1. 1229. — wold. (AS. weald.) Open undulating country. 
 
 Page i6i. 1. 1233. — Sag-inaw River. Flows through Michi- 
 gan into Lake Huron. 
 
 1. 1241. — Tents of Grace Moravian Missions. Bohe- 
 mian Protestants, contemporary with John Huss (1368- 
 1416), became organized as a church, Unitas Fratrum, the 
 Unity of the Brethren, in 1467, which spread through Bo- 
 hemia and Moravia. It was suppressed in 1627, but sup- 
 posed descendants of the Brethren emigrated in 1722 into 
 Saxony, when they assumed the name of Moravian Breth- 
 ren. From Herrnhut, Saxony, the church spread into 
 Germany, Britain, and America. Mission stations, which 
 
324 NOTES. 
 
 still exist, were established at Bethlehem, Ntizartrtih, etc- 
 in Pennsylvania, Salem in North Carolina, etc. 
 
 Tents of Grace. The early editions have "tents of 
 grace," as if a general name of the Moravian mission sta- 
 tions ; in 1837 the reading is that of our text. The term 
 translates Gnadenhutten, the name of a village on the- 
 Tuscftrawas Eiver, Ohio, founded by the Moravian mis- 
 sionaries in 1773 among the Mohican Indians. Burnt in 
 1782, it was again in 1797 made the centre of a Moravian 
 settlement from Pennsylvania, whose descendants are still 
 to be found there. 
 
 1. 1242. — battle-fields of the army. The wars of the 
 Indians and the United States troops. 
 
 V. 
 
 1. 1253. — in sylvan shades the name of Penn. William 
 Penn (1644^1718) was the most influential of the Quakers- 
 of his time. His reputation for enlightened philanthropy 
 justifies the term "the Apostle." He founded Philadel- 
 phia, the City of Brotherly Love, in 1682, on a bluff cov- 
 ered with pines. "Penn laid out his capital as methodi- 
 cally as the Romans did theirs, when they used to colo- 
 nize. He rules his streets straight out towards the west, 
 naming them from the trees they displaced, such as cedar, 
 spruce, and sassafras ; not as Mr. Longfellow has it, to 
 appease the dryads whose haunts he molested (1. 1257), 
 for he had a horror of the heathen mythology, but because- 
 he meant his city to be a rural city, and to rustle eternally 
 with the breath of trees and shrubbery." — Stoddard. A 
 Century After .^ p. 10. 
 
 Page 163. 1. 1257— Dryads {drl'ad). (Fr. drpade, Lat. dri/as, 
 from Gk. SpOi, a tree). In classical mythology, deities or 
 nymphs of the woods. 
 
 1. 1260.— Rene Leblanc. See 1. 263, n. 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. '^^l^ 
 
 1. 1264.— The Thee and Thou of the Quakers. The 
 
 characteristic and traditional mode of speech of the 
 Friends, imitating Biblical simplicity. To-day, however, 
 the "thee" has become the subjective as well as the- 
 objective case. 
 
 1. 1265. — It recalled the past. French is characterized 
 by the use of <m, thou, among near relations and close 
 friends, while vous, you, is a polite singular. 
 
 1. 1266. — Where all men were equal. Eelrain from 
 1. 397. 
 
 Page 164. 1. 128. — Like to some odorous spices. 
 
 Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, 
 And it clings hold like precerdents in law. 
 
 —Lowell, Big eloiv Papers. 
 
 Page 165. 1. 1288.— Sister of Mercy. The French order of 
 Filles de Notre Dame de Mis6ricorde, Daughters of our Lady 
 of Mercy, was founded in 1633 by St. Vincent de Paul, •' to 
 have for monastery the houses of the sick .... for their 
 cloister the streets of the town or wards of the hospital. . . . 
 for veil, holy modesty." It spread rapidly throughout the 
 world. Branches were established in America, but not for 
 some years after the time here described. 
 
 1. 1292. — the -watchman. ..." One need not be old to re- 
 member those old-time watchmen. How they iised to light 
 the lamps early in the evening. How thej'- used to sit in 
 their boxes, on the street-corners, and smoke their clay 
 pipes. How they used to go their rounds, all night loug, 
 in the snow, in the rain, in the moonlight and starlight, 
 singing, as they went the hour and the weather, ' Eleven 
 o'clock, and a windy night ! ' ' Three o'clock, and a cloudy 
 morning.' " — Stoddard, A Century After., p. 157. 
 
 1. 1296. — The German farmer. The German settlements 
 about Philadelphia are very numerous, as they also are 
 tlirough Pennsylvania. Germantown, one of the suburbs, 
 of the city, lecords an early colony. 
 
■326 NOTES. 
 
 Page i66. 1. 1298.— A pestilence fell on the city. The pestil- 
 ence of yellow- fever in 1793. It is the theme of Charles 
 Brockden Brown's novel of Arthur Mervyn, and of M. 
 Carey's essay Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 {Essays, 
 1830). 
 
 1. 1299. — Presaged by wondrous signs. " Among the 
 ■country people large quantities of wild pigeons in the 
 spring are regarded as certain indications of an unhealthy 
 summ.er. Whether or not this prognostication has ever 
 been verified, I cannot tell. But it is very certain that 
 during the last spring the number of those birds brought 
 to market was immense. Never, perhaps, were there so 
 many before." — A Memoir of the Yellow Fever in Philadel- 
 phia in 1793. 
 
 1. 1308. — the almshouse. The place referred to is dis- 
 puted. An explanation was once given by Longfellow and 
 published in the New York Times : — 
 
 "I got the climax of 'Evangeline' from Philadelphia, 
 and it was singular how I happened to do so. I was pass- 
 ing down Spruce street one day toward my hotel after a 
 walk, when my attention was attracted to a large building 
 with beautiful trees about it inside of a high enclosure. I 
 walked along until I came to a great gate, and then stepped 
 inside and looked carefully over the place. The charming 
 picture of lawn, flower-beds, and shade which it presented 
 made an impression which has never left me, and twenty- 
 iour years after, when I came to write 'Evangeline,' I 
 located the final scene, the meeting between Evangeline 
 ;;and Gabriel, and the death, at this poor-house, and the 
 burial in an old Catholic graveyard not far away, which I 
 found by chance in another of my walks. It was purely a 
 fancy sketch, and the name of Evangeline was coined to 
 -complete the story. The incident Mr. Hawthorne's friend 
 gave me, and my visit to the poor-house in Philadelphia 
 .gave me the ground-work of the poem." 
 
 The details suit admirably the Pennsylvania Hospital 
 
LONGFELLOW : EVANGELINE. 3l': 
 
 situated between Spruce and Pine streets, the oldest part 
 of which was erected in 1755. Its walks and flowers are 
 still as charming, and the button-woods and chestnuts as 
 shady as when the poet visited it. But with its new addi- 
 tions it is no longer " meek in the midst of splendor." 
 Still it was not an "almshouse," and some therefore 
 associate the place with the Friends' Almshouse, now no 
 longer standing. " The Friends' Almshouse, approached 
 by a court from "Walnut Street, near Third, is a remaining 
 part of a cluster of wings and tenements begun about 1713, 
 and finished with an edifice fronting on Walnut Street in 
 1729. It was used exclusively for indigent Quakeresses, 
 and jocularly styled the Quaker's Nunnery ; a few ' de- 
 cayed ' Friends are still maintained in seclusion and 
 respectability. Its interest is largely due to the rumor 
 that here the Acadian refugees .... might have been tended 
 as described in .... ' Evangeline. ' A mere poetic fiction 
 does not demand the very gravest adherence. If not here, 
 the labors of the gentle French nurse must have been ex- 
 pended in a neighboring edifice, the old City Almshouse at 
 Fourth and Spruce." — Stoddard, A Century After, p. 63. 
 
 Page 167. 1. 1312. — the words of the Lord. Matth. xxvi. 11, 
 
 Page 168. 1. 1326.— Christ Church First erected in 1695, 
 twelve years after the city was laid out. The present 
 church was begun in 1727 and its spire completed in 1754. 
 " The chimes consist of eight bells bought in London in 
 1754, at a cost there of £560 sterling. . . .They are always 
 chimed on Sundays and holydays, before divine service ; 
 and upon public occasions, when request is made." — Dorr, 
 Hist. Account of Christ Church, p. 330. They were almost 
 the first chimes in America and attracted great attention. 
 The church boasts of being the cradle of the American Epis- 
 copal Church, and of sharing with Faneuil Hall, Boston, the 
 renown that gathers about the chief scene of the Eevclu- 
 tionary movement. 
 
:328 NOTES. 
 
 1. 1327.— while. First ed., and. 
 
 1. 1328.— Swedes .... at Wicaco ( we Tcah' ho ). The 
 Swedes' Chui'ch is the oldest church in Philadelphia. The 
 Swedes settled on the banks of the Delaware in their vil- 
 lage of Wicaco, now called Southwark, a part of the city, 
 as early as 1627. In 1677 they built a log church-fort. 
 In 1700 the present fine church took its place. "An 
 inlet from the river led up to the building, and its shores 
 were lined on the Sabbath days with the canoes of the 
 congregation, moored in the shades of the great syca- 
 mores .... The stout old sanctuary, built so as to look 
 without interruption or obstacle on the Delaware, is long 
 since imprisoned in a mass of common-place buildings. It 
 faces towards Otsego street.... The beautiful orchard 
 and tuft of sycamore trees have disappeared .... and the 
 songs of the garden-birds " (Stoddard). 
 
 Page 170. 1. 1355.— like the Hebrew. Exod. xii. 7, 12f., 13, 
 22f. 
 
 1. 1365.— Green Acadian meadows. Eefrain from 1. 9ff. 
 
 Page 172. 1. 1383.— the little Catholic churchyard. See 1. 1308, 
 n. A small churchyard lying between the church of St. Mary 
 (founded 1763) and Fifth St. and containing gravestones 
 dated as early as 1757. A rather desolate uncared-for 
 place, with the staring brick walls and sign of the Qua- 
 ker City Laundry and Taylor, Tin and Slate Eoofer, on the 
 south, and a Paper-box Factory on the north, which de- 
 stroy all its sacred associations. The sexton, who knows 
 not that the original story told of the death of the lovers 
 in New England, guides the infrequent visitor to an un- 
 marked grassy space by the north wall where he says the 
 two lovers lie buried. A clump of lilacs shades the spot, 
 as if to add a touch of poetry to the otherwise prosaic 
 realities of the scene. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPEI^^DIX 
 
 SIE PATRICK S PENCE.* 
 
 The King sits in Dumferling toune, 
 
 Drinking his blude-red wine : 
 •' whar will I get guid sailor 
 
 To sail this ship of mine ?" 
 
 Up and spake an eldern' knicht', g 
 
 Sat at the kings richt kne : 
 " Sir Patrick Spence is the bes*" sailor 
 
 That sails upop the ««.■* " 
 
 The king nas written a braid letter* 
 
 And signed it wi' his hand, 10 
 
 And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence, 
 
 Was walking on the sand. 
 
 The first line that Sir Patrick red, 
 
 A loud lauch* lauched he : 
 The next line that Sir Patrick red, 15 
 
 The teir blinded his ee. * 
 
 " wha is this has don' this deid. 
 
 This ill deid done to me ; 
 To send me out this time o' the yeir 
 
 To sail upon the se ? 20 
 
 " Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men all, 
 
 Our guid schip sails the morne." 
 " say na sae, my master deir, 
 
 For I feir a deadlie storme. 
 
 • The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence. 
 
 — Coleridge, Dejection. 
 I Aged. 2 Knight. 3 Broad (open) letter. 4 Laugh. 5 Eye. 
 
332 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Late, late yestreen" I saw the new moone 25 
 
 Wi' the auld moone in hir arme ; 
 And I feir, I feir, my deir master, 
 
 That we will com' to harme." 
 
 Oour Scots nobles wer richt laith' 
 
 To wet th-sir cork-heild schoone ; 30 
 
 But lang owre a' the play wer playd 
 
 Thair hats they swam aboone. * 
 
 lang, lang may their ladies sit, 
 
 Wi' thair fans into their hand, 
 Or eir they se Sir Patrick Spence 35 
 
 Cum sailing to the land. 
 
 O lang, lang may the ladies stand, 
 Wi' thair gold kems' in their hair, 
 
 Waiting for their ain deir lords, 
 
 For they'll se thame na mair. 40 
 
 Have owre, ' " have owre to Aberdour, ' ' 
 
 It's fifty fadom deip ; 
 And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence 
 
 Wi' the Scots lords at his feit. 
 
 —From Percy's ^^ lieliques.'' 
 
 TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. 
 
 Am Allegory. 
 
 On the wide level of a mountain's head, 
 
 (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) 
 
 Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, 5 
 
 Two lovely children run an endless race, 
 
 A sister and a brother ! 
 
 That far outstripp'd the other ; 
 Yet even runs she with reverted face, 
 And looks and listens for the boy behind : 10 
 
 For he, alas ! is blind ! 
 O'er rough and smooth with even step he pass'd, 
 And knows not whether he is first or last. 
 
 — Coleridge. 
 
 6 Yesterday evening. 7 Loath. 8 On the surface. 9 Combs. 10 rr.alf nvi»r 
 a A TiUage on the Forth. " ""^ 
 
APPENDIX. 333 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Life I I know not what thou art, 
 
 But know that thou and I must part ; 
 
 And when, or how, or where we met, 
 
 I own to me's a secret yet. 
 
 But this I know, when thou art fled, 5 
 
 Where'er they lay these limbs, tliis head, 
 
 No clod so valueless shall be. 
 
 As all that then remains of me. 
 
 O whither, whither dost thou fly. 
 
 Where bend unseen thy trackless course, 10 
 
 And in this strange divorce, 
 Ah ! tell where I must seek this compound I ? 
 
 To the vast ocean of empryeal flame. 
 
 From whence thy essence came, 
 Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed 15 
 
 From matter's base, encumbering weed ? 
 
 Or dost thou, hid from sight. 
 
 Wait, like some spell-bound knight, 
 Though blank oblivious years the appointed hour. 
 To break thy trance and re-assume thy power ! 20 
 
 Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be ? 
 ■0 say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee ? 
 
 Life ! we've been long together. 
 
 Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 
 
 'T is hard to part when friends are dear ; 25 
 
 Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear ;_ 
 Then steal away, give little warning. 
 Choose thine own time ; 
 Say not good night, but in some brighter clime 
 Bid me good morning. 
 
 —Mrs. Barhauld (1743-1825). 
 
 REQUIEM. 
 
 Under the wide and starry sky, 
 
 Dig the grave and let me lie. 
 Glad did 1 live, and gladly die. 
 
 And I laid me down with a will. 
 
 This be the verse you grave for me : 
 Here he lies where he longed to be ; 
 
 Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 
 And the hunter home from the hill. 
 
 — Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
334 APPENDIX. 
 
 WHA T IS A SONNET ? 
 
 What is a sonnet ? 'T is a pearly shell 
 
 That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea ; 
 A precious jewel carved most curiously ; 
 
 It is a little picture painted well. 
 
 What is a sonnet ? 'Tis the tear that fell 5 
 
 From a great poet's ecstasy ; 
 
 A two-edged sword, a star, a song — ah me ! 
 Sometimes a heavy tolling funeral bell. 
 
 This was the flame that sliook with Dante's breath, 
 The solemn organ whereon Milton played, 10 
 
 And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow falls ; 
 A sea is this — bev'are who ventureth ! 
 
 For like a fiord the narrow flood is laid 
 
 Deep as mid ocean to sheer mountain walls. 
 
 —R. W. Gilder. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 He left the upland lawns and serene air 
 
 Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew, 
 And reared his helm among the unquiet crew 
 
 Battling beneath ; the morning radiance rare 
 
 Of his young brow amid the tumult there, 6 
 
 Grew grim with sulphurous diist and sanguine dew ; 
 Yet through all soilure they who marked him knew 
 
 The signs of his life's dayspring, calm and fair. 
 
 But when p<eace came, peace fouler far than war, 
 
 And mirth more dissonant than battle's tone, 10 
 
 He with a scornful laugh of his clear soul, 
 Back to his moiintain clomb, now bleak and frore, 
 And with the awful night, he dwelt alone \ 
 
 In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll. ', 
 
 — Ernest Meyers. 
 
APPENDIX. 335 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 Come, Sleep ! Sleep, the certain knot of peaoe, 
 
 The baiting-place^ of wit, the balm of woe, 
 The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, 
 
 Th' indifferent judge between the high and low ; 
 With shield of proof, shield me from out the press 5 
 
 Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw ; 
 O make in me those civil wars to cease ; 
 
 I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. 
 Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 
 
 A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light, 10 
 
 A rosy garland and a weary head : 
 
 And if these things, as being there by right. 
 Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me 
 Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see. 
 -Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), in "Astrophel and Stella." 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 2. Henry IV., iii., i., 5fE.) 
 
 How many thousands of my poorest subjects 
 
 Are at this hour asleep ! O sleep, gentle sleep, 
 
 Nature's soft nurse, how have 1 frighted thee. 
 
 That thou no more wilt weigh these eyelids down 
 
 And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 5 
 
 Why rather. Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs. 
 
 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee 
 
 And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
 
 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great. 
 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 10 
 
 And luU'd with sound of sweetest melody !' 
 
 O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile 
 
 In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch 
 
 A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell ? 
 
 Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 15 
 
 Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brain 
 
 In cradle of the rude, imperious surge 
 
 And in the visitation of the winds. 
 
 Who take the rufBan billows by the top. 
 
 Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 20 
 
 With deafening clamour in the slipperj' clouds. 
 
 That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? 
 
 1 Place of refreshment. 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 Canst thou, partial sleep, give thy repose 
 
 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, 
 
 And in the calmest and most stillest night, 25 
 
 With all appliances and means to boot, 
 
 Deny it to a king ? Then, happy low, lie down ! 
 
 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown 
 
 — Shakspere. 
 
 TO THE DAISY. 
 
 Bright Flower ! whose home is everywhere, 
 
 Bold in maternal Nature's care, 
 
 And all the long years through the heir 
 
 Of joy or sorrow ; 
 Methinks that there abides in thee 5 
 
 Some concord with humanity, 
 Given to no other flower I see 
 
 The forest thorough ! 
 
 Is it that Man is soon deprest ? 
 
 A thoughtless Thing ! who, once unblest, 10 
 
 Does little on his memory rest, 
 
 Or on his reason. 
 And Thou would'st teach him how to find 
 A shelter under every wind, 
 A hope for times that are unkind 15 
 
 And every season. 
 
 Thou wander'st the wide world about 
 Uncheck'd by pride or scrupulous doubt, 
 With friends to greet thee, or without, 
 
 Yet pleased and willing ; 20 
 
 Meek, yielding to the occasion's call. 
 And all things suffering from all, 
 Thy function apostolical, 
 
 In peace fulfilling. 
 
 — Wordsworth, 
 
APPENDIX. 337 
 
 WHUN A MOUNTING SKYLARK SINGS." 
 
 When a mounting skylark sings 
 
 In the sun-lit summer morn, 
 I know that heaven is up on high, 
 
 And on earth are fields of corn. 
 
 But when a nightingale sings 
 
 In the moon-lit summer even, 
 I know not if earth is merely earth. 
 
 Only that heaven is heaven. 
 
 — Christina Rossetti. 
 
 THE LARK. 
 
 Bird of the wilderness. 
 
 Blithesome and cumberless. 
 Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea ! 
 
 Emblem of happiness, 
 
 Blest is thy dwelling-place — 5 
 
 to abide in the desert with th e ! 
 
 Wild is thy lay, and loud, 
 
 Far in the downy cloud. 
 Love gives it energy— love gave it birth. 
 
 Where, on thy dewy wing, 10 
 
 Where art thou journeying? 
 Thy lay is in heaven — thy love is on earth. 
 
 O'er fell and fountain sheen. 
 
 O'er moor and mountain green, 
 O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, 15 
 
 Over the cloudlet dim. 
 
 Over the rainbow's rim. 
 Musical cherub, soar, singing, away ! 
 
 Then, when the gloaming comes, 
 
 Low in the heather blooms 20 
 
 Sweet will be thy welcome and bed of love be ! 
 
 Emblem of happiness. 
 
 Blest is thy dwelling-place — 
 to abide in the desert with thee ! 
 
 —James Hogg (1772-18S5), 
 
338 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 FROM " THE FIRST SKYLARK OF SPRING." 
 
 
 Two worlds hast thou to dwell in, Sweet, — 
 
 The virginal untroubled sky, 
 And this vext region at my feet. — 
 
 Alas, but one have I ! 
 
 
 To all my songs there clings the shade, 
 The dulling shade of mundane care. 
 
 They amid mortal mists are made, — 
 Thine in immortal air. 
 
 5 
 
 My heart is dashed with griefs and fears ; 
 
 My song comes fluttering, and is gone. 
 high above the home of tears, 
 
 Eternal Joy, sing on ! 
 
 10 
 
 * ■ « * * » * 
 
 
 Somewhat as thou, Man once could sing, 
 In porches of the lucent morn, 
 
 Ere he had felt his lack of wing. 
 Or cursed his iron bourn. 
 
 15 
 
 The springtime bubbled in his throat, 
 The sweet sky seemed not far above. 
 
 And young and lovesome came the note ; — 
 Ah, thine is Youth and Love ! 
 
 20 
 
 Thou singest of what he knew of old, 
 And dream-like from afar recalls ; 
 In flashes of forgotten gold 
 An orient glory falls. 
 
 
 And as he listens, one by one, 
 
 Life's utmost splendours blaze more nigh ; 
 Less inaccessible the sun. 
 
 Less alien grows the sky. 
 
 25 
 
 For thou art native to the spheres. 
 And of the courts of heaven art free, 
 
 And carriest to his temporal ears. 
 News from eternity ; 
 
 30 
 
 And lead'st him to the dizzy verge. 
 And lur'st him o'er the dazzling line, 
 
 Where mortal and immortal merge, 
 And human dies divine. 
 
 — William Watson. 
 
 35 
 
APPENDIX. 339 
 
 HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD. 
 
 Oh, to be in England 
 Now that April's there, 
 And whoever wakes in England 
 Sees, some morning, unaware, 
 
 That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf 5 
 
 Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 
 While the chaifinch sings on the orchard bough 
 In England— now ! 
 
 And after April when May follows, 
 
 And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows — 10 
 
 Hark ! where blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
 
 Leans to the field, and scatters on the clover 
 
 Blossoms and dew-drops, — at the bent spray's edge, — 
 
 That's the wise thrvish; he sings each song twice over. 
 
 Lest you should think he never could recapture 15 
 
 The first fine careless rapture. 
 
 And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 
 
 All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
 
 The buttercups, the little children's dower. 
 
 Far brighter than this gaudy melon flower. 20 
 
 — Browning. 
 
 HOME THOUGHTS FROM THE SEA. 
 
 Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the North-west died away ; 
 Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeling into Cadiz Bay ; 
 Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay ; 
 In the dimest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and 
 
 grey; 
 ^ Here and there did England help me : how can 1 help England ?' 
 
 — say, 5 
 
 ^^ hoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, 
 While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 
 
 — Browning. 
 
340 APPENDIX. 
 
 EPITAPH ON A JACOBITE. 
 
 To my true king, I offered free from stain, 
 
 CoiTrage and faith ; vain faith, and courage vain. 
 
 For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth away, 
 
 And one dear hope, that was more prized than they. 
 
 For him I languished in a foreign clime, 5 
 
 Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime ; 
 
 Heard in Lavernia, Scargill'si whispering trees, 
 
 And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees ; 
 
 Beheld, each night my home in fevered sleep, 
 
 Each morning started from the dream to weep ; 10' 
 
 Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave 
 
 The resting-place I asked, an early grave 
 
 Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone. 
 
 From that proud country which was once mine own, 
 
 By those white cliffs I never more must see, 15 
 
 By that dear language which I spake like thee, 
 
 Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear 
 
 O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here. 
 
 —Macaulay (1S00-1S59).. 
 
 TO EVENING. 
 
 If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song. 
 
 May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, 
 
 Like thy own solemn springs. 
 
 Thy springs, and dying gales ; 
 
 Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun 5- 
 
 Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, 
 
 With brede etherial wove, 
 
 O'erhang his wavy bed ; 
 
 New air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat, 
 
 With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing ; 10 
 
 Or where the beetle winds 
 
 His small, but sullen horn. 
 
 As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, 
 Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum ; 
 
 Now teach me, maid composed, 15 
 
 To breathe some softened strain. 
 
 1 In North Yorkshire on the upper Tees. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Ml 
 
 AA'hose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, 
 ]\Jay not unseemly with thy stillness suit ; 
 
 As, musing slow, I hail 
 
 Thy genial loved return ! 
 
 
 For when thy folding-star arising shows 
 His paly circlet, at his warning lamp 
 The fragrant Hours and Elves 
 Who sleep in flowers the day, 
 
 -' 
 
 And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, 
 And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still. 
 
 The pensive Pleasures sweet, 
 
 Prepare thy shadowy car ; 
 
 25^ 
 
 Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake 
 Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile, 
 
 Or upland follows grey 
 
 Reflect its last cool gleam 
 
 30' 
 
 But when chill blustering winds or driving rain 
 Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut, 
 That, from the mountain's side. 
 Views wilds, and swelling floods, 
 
 3& 
 
 And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires ; 
 And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all 
 
 Thy dewy fingers draw 
 
 The gradual dusky veil. 
 
 40' 
 
 While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont. 
 And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve ! 
 
 While Summer loves to sport 
 
 Beneath thy lingering light ; 
 
 
 While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves ; 
 Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, 
 
 Affrights thy shrinking train, 
 
 And rudely rends thy robes ; 
 
 45 
 
 So long sure-found beneath the sylvan shed 
 
 Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipped Health, 
 
 Thy gentlest influence own. 
 
 And hymn thy favourite name. 
 
 —Collins (1720-1756). 
 
 SO 
 
M2 APPENDIX. 
 
 FROM " SEA WEED." 
 
 When descends on the Atlantic 
 
 The gigantic 
 Storm-wind of the equinox, 
 Landward in his wrath he scourges 
 
 The toiling surges, 5 
 
 Laden witli seaweed from the rocks : 
 
 From Bermuda's reefs ; from edges 
 
 Of sunken ledges, 
 In some far-off, bright Azore ; 
 From Bahama, and the dashing, 10 
 
 Silver-flashing 
 Surges of San Salvador ; 
 
 From the tumblinff surf, that buries 
 
 The Orkneyan skerries. 
 Answering the hoarse Hebrides ; 15 
 
 And from wrecks of ships, and drifting 
 
 Spars, uplifting 
 On the desolate, rainy seas ; — 
 
 Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 
 
 On the shifting 20 
 
 Currents of the restless main ; 
 Till in sheltered coves, and reaches 
 
 Of sandy beaches. 
 All have found repose again. 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 THEY ARE ALL GONE. 
 
 'They are all gone into the world of Light, 
 
 And I alone sit lingering here ! 
 Their very memory is fair and bright, 
 
 And my sad thoughts doth clear. 
 
 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast 
 Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 
 
 'Or these faint beams in which this hill is drest 
 After the sun's remove. 
 

 APPENDIX. 343. 
 
 
 I see them walking in an air of glory, 
 
 Whose light doth trample on my days ; 10 
 My days, which are at best but dull and hoary — 
 
 Mere glimmerings and decays. 
 
 
 holy Hope ! and high Humility, 
 
 High as the heavens above ! 
 These are your walks, and you have showed them me 15 
 
 To kindle my cold love. 
 
 
 Dear, beauteous Death ; the jewel of the just ! 
 
 Shining no where but in the dark ; 
 What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust ; 
 
 Could man outlook that mark ! 20 
 
 
 He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know 
 
 At first sight if the birds be flown ; 
 But what fair dell or grove he sings iu now, 
 
 That is to him unknown. 
 
 
 And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams, 25 
 
 Call to the soul, when man doth sleep, 
 So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, 
 
 And into glory peep. 
 
 • 
 
 If a star were confined into a tomb 
 
 Her captive flames must needs burn there ; 30 
 But, when the hand that locked her up gives room, 
 
 She'll shine through all the sphere. 
 
 
 Father of eternal life, and all 
 
 Created glories under Thee ! 
 Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall 35 
 
 Into true liberty. 
 
 
 Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill 
 
 My perspective, still as they pass ; 
 Or else remove me hence unto that hill, 
 
 Where I shall need no glass. 40 
 — Vaughan (1621-1695). 
 
 AFTER THE BURIAL. 
 
 
 Yes, faith is a goodly anchor ; 
 When skies are sweet as a psalm. 
 At the bows it lolls so stalwart, 
 In bluff, broad-shouldered calm. 
 
^44 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 
 And when over breakers to leeward 
 The tattered surges are hurled, 
 It may keep our head to the tempest, 
 With its grip on the base of the world. 
 
 5 
 
 
 But, after the shipwreck, tell me 
 What help in its iron thews. 
 Still true to the broken hawser. 
 Deep down among sea-weed and ooze ? 
 
 10 
 
 
 In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, 
 V\ hen the helpless feet stretch out. 
 And find in the deeps of darkness 
 No footing so solid as doubt. 
 
 15 
 
 
 Then better one spar of Memory, 
 One broken plank of the Past, 
 That our human heart may cling to, 
 Though hopeless of shore at last ! 
 
 20 
 
 
 To the spirit its splendid conjectures. 
 To the flesh its sweet despair. 
 Its tears o'er the thin-worn locket 
 With its anguish of deathless hair ! 
 
 . 
 
 
 Immortal ? I feel it and know it. 
 Who doubts it of such as she ? 
 But that is the pang's very secret, — 
 Immortal away from me. 
 
 25 
 
 ft 
 
 There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard 
 Would scarce stay a child in his race, 
 But to me and my thought it is wider 
 Than the star-sown vague of Space. 
 
 30 
 
 
 Your logic, my friend, is perfect. 
 Your morals most drearily true ; 
 But, since the earth clashed on her coffin, 
 I keep hearing that, and not you. 
 
 35 
 
 
 ■Console if you will, I can bear it ; 
 'T is a well meant alms of breath ; 
 But not all the preaching since Adam 
 Has made Death other than Death. 
 
 40 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 345 
 
 
 It is pagan ; but wait till you feel it, — 
 The jar of our earth — that dull shock 
 "When the ploughshare of deeper passion 
 Tears down to our primitive rock. 
 
 
 
 (Communion in spirit ? Forgive me, 
 ;J3ut I, who am earthly and weak, 
 'Would give all the incomes from dreamland 
 TFor a touch of her hand on my cheek. 
 
 45 
 
 
 That little shoe in the corner, 
 So worn and wrinkled and brown, 
 With its emptiness confutes you, 
 And argues your wisdom down. 
 
 — Lowell. 
 
 50 
 
 
 ■*' THE WORLD IS TOO HUGH WITH US." 
 
 
 
 'The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours ; 
 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
 
 
 
 'The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
 The winds that will be liowling at all hours, 
 And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
 For these, for everything, we are out of tune ; 
 
 5 
 
 
 It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 jHave sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
 
 10 
 
 
 — Wordsviorth, 1806. 
 
 
 \ 
 
346 APPENDIX.. 
 
 "LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS." 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 
 Or bends with the remover to remove : 
 
 Oh, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, 5 
 
 That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ; 
 
 It is the star to every wandering bark. 
 
 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 
 
 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 10 
 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 
 But bears it out' even to the edge of doom. 
 
 If this be error, and upon me prov'd, 
 
 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 
 
 — Shakspere. 
 
 THE CROSS OF SNO W.. 
 
 In the long, sleepless watches of the uight, 
 A gentle face — the face of one long dead — 
 Looks at me from the wall, where round its head 
 
 The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. 
 
 Here in this room she died ; and soul more white 5. 
 
 Never through martyrdom by fire was led 
 
 To its repose ; nor can in books be read 
 The legend of a life more benedight. 
 
 There is a mountain in the distant West 
 
 That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines jq, 
 
 Displays a cross of snow upon its side. 
 Such is the cross I wear upon my breast 
 
 These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes 
 And seasons, changeless since the day she died. 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
\ 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 DAYBREAK. 
 
 A wind came up out of the sea, 
 
 And said, "0 mists, make room for me." 
 
 It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on, 
 Ye mariners, the night is gone." 
 
 347 
 
 
 And hurried landward far away. 
 Crying, " Awake ! it is the day." 
 
 5 
 
 
 It said unto the forest, "Shout ! 
 Hang all your leafy banners out ! " 
 
 
 
 It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, 
 And said, "0 bird, awake and sing." 
 
 10 
 
 
 And o'er the farms, "0 chanticleer. 
 Your clarion blow ; the day is near. " 
 
 
 
 It whispered to the fields of corn, 
 
 " Bow down, and hail the coming morn." 
 
 
 
 It shouted through the belfry-tower, 
 "Awake, bell ! proclaim the hour." 
 
 16 
 
 
 It crossed the churchyard with a sigh. 
 And said, "Not yet, in quiet lie." 
 
 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 
 
 THE GREEN LINNET. 
 
 
 
 Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 
 Their snow-white blossoms on my head. 
 With brightest sunshine round me spread 
 
 Of spring's unclouded weather. 
 In this sequester'd nook how sweet 
 To sit upon my orchard-seat ! 
 And birds and flowers once more to greet. 
 
 My last year's friends together. 
 
 5 
 
348 APPENDIX. 
 
 One have I mark'd, the happiest guest 
 
 In all this covert of the blest : 10 
 
 Hail to Thee, far above the rest 
 
 In joy of voice and pinion ! 
 Thou, Linnet ! in thy green array 
 Presiding Spirit here to-day 
 Dost lead the revels of the May ; 15 
 
 And this is thy dominion. 
 
 While birds, and butterflies, and flovi^ers, 
 Make all one band of paramours. 
 Thou, ranging up and down the bowers. 
 
 Art sole in thy employment : 2C 
 
 A Life, a Presence like the Air, 
 Scattering thy gladness without care, 
 Too blest with anyone to pair : 
 
 Thyself tiiy own enjoyment. 
 
 Amid yon tuft of hazel trees 25 
 
 That twinkle to the gusty breeze 
 Behold him perch'd in ecstacies, 
 
 Yet seeming still to hover ; 
 There ! where the flutter of his wings 
 Upon his back and body flings 30 
 
 Shadows and sunny glimmerings, 
 
 That cover him all over. 
 
 My dazzled sight he oft deceives — 
 
 A Brother of the dancing leaves ; 
 
 Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves 35 
 
 Pours forth his song in gushes ; 
 As if by that exulting strain 
 He mock'd and treated with disdain 
 The voiceless Form he chose to feign, 
 
 While fluttering in the bushes. 
 
 — William Wordsworth. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. 
 
 How happy is he born and taught, 
 That serveth not another's will ; 
 
 Whose armour is his honest thought. 
 And simple truth his utmost skill; 
 
APPENDIX. 349 
 
 Whose passions not his masters are ; 5 
 
 Whose soul is still prepar'd for death, 
 Untied unto the world with care 
 
 Of public fame or private breath ; 
 
 Who envies none that chance doth raise, 
 
 Or vice ; hath ever understood 10 
 
 How deepest wounds are given with praise, 
 Nor rules of state, but rules of good ; 
 
 Who hath his life from humours freed ; 
 
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; 
 Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 15 
 
 Nor ruin make oppressors great ; 
 
 Who Grod doth late and early pray, 
 
 More of his grace than gifts to lend ; 
 And entertains the harmless day 
 
 With a well-chosen book or friend. 20 
 
 This man is free from servile bands 
 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands, 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all. 
 
 Sir Henry Wottoii (1568-1639). 
 
 FROM ''EXTREME UNCTION." 
 
 Upon the hour when I was born, 
 
 God said, "Another man shall be," 
 And the great Maker did not scorn 
 
 Out of Himself to fashion me ; 
 He sunned me with His ripening looks. 
 
 And Heaven's rich instincts in me grew, 
 As effortless as woodland nooks 
 
 Send violets up and paint them blue. 
 
350 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 Yes, I who now, with angry tears, 
 
 
 
 Am exiled back to brutish clod, 
 
 10 
 
 
 Have borne unquenched for four-score years 
 
 
 
 A spark of the eternal God ; 
 
 
 
 And to what end ? How yield I back 
 
 
 
 The trust for such high uses given ? 
 
 
 
 Heaven's light hath but revealed a track 
 
 15 
 
 
 Whereby to crawl away from Heaven. 
 
 
 
 Men think it is an awful sight 
 
 
 
 To see a soul just set adrift 
 
 
 
 On that drear voyage from whose night 
 
 
 
 The ominous shadows never lift ; 
 
 20 
 
 
 But 'tis more awful to behold 
 
 
 
 A helpless infant newly born, 
 
 
 
 Whose little hands unconscious hold 
 
 
 
 The keys of darkness and of morn. 
 
 
 ' 
 
 Mine held them once ; I flung away 
 
 25 
 
 
 Those keys that might have open set 
 
 
 
 The golden sluices of the day, 
 
 
 
 But clutch the keys of darkness yet ; — 
 
 
 
 I hear the reapers surging go 
 
 
 
 Into God's harvest ; I, that might 
 
 30 
 
 
 With them have chosen, here below 
 
 
 
 Grope shuddering at the gates of night. 
 
 
 
 glorious Youth, that once was mine ! 
 
 
 
 O high Ideal ! all in vain 
 
 
 
 Ye enter at this ruined shrine 
 
 35 
 
 
 Whence worship ne'er shall rise again ; 
 
 
 
 The bat and owl inhabit here. 
 
 
 
 The snake nests in the altar-stone, 
 
 
 
 The sacred vessels moulder near ; 
 
 
 I 
 
 The image of the God is gone. 
 
 40 
 
 V. 
 
 — James Russell Loivell. 
 
 1 
 / 
 

 APPENDIX. 
 
 TO THE CUCKOO. 
 
 blithe New-comer ! I have heard, 
 
 1 hear thee and rejoice. 
 
 Cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird, 
 Or but a wandering Voice ? 
 
 351 
 
 
 While I am lying on the grass, 
 Thy two-fold shout I hear ; 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 From hill to hill it seems to pass, 
 
 
 
 At once far off and near. 
 
 . 
 
 
 Though babbling only to the vale, 
 
 
 
 Of sunshine and of flowers. 
 
 10 
 
 
 Thou bringest unto me a tale 
 
 
 
 Of visionary hours. 
 
 
 
 Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring ! 
 
 
 
 Even yet thou art to me 
 
 
 
 No Bird : but an invisible Thing, 
 
 15 
 
 
 A voice, a mystery ; 
 
 
 
 The same whom in my School-boy days 
 
 
 
 I listened to : that Cry 
 
 
 
 Which made me look a thousand ways 
 
 
 
 In bush, and tree, and sky. 
 
 20 
 
 
 To see thee did I often rove 
 
 
 
 Through woods and on the green : 
 
 
 
 And thou wert still a hope, a love 
 
 
 
 Still longed for, never seen. 
 
 
 
 And I can listen to thee yet ; 
 
 25 
 
 
 Can lie upon the plain 
 
 
 
 And listen till I do beget 
 
 
 
 That golden time again. 
 
 
 
 blessed Bird ! the earth we pnce 
 
 
 
 Again appears to be 
 
 30 
 
 
 An unsubstantial, faery place ; 
 
 
 
 That is fit home for Thee ! 
 
 
 
 — William Wordsworth 
 
 
352 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE GLIMPSE. 
 
 Just for a clay you crossed my life's dull track, 
 Put my ignobler dreams to sudden shame, 
 
 Went your bright way, and left me to fall back 
 On my own world of poorer deed and aim ; 
 
 To fall back on my meaner world, and feel 5 
 Like one who, dwelling 'mid some smoke-dimmed town, — 
 
 In a brief pause of labour's sullen wheel, — 
 
 'Scaped from the street's dead dust and factory's frown, — 
 
 In stainless daylight saw the pure seas roll, 
 
 Saw mountains pillaring the perfect sky : 10' 
 Then journeyed home, to carry in his soul 
 
 The torment of the difference till he die. 
 
 - — William Watson. 
 
 THE LAST WORD. 
 
 Creep into thy narrow bed. 
 Creep, and let no more be said ! 
 Vain thy onset ! all stands fast. 
 Then thyself must break at last. 
 
 Let the long contention cease \ 5, 
 
 (ieese are swans and swans are geese. 
 Let them have it how they will ! 
 Thou art tired ; best be still. 
 
 They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee? 
 Better men fared thus before thee ; 10^ 
 i^'ired their ringing shot and pass'd, 
 Hotly charged — and sank at last. 
 
 Charge once more, then, and be dumb ! 
 
 Let the victors, when they come, 
 
 When the forts of folly fall, 15 
 
 Find thy body by the wall. 
 
 — Mattliero Arnold. 
 
APPENDIX. 353 
 
 PROSPICE. 
 
 Fear death ?— to feel the fog in my throat, 
 
 The mist in my face, 
 When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 
 
 I am nearing the place, 
 The power of the night, the press of the storm, 5 
 
 The post of the foe. 
 Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 
 
 Yet the strong man must go : 
 For the journey is done and the summit attained. 
 
 And the barriers fall, 10 
 
 Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 
 
 The reward of it all. 
 I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 
 
 The best and the last ! 
 I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 15 
 
 And bade me creep past. 
 N"o ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 
 
 The heroes of old, 
 Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 
 
 Of pain, darkness and cold. 20 
 
 For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 
 
 The black minute's at end. 
 And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 
 
 Shall dwindle, shall blend. 
 Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pam, 25 
 
 Then a light, then thy breast, 
 thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 
 
 And with God be the rest ! 
 
 — Robert Brownwg. 
 
 ALL SAINTS. 
 
 One feast, of holy days the crest, 
 
 I, though no Churchman, love to keep, 
 All-Saints, — the unknown good that rest 
 
 In God's still memory folded deep ; 
 The bravely dumb that did their deed, 
 
 And scorned to blot it with a name, 
 'en of the plain heroic breed, 
 
 Ikhat loved Heaven's silence more than fame. 
 
354 APPENDIX. 
 
 Such lived not in the past alone, 
 
 But thread to-day the unheeding street, !<-' 
 
 And stairs to Sin and Famine known, 
 
 Sing with the welcome of their feet ; 
 The den they enter grows a shrine, 
 
 The grimy sash an oriel burns, _ 
 Their cup of water warms like wine, 15 
 
 Their speech is filled from heavenly urns. 
 
 About their brows to me appears 
 
 An aureole traced in tenderest light, 
 The rainbow-gleam of smiles through tears 
 
 In dying eyes by them made bright, 
 Of souls that shivered on the edge 
 
 Of that chill ford repassed no more, 
 And in their mercy felt the pledge 
 
 And sweetness of the farther shore. 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 20 
 
 ''WHEN, IN DISGRACE WITH FORTUNE AND 
 MEN'S EYES." 
 
 When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 
 
 I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
 
 And look upon myself, and curse my fate. 
 
 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 5 
 
 Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, 
 
 Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
 
 With what I most enjoy contented least ; 
 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 
 Haply I think on thee, — and then my state, 10 
 
 Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 
 From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate ; 
 
 For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings. 
 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings, 
 
 — Shalcsiiere, 
 
APPENDIX. 355 
 
 THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. 
 
 At the cornel- of Wood street, when daylight appears, 
 Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years ; 
 Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard 
 In the silence of morning the song of the bird. 
 
 ""Tis a note of enchantment ; what ails her? She sees 5 
 
 A mountain ascending, a vision of trees ; 
 
 Bright columns of vapour through Lothbury glide, 
 
 And a river flows on througii the vale of Cheapside. 
 
 Crreea pastures she views in the midst of the dale, 
 
 Down which she so often has tripped with her pail ; 10 
 
 And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's. 
 
 The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. 
 
 She looks, and her heart is in heaven, but they fade, 
 
 The mist and the river, the hill and the shade ; 
 
 The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, 15 
 
 And the colours have all passed away from her eyes. 
 
 ^Villiam Woixlsivorih. 
 
 CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 
 
 (On the death of Lincoln.) 
 
 O Captain \ my Captain ! our fearful trip is done. 
 The ship has weathered every rock, the prize we soiight is won. 
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting. 
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring ; 
 But heart ! heart ! heart ! 5 
 
 O the bleeding drops of red, 
 
 When on the deck my Captain lies, 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
 
 Hise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 10 
 
 For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores a- 
 
 crowding. 
 For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; 
 Here Captain, dear father ! 
 
 This arm beneath your head ! 
 
 It is some dream that on the deck, 15 
 
 You've fallen cold and dead. 
 
356 APPENDIX. 
 
 My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
 My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will. 
 The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,. 
 From fearful trip the victor ship comes it with object won ; 20' 
 Exult shores, and ring bells ! 
 But I with mournful tread. 
 
 Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 — Walt Whitman. 
 
 COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, 
 SEPTEMBER 3, 1802. 
 
 Earth has not anything to show more fair : 
 
 Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
 
 A sight so touching in its majesty : 
 This city now doth, like a garment, wear 
 The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 5 
 
 Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
 
 Open unto the fields and to the sky ; 
 All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
 
 Never did sun more beautifully steep 
 
 In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ;,, IQ 
 
 Never saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! 
 
 The river glideth at his own sweet will ; 
 Dear God ! The very houses seem asleep, 
 
 And all that mightj' heart is lying still. 
 
 — Wiliiam Wordsworth.. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
 
 By all their country's wishes blest ! 
 
 When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
 
 Returns to deck their hallowed mould. 
 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod 5 
 
 Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 
 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung ; 
 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 
 There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; lo 
 
 And Freedom shall a while repair. 
 
 To dwell a weeping hermit there. 
 
 — William Collins. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 357 
 
 IX MEMORIAM, II. 
 
 
 Old Yew, which gi-aspest at the stones 
 That name the under-lying dead, 
 Thy fibres net the dreamless head. 
 
 Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 
 
 
 The seasons bring the flower again, 
 
 And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
 And in the dusk of thee, the clock 
 
 Beats out the little lives of men. 
 
 5- 
 
 not for thee the glow, the bloom, 
 Who changest not in any gale. 
 Nor branding summer suns avail 
 
 To touch thy thousand years of gloom : 
 
 10 
 
 And gazing on thee, sullen tree. 
 
 Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
 I seem to fail from out my blood 
 
 And grow incorporate into thee. 
 
 15 
 
 — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 
 MEMORABILIA. 
 
 
 Ah ! did you see Shelley plain, 
 And did he stop and speak to you, 
 
 And did you speak to him again ? 
 How strange it seems and new ! 
 
 
 But you were living before that, 
 And also you are living after ; 
 
 And the memory I startled at— 
 My startling moves your laughter ! 
 
 5 
 
 I crossed a moor, with a name of its own, 
 And a certain use in the world, no doubt, 
 
 Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 
 'Mid the blank miles round about. 
 
 10 
 
 For these I picked up on the heather 
 
 And there I put inside my breast 
 A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! 
 
 Well, I forget the rest. 
 
 — Robert Broicning. 
 
 15. 
 
858 APPENDIX. 
 
 ON HIS BLINDNESS. 
 
 When I consider how my light is spent 
 Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
 And that one talent which is death to hide, 
 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
 
 To serve therewith my Maker, and present 5 
 
 My true account, lest He, returning chide ; 
 " Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? " 
 
 I fondly ask ; but patience, to prevent 
 
 That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not need 
 
 Either man's work, or His own gifts ; who best 10 
 
 Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best ; His state 
 Is kingly ; thousands at His bidding speed, 
 And post o'er land and ocean witlioutrest ; 
 They also serve wlio only stand and wait." 
 
 ■ — John Milton, 
 
 TO AUTUMN. 
 
 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ! 
 
 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun ; 
 Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
 
 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run ; 
 To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5 
 
 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; 
 
 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
 
 W^ith a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, 
 And still more, later flowers for the bees. 
 Until they think warm days will never cease, 10 
 
 For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 
 
 Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store ? 
 
 Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
 Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
 
 Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind ; 15 
 
 Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep. 
 
 Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
 Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers ; 
 And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep 
 
 Steady thy laden head across a brook ; 20 
 
 Or l)y a cider-press, with patient look. 
 
 Thou Avatchest the last oozings, hours by hours. 
 
APPENDIX. 359 
 
 Where are the songs of Sjnirig ? Ay, where are they ? 
 
 Think not of them, Thou hast thy music too, 
 While barrM clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25 
 
 And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 
 Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
 Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
 
 Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; 
 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn ; 30 
 
 Hedge-crickets sing ; and now with treble soft 
 The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 
 And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 
 
 — John Keats. 
 
 THE CHAMBERED NA UTIL US. 
 
 This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
 
 Sails the unshadowed main, — 
 
 The venturous bark that flings 
 On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
 In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 5 
 
 And coral reefs lie bare, 
 Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 
 
 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 
 
 Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 
 
 And every chambered cell, 10 
 
 Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
 As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell. 
 
 Before thee lies revealed, — 
 Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 
 
 Year after year beheld the silent toil 15 
 
 That spread its lustrous coil ; 
 
 Still, as the spiral grew, 
 He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
 Stole with soft step its shining archway through. 
 
 Built up its idle door 
 
 20 
 
 Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 
 
 Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 
 
 Child of the wandering sea, 
 
 Cast from her lap forlorn ! 
 From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 25 
 
 Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 
 
-360 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 While on mine ear it rings, 
 Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — 
 Build thee more stately mansions, my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 
 Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 
 
 —Oliver Wendell Holmes< 
 
 30 
 
 35