Longfellow Day

As the birds come in the spring,We know not from where;As the stars come at eveningFrom depths of the air;

As the rain comes from the cloud.And the brook from the ground;As suddenly, low or loud.Out of silence a sound;

As the grape comes to the vine.The fruit to the tree;As the wind comes to the pine,And the tide to the sea;

As come the white sails of shipsO’er the ocean’s verge;As comes the smile to the lips,The foam to the surge;

So come to the Poet his songs,All hitherward blownFrom the misty realm that belongs-To the vast Unknown.

His, and not his, are the laysHe sings; and their fameIs his, and not his; and the praiseAnd the pride of a name.

For voices pursue him by dayAnd haunt him by night.And he listens and needs must obey.When the Angel says: “ Write!”

Between the dark and the daylight,When the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,That is known as the children’s hour.

I hear in the chamber above meThe patter of little feet,The sound of a door that is opened.And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,Descending the broad hall stair.Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence:Yet I know by their merry eyesThey are plotting and planning togetherTo take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,A sudden raid from the hall.By three doors left unguardedThey enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turretO’er the arms and back of my chair;If I try to escape, they surround me;They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses.Their arms about me entwine,Till I think of the Bishop of BingenIn his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti.Because you have scaled the wall.Such an old mustache as I amIs not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress.And will not let you depart.But put you down into the dungeonIn the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,Yes, forever and a day,Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,And moulder in dust away!

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,Passed o’er our village as the morning broke;The dawn was on their faces and beneath,The somber houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same.Alike their features and their robes of white;But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pass on their celestial way;Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,“Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betrayThe place where thy beloved are at rest!”

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,Descending at my door began to knock;And my soul sank within me, as in wellsThe waters sink before an earthquake’s shock.

I recognized the nameless agony,The terror and the tremor and the pain,That oft before had filled or haunted meAnd now returned with threefold strength again.

The door I opened to my heavenly guestAnd listened, for I thought I heard God’s voice;And, knowing whatso’er he sent was best.Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

Then with a smile that filled the house with light,“ My errand is not Death, but Life,” he said!And ere I answered, passing out of sight,On his celestial embassy he sped.

’Twas at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,The angel with the amaranthine wreath,Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,A shadow on those features fair and thin;And softly, from that hushed and darkened room.Two angels issued, where but one went in.

All is of God! If he but wave his hand.The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud.Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are his!Without his leave they pass no threshold o’er;Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this.Against his messengers to shut the door?

Somewhat back from the village streetStands the old-fashioned country-seat.Across its antique porticoTall poplar-trees their shadows throw;And from its station in the hallAn ancient timepiece says to all,—“Forever—never!Never—forever!”

Half-way up the stairs it stands,And points and beckons with his hands.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!Never—forever!“

By day its voice is low and light;But in the silent dead of night.Distinct as a passing footstep’s fall.It echoes along the vacant hall,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.Through days of death and days of birth,Through every swift vicissitudeOf changeful time, unchanged it has stood,And as if, like God, it all things saw.It calmly repeats those words of awe,—“Forever—never!Never—forever!”

In that mansion used to beFree-hearted Hospitality;His great fires up the chimney roared,The stranger feasted at his board;But, like the skeleton at the feast.That waiting timepiece never ceased,—“Forever—never!Never—forever!”

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.Those hours the ancient timepiece told,—“Forever—never!Never—forever!”

From that chamber, clothed in white,The bride came forth on her wedding night;There, in that silent room below.The dead lay in his shroud of snow;And in the hush that followed the prayer,Was heard the old clock on the stair,—“Forever—never!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?”As in the days long since gone by.The ancient timepiece makes reply,—“Forever—never!Never—forever!”

Never here, forever there,Where all parting, pain, and care,And death and time shall disappear,—Forever there, but never here!The horologe of EternitySayeth this incessantly,—“Forever—never!Never—forever!”

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!Sail on, O Union, strong and great!Humanity with all its fears,With all the hopes of future years.Is hanging breathless on thy fate!We know what master laid thy keel.What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel.Who made each mast, and sail, and rope.What anvils rang, what hammers beat,In what a forge and what a heatWere shaped the anchors of thy hope!Fear not each sudden sound and shock,’T is of the wave and not the rock;’T is but the flapping of the sail.And not a rent made by the gale!In spite of rock and tempest’s roar.In spite of false lights on the shore,Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears.Our faith triumphant o’er our fears.Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

All 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;Each thing in its place is best;And what seems but idle showStrengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise.Time, is with materials filled;Our to-days and yesterdaysAre the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;Leave no yawning gaps between;Think not, because no man sees,Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,Builders wrought with greatest careEach minute and unseen part;For the Gods see everywhere.

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 feetStumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,With a firm and ample base;And ascending and secureShall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attainTo those turrets, where the eyeSees the world as one vast plainAnd one boundless reach of sky.

Listen, my children, and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;Hardly a man is now aliveWho remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British marchBy land or sea from the town to-night,Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry archOf the North Church Tower as a signal light—One, if by land, and two, if by sea;And I on the opposite shore will be,Ready to ride and spread the alarmThrough every Middlesex village and farm,For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said, “ Good night!” and with muffled earSilently rowed to the Charlestown shore,Just as the moon rose over the bay.Where swinging wide at her moorings layThe Somerset, British man-of-war;A phantom ship, with each mast and sparAcross the moon like a prison bar,And a huge black hulk that was magnifiedBy its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street.Wanders and watches with eager ears.Till in the silence around him he hearsThe muster of men at the barrack door.The sound of arms and the tramp of feet.And the measured tread of the grenadiers,Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread.To the belfry-chamber overhead.And startled the pigeons from their perchOn the sombre rafters that round him madeMasses and moving shapes of shade,—By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,To the highest window in the wall,Where he paused to listen and look downA moment on the roofs of the town.And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath in the churchyard lay the dead,In their night-encampment on the hill.Wrapped in silence so deep and stillThat he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,The watchful night-wind, as it wentCreeping along from tent to tent.And seeming to whisper, “ All is well!”

A moment only he feels the spellOf the place and the hour, and the secret dreadOf the lonely belfry and the dead;For suddenly all his thoughts are bentOn a shadowy something far away,Where the river widens to meet the bay,—A line of black that bends and floatsOn the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

Booted and spurred, with a heavy strideOn the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.Now he patted his horse’s side.Now gazed at the landscape far and near,Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;But mostly he watched with eager searchThe belfry-tower of the Old North Church,As it arose above the graves on the hill,Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s heightA glimmer—and then a gleam of light!He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns.But lingers and gazes, till full on his sightA second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a sparkStruck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light.The fate of a nation was riding that night;And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight,Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep.And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep.Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;And under the alders, that skirt its edge,Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge.Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clockWhen he crossed the bridge into Medford town.He heard the crowing of the cockAnd the barking of the farmer’s dog,And felt the damp of the river fog.That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,When he galloped into Lexington.He saw the gilded weathercockSwim in the moonlight as he passed,And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,Gaze at him with a spectral glare.As if they already stood aghastAt the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,When he came to the bridge in Concord town.He heard the bleating of the flock,And the twitter of birds among the trees,And felt the breath of the morning breezeBlowing over the meadows brown.And one was safe and asleep in his bedWho at the bridge would be first to fall,Who that day would be lying dead,Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read.How the British Regulars fired and fled,—

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,From behind each fence and farm-yard wall.Chasing the red-coats down the lane.Then crossing the fields to emerge againUnder the trees at the turn of the road.And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm,A cry of defiance and not of fear,A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door.And a word that shall echo forever more;For borne on the night-wind of the past,Through all our history, to the last,In the hour of darkness and peril and need.The people will waken and listen to hearThe hurrying hoof-beats of that steed.And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Am I a king, that I should call my ownThis splendid ebon throne?Or by what reason or what—right divine,Can I proclaim it mine?Only, perhaps, by right divine of songIt may to me belong;Only because the spreading chestnut treeOf old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime.When in the summer-timeThe affluent foliage of its branches madeA cavern of cool shade.

There, by the blacksmith’s forge, beside the street,Its blossoms white and sweetEnticed the bees, until it seemed aliveAnd murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout.Tossed its great arms about.The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,Dropped to the ground beneath.

And now some fragments of its branches bare.Shaped as a stately chair,Have by my hearthstone found a home at lastAnd whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his prideRepel the ocean tide;But seated in this chair, I can in rhyme,Roll back the tide of time.

I see again, as one in vision sees.The blossoms and the bees.And hear the children’s voices shout and call,And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow,I hear the bellows blow,And the shrill hammers on the anvil beatThe iron white with heat!

And thus, dear children, have ye made for meThis day a jubilee.And to my more than three-score years and tenBrought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind.And in it are enshrinedThe precious keepsakes, into which is wroughtThe giver’s loving thought.

Only your love and your remembrance couldGive life to this dead wood.And makes these branches, leafless now so long.Blossom again in song.

I stood on the bridge at midnight,As the clocks were striking the hour,And the moon rose o’er the city.Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflectionIn the waters under me,Like a golden goblet fallingAnd sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distanceOf that lovely night in June,The blaze of the flaming furnaceGleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black raftersThe wavering shadows lay.And the current that came from the oceanSeemed to lift and bear them away;

As, sweeping and eddying through them,Rose the belated tide.And streaming into the moonlight,The seaweed floated wide.

And like those waters rushingAmong the wooden piers,A flood of thoughts came o’er meThat filled my eyes with tears.

How often, O how often.In the days that had gone by,I had stood on that bridge at midnightAnd gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O how often,I had wished that the ebbing tideWould bear me away on its bosomO’er the ocean wild and wide!

For my heart was hot and restless,And my life was full of care,And the burden laid upon meSeemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me.It is buried in the sea;And only the sorrow of othersThrows its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the riverOn its bridge with wooden piers,Like the odor of brine from the oceanComes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousandsOf care-encumbered men.Each bearing his burden of sorrow.Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long processionStill passing to and fro.The young heart hot and restless,And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever.As long as the river flows.As long as the heart has passions,As long as life has woes.

The moon and its broken reflectionAnd its shadows shall appear,As the symbols of love in heaven,And its wavering image here.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,And thou shalt know ere long,Know how sublime a thing it isTo suffer and be strong.

Thus by aspirations lifted,By misgivings downward driven,Human hearts are tossed and driftedMidway between earth and heaven.

Whatsoever thing thou doestTo the least of mind and lowest.That thou doest unto Me!

Spake full well in language quaint and olden,One who dwelt beside the castled Rhine,When he called the flowers, so blue and golden.Stars that in earth’s firmament do shine.

Come to me, O ye children!And whisper in my earWhat the birds and the winds are singingIn your sunny atmosphere.

Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems.And all the rest are dead.

When e’er a noble deed is wrought.When e’er is spoken a noble thought,Our hearts in glad surpriseTo higher levels rise.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition.This life of mortal breathIs but the suburb of the life elysianWhose portal we call Death.

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time.

God sent his singers upon earthWith songs of sadness and of mirth.That they might touch the hearts of men.And bring them back to heaven again.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street,Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng.But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

We shall be sifted till the strengthOf self-conceit be changed at lengthTo meekness.

Storms do not rend the sail that is furled;Nor, like a dead leaf, tossed and whirledIn an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul.

All common things, each day’s eventsThat with the hour begin and end.Our pleasures and our discontents.Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The heights by great men reached and kept,Were not attained by sudden flight,But they, while their companions slept.Were toiling upward in the night.

*****And Nature, the old nurse, tookThe child upon her knee,Saying: “Here is a storybookThy Father has written for thee.”

“ Come, wander with me,” she said;“Into regions yet untrod;And read what is still unreadIn the manuscripts of God.”

So he wandered away and awayWith Nature, the dear old nurse,Who sang to him night and dayThe rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long.Or his heart began to fail,She would sing a more wonderful song.Or tell a more marvelous tale.*****