LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. W aA/XAX^^\A ( ^<>-,,,.,^ «L5^x^t»-i-.j> THE Longfellow Birthday-Book. ARRANGED BY CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES. fyryiJ^ If any thought of mine, or sung or told, Has ever given delight or consolation, Ye have repaid me back a thousandfold, By every friendly sign and salutation, Dedication to TJte Seaside and Fireside. yo- :S BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 1881. v(<^ Cop3Tight, 1881, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co PREFACE. In this compilation, what the author has written, either in prose or verse, regarding noted persons, has, with few exceptions, been set opposite their respective birth- days. Here and there, also, passages have been arbitrarily applied to indicate some trait, of life or work in the character or characters on whose day they appear. In such cases, the author may say with rea- son, — " Thou hast given My wbrds a meaning foreign to my thought." This appropriation of material, however, iii PREFACE. to an individual use, is not uniform, but occasional, as a glance at the pages will discover. Were it possible to make the words of one author serve the demands of two or three hundred birthdays, and use them with just and critical discrimi- nation, it would require twelve months, surely, instead of three. In presenting to Mr. Longfellow this arrangement of portions of his work, mar- ring the otherwise deep satisfaction of the oflfice, is this regret : that shortness of space has so often broken the graceful stem by which some blossom of thought was to be held, and that hasty handling or pressure of place has sometimes torn from the very blossom the sepals which complete its beauty. c. f. b. tj-zrbo ^ou-<^^' ^^ l^cxl^^- ""h 3(iinuatp* Janus am I ; oldest of potentates ! Forward I look and backward, and below I count — as god of avenues and gates — The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads and drift the fields with snow, I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen ; My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. Written for tJie Children's Almanac. January i. Time has a Doomsday-Book upon whose pages he is constantly recording illustrious names. But, as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated char- acters, never to be effaced. Hyperion. All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time : Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. The Builders. January 2. He had not advanced one step, — not one. The same dreams, the same longings, the same aspira- tions, the same indecision. A thousand things had been planned, and none completed. Kavanagh. 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. The Ladder of St. Augustine. And though the warrior's sun has set, Its light shall linger round us yet, — Bright, radiant, blest. CoPLAS DE Manrique, Tr.from the Spanish. Z January i. Calderon, 1601 ; E. Burke, 1730; Maria Edgeworth, 1767. January 2. General Wolfe, 1737. January 3. He . . . desired that the organist should relin- quish the old and pernicious habit of preluding \Yith triumphal marches, and running his fingers at ran- dom over the keys of his instrument, playing scraps of secular music very slowly, to make them sacred — and substitute instead, some of the beautiful sjTuphonies of Pergolesi, Palestrina, and Sebastian Bach. Kavanagh. While the majestic organ rolled Contrition from its mouths of gold. The Singers. — • January 4. No more ! Oh, how majestically mournful are those words ! They sound like the roar of the wind through a forest of pines ! Hyperion. How beautiful is youth ! how bright it gleams With its illusions, aspirations, dreams ! Book of Beginnings, Story without End, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend ! All possibilities are in its hands, No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands ; In its sublime audacity of faith, " Be thou removed ! " it to the mountain^saith. And with ambitious feet, secure and proud, Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud ! MORITURI SaLUTAMUS. 4 January 3. Cicero, B. C, 107; Pergolesi, 1710; D. Jerrold, 1S03 January 4. J. Usher, 1580; J. L. C- Grimm, 17S5. January 5. The rays of happiness like those of light are col- orless when unbroken. Kavanagh. I do not love thee less for what is done, And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth My love will have a sense of pity in it, Making it less a worship than before. The Masque of Pandora. January 6. Let the good and the great be honored even in the grave. Let the sculptured marble direct our footsteps to the scene of their long sleep ; let the chiselled epitaph repeat their names, and tell us where repose the nobly good and wise ! Outre-Mer. Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still travelling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men. Charles Sumner. The angels sang in heaven when she was born. The Spanish Student. 6 January 5. B Rush, 1745; T. Pringle, 17S9; Jovellanos, 1803. January 6. Joan of Arc, 1402; Metastasio, 1698; Charles Sumner, 181 1. January 7. Oh, how wonderful is the human voice ! It is in- deed the organ of the soul ! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye ; and the heart of man is written upon his coun- tenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only. Hyperion. 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 Day is Done. January 8. " Alas ! " said he with a sigh ; " and must my life, then, always be like the Sabbatical river of the Jews, flowing in full stream only on the seventh day, and sandy and arid all the rest .'"' Kavanagh. Don't cross the bridge till you come to it, Is a jDroverb old, and of excellent wit. The Golden Legend. A grave and sombre man, whose beetling brow O'erhangs the rushing current of his speech As rocks o'er rivers hang. The Spanish Student. 8 January 7. J C. Fabricius, 1742 ; R. Nicoll, 1814. January 8. C. F. Weisse, 1726. January 9. From that hour forth he resolved that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of circum- stance, — no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. Hyperion. The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed. The Light of Stars. January 10. Longing to depart upon the fair journey before her, and yet lingering on the paternal threshold, as if she wished both to stay and to go. Kavanagh. Thus it is our daughters leave us. Those we love, and those who love us ! Just when they have learned to help us. When we are old and lean upon them, Comes a youth.with flaunting feathers. With his flute of reeds, a stranger Wanders piping through the village. Beckons to the fairest maiden. And she follows where he leads her, Leaving all things for the stranger ! Hiawatha. 10 January 9, January 10. II January ii. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion ! Kavanagh. Traveller ! in what realms afar, In what planet, in what star. In what vast, aerial space, Shines the light upon thy face ? Poet, thou, whose latest verse Was a garland on thy hearse ; Thou hast sung, with organ tone. In Deukalion's life, thine own. Bayard Taylor. January 12. The power to embody the indefinite, and render perfect is his. Hyperion. Poet ! I come to touch thy lance with mine ; Not as a knight, who on the listed field Of tourney touched his adversary's shield In token of defiance, but in sign Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, In English song ; nor will I keep concealed. And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, My admiration for thy verse divine. Not of the howling dervishes of song, Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart ! Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong. To thee our love and our allegiance. For thy allegiance to the poet's art. Wapentake. To Alfred Tennyson. 12 January ii. Parmlgiano, 1503; Bayard Taylor, 1825. January 12. Gov. Winthrop, 15S8; Pestalozzi, 1746; Alfred Tennyson, iSio. 13 January 13. Tone, act, attitude and look, — the signals upon the countenance, — the electric telegraph of touch ; all these betray the yielding citadel before the word itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, opens every avenue and gate of entrance, and makes retreat impossible ! K^v^nagh. Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, myste- rious instincts ! Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are moments, Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall adamantine ! The Courtship of Miles Standish. January 14. It is truly a wondrous winter ! what summer sunshine ! what soft Venetian fogs ! How the wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray- beard trees ! Such weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace ! Hyperion. Decide not rashly. The decision made Can never be recalled. The gods implore not, Plead not, solicit not ; they only offer Choice and occasion, which once being passed Return no more. Dost thou accept the gift ? The Masque of Pandora. 14 January 13. p. Freneau, 1752 ; S. Woodworth, 1785. January 14. A. G. Czartoryski, 17; 15 January 15. We are not to suppose that all who take holy orders are saints ; but we should be still further from believing that all are hypocrites. Outre-Mer. And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me Alone into the sacristy ; You, who should be a guide to your brothers, And are ten times worse than all the others, For you I 've a draught that has long been brew- ing, You shall do a penance worth the doing. The Golden Legend. January 16. " A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, in- deed, do these poor devil authors have of it," re- plied the Baron. Hyperion. Him whom thou dost once enamor. Thou, beloved, never leavest ; In life's discord, strife and clamor. Still he feels thy spell of glamour ; Him of hope thou ne'er bereavest. Epimetheus. t6 January 15. Mollere, 1622; S. Parr, 1747; Talma, 1763. January i6. Richard Savage, 1697. January 17. " Did it ever occur to you that he [Goethe] was in some points like Ben Franklin ? The practical tendency of his mind was the same ; his love of science was the same ; his benignant, philosophic spirit was the same ; and a vast number of his little poetic maxims and soothsayings seem nothing more than the worldly wisdom of Poor Richard, versified." Hyperion. All the means of action — The shapeless masses, the materials — Lie everywhere about us. What we need Is the celestial fire to change the flint Into transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius. The Spanish Student. • January 18. The search after truth and freedom, both intel- lectual and spiritual, became a passion in his soul. Kavanagh. And in the wreck of noble lives, Something immortal still survives. The Building of the Ship. When I look from my window at night, And the welkin above is all white, All throbbing and panting with stars ; Among them majestic is standing Sandalphon the angel, expanding His pinions in nebulous bars. Sandalphon. January 17. Benjamin Franklin, 1706; Alfieri, 1749. January i8. Montesquieu, 1689; J. Gillies, 1747; Daniel Webster, 1782. 19 January 19. When I read his strange fancies ... a feeling of awe and mysterious dread comes over me. I wish to hear the sound of living voice or footstep near me — to see a friendly and familiar face. Hyperion. At the window winks the flickering firelight ; Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, Social watch-fires Answering one another through the darkness. The Golden IMile-stone. Alas ! to-day I would give everything To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice That had the slightest tone of comfort in it. , * Judas Maccab^eus. January 20. " Nothing done ! nothing done ! " exclaimed he, as he wended his way homeward, musing and med- itating. " And shall all these lofty aspirations end in nothing ? " Kavanagh. Disenchantment ! Disillusion ! Must each noble aspiration Come at last to this conclusion, Jarring discord, wild confusion, Lassitude, renunciation ! Epimetheus All common things, each day's events. That with the hour begin and end, Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend. The Ladder of St. Augustine. 20 January 19. B. St. Pierre, 1737 ; Edgar A. Poe, January 20. J. J. Barthelemy, 1716; H. T. von Schon, 1773. January 21. In the press of our life it is difficult to be calm. The voices of the Present say, " Come ! " But the voices of the Past say, " Wait ! " Hyperion. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate ; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. A Psalm of Life. • January 22. So much to pardon — so much to pity — so much to admire ! Hyperion. How the Titan, the defiant, The self-centred, self reliant Wrapped in visions and illusions, Robs himself of life's best gifts ! The Masque of Pandora. And the legend, I feel, is a part Of the hunger and thirst of the heart, The frenzy and fire of the brain, 'l"hat grasps at the fruitage forbidden, The golden pomegranates of Eden, To quiet its fever and pain. Sandalphon. Noble art thou in thy birth Be noble in every thought And in every deed ! The Golden Legend. January 21. Lord Erskine, 1750; C. Folleii, 1794. January 22. Lord Bacon, 1561; P. Gassendi, 1592; Lord B\'ron, January 23. As the heart is, so is love to the heart. It par- takes of its strength or weakness, its health or dis- ease. Kavanagh. Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone ; Is the central point, from which he measures Every distance Through the gateways of the world around him. In his farthest wanderings still he sees it ; Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind, As he heard them When he sat with those who were, but are not. The Golden Mile-stone. January 24. It is worth a student's while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and midnight did their work like fiends upon the delicate frame of Hoffman, and no less thoroughly upon his delicate mind. . . . He was a man of rare intellect . . . but the fire of his genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame, upon the hearth of his home. Hyperion. Touch the goblet no more ! It will make thy heart sore To its very core ! The Golden Legend. I tremble for him. I know his nature, devious as the wind. And swift to change, gentle and yielding always. Be steadfast, O my son ! Judas Maccabeus. 24 January 23. F. von Matthisson, 1761 ; B. R. Haydon, 17S6. January 24. Frederick the Great, 1712; C. J. Fox, 1749; Hoffmann, 1776. 25 January 25. Surely, it is a characteristic trait of a great and liberal mind, that it recognizes humanity in all its forms and conditions. Hyperion. He sings of love, whose flame illumes The darkness of lone cottage rooms ; He feels the force, The treacherous under-tow and stress. Of wayward passions, and no less The keen remorse. But still the burden of his song Is love of right, disdain of wrong ; Its master-chords Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood ; Its discords but an interlude. Between the words. Robert Burns. January 26. The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine ; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, — the taste and strain from the lees of the vat. Dkift-Wood. Oh fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know erelong, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong. The Light of Stars. For thee old legends breathed historic bieath. Three Friends of Mine {Sonnet to Felton). 26 January 25. Boyle, 1626; F. H. Jacobi, 1743; Robert Burns, 1759. January 26. Thomas Noon Talfourd, 1795 27 January 27. In the evening they heard the glorious Don Gio- vanni of Mozart. Of all operas, this was Flem- ming's favorite. What rapturous flights of sound ! what thrilling, pathetic chimes ! what wild, joyous revelry of passion I what a delirium of sense ! what an expression of agony and woe ! — all the feelings of suffering and rejoicing humanity sympathized with and finding a voice in those tones. Hyperion. The multiplied, wild harmonies Freshened and burst into a gale ; A tempest howling through the dark, A crash as of some shipwrecked bark, A loud and melancholy wail. 'Interlude before the Musician's Tale, Wayside Inn. • January 28. Winter is here in earnest ! How the old churl whistles and threshes the snow ! Sleet and rain are falling too. Already the trees are bearded with icicles ; and the two broad branches of yon- der pine look like the white mustache of some old German baron. Hyperion. Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow, We will stand by each other, however it blow. Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain Shall be to our true love as links to the chain. Annie of Tharaw, Translated from Simo7t Dach. January 27. R. Bentley, 1661 ; Mozart, 1756- January 28. 29 January 29. Thou glorious spirit-land ! Oh, that I could be- hold thee as thou art, — the region of life and light and love, and the dwelling-place of those beloved ones whose being has flowed onward, like a silver- clear stream into the solemn-sounding main, into the ocean of Eternity ! Hyperion. The spirit-world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense A vital breath of more ethereal air. Haunted Houses. January 30. We cannot suppose that a period of time will ever arrive, when the world, or any considerable portion of it, shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to comprehend them. Hyperion. Beautiful is the tradition Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition Of the theft and the transmission Of the fire of the Immortals ! Prometheus. 30 January 29. Swedenborg, 1688; T. Paine, 1737- January 30. Walter Savage Landor, 1775. 31 January 31. An enlightened mind . - . is not hoodwinked ; it is not shut up in a gloomy prison, till it thinks the walls of its own dungeon the limits of the universe, and the reach of its own chain the outer verge of all intelligence. Drift-Wood. Let us then labor for an inward stillness, — An inward stillness and an inward healing ; That perfect silence where the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions. But God alone speaks in us, and we wait In singleness of heart, that we may know His will, and in the silence of our spirits, That we may do his will, and do that only ! New England Tragedies. January 31. p. Horberg, 1746; Bernard Barto'i, 1784; F. Schubert, 1797. Z2 THE TWO RIVERS. Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round ; So slowly that no human eye hath power To see it move ! Slowly in shine or shower The painted ship above it, homeward bound, Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground ; Yet both arrive at last ; and in his tower The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour, A mellow, measured, melancholy sound. Midnight ! the outpost of advancing day ! The frontier town and citadel of night ! The watershed of Time, from which the streams Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way, One to the land of promise and of light, One to the land of darkness and of dreams ! 34 fcBruarp* SNOW-FLAKES. Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent syllables recorded ; This is the secret of despair. Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Now whispered and revealed To wood and field. 35 February i. The winter did not pass without its peculiar de- h'ghts and recreations. The singing of the great wood-fires ; the blowing of the wind over the chim- ney tops, as if they were organ pipes ; the splendor of the spotless snow ; the purple wall built round the horizon at sunset ; the sea-suggesting pines, with the moan of the billows in their branches, on which the snows were furled like sails ; the north- ern lights ; the stars of steel ; the transcendent moonlight, and the lovely shadows of the leafless trees upon the snow ; — these things did not pass unnoticed nor unremembered. Kavanagh. By the fireside there are peace and comfort, Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces, Waiting, watching For a well-known footstep in the passage. The Golden Mile-stone. February 2, Peace ! peace ! Why dost thou question God's providence ? " Hy PERION. 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 ? The Two Angels. 36 February i. E. Coke, 1551; L T. Rosegarten, 175S. February 2. J. Nichols, 1744. 37 February 3. How the chorus swells and dies, like the wind of summer ! How those passages of mysterious im- port seem to wave to and fro, like the swaying branches of trees ; from which anon some solitary sweet voice darts off like a bird, and floats away and revels in the bright, warm sunshine ! Hyperion. How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives ! MORITUKI SaLUTAMUS. February 4. . The passing years had drunk a portion of the light from her eyes, and left their traces on her cheeks, as birds that drink at lakes leave their footprints on the margin. But the pleasant smile remained, and reminded him of the bygone days. Kavanagh. Can it be so ! Or does my sight Deceive me in the uncertain light .-' Ah, no ! I recognize that face, Though Time has touched it in his flight, And changed the auburn hair to white. The Golden Legend. 38 February 3. Mendelssohn, 1809 : Elisha Kent Kane, iS February 4. G. Lillo; 1693; J. Quincy, 1772; M. Hopkins, 1802. 39 February 5. Wonderful and many were the soft accords and plaintive sounds that came from that little instru- ment, touched by the clever hand. Every feeling of the human heart seemed to find an expression there, and awaken a kindred feeling in the hearts of those who heard him. Hyperion. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, His figure tall and straight and lithe, And every feature of his face Revealing his Norwegian race ; A radiance, streaming from within, Around his eyes and forehead beamed. The Angel with the violin, Painted by Raphael, he seemed. Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. He is dead, the sweet musician ! He has moved a little nearer To the Master of all music ! Hiawatha. February 6. The natural alone is permanent. Kavanagh. Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart, Feeding its flame. The Spanish Student. Kind messages, that pass from land to land ; Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history, In which we feel the pressure of a hand, — One touch of fire, — and all the rest is mystery ! Dedication to The Seaside and Fireside. 40 February 5. J. Lingard, 1771; R. Peel, 17SS; Ole B. Bull, 1810. February 6. Madame Sevign^, 1626. 41 February 7. Over all he sees, over all he writes, are spread the sunbeams of a cheerful spirit — the light of in- exhaustible human love. As in real life, so in his writings — the serious and the comic, the sublime and the grotesque, the pathetic and the ludicrous are mingled together. Hyperion. The day is ending, The night is descending ; The marsh is frozen, The river dead. Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes On village windows That glimmer red. An Afternoon in February. February 8. Some critics are like chimney-sweepers : they put out the fire below, or frighten the swallows from their nests above ; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing from the top of the house as if they had built it. Drift-Wood. Thus he grew up, in Logic point-device, Perfect in Grammar, and in Rhetoric nice. Emma and Eginhard. Ah ! vainest of all things Is the gratitude of kings ! Belisarius. 42 February 7. Charles Dickens, i8i2. February 8. T. A. D'Aubigne, 1550; Samuel Butler, 1612. 43 February 9. There was no sympathy between them. Their souls never approached, never understood each other, and words were often spoken which wounded deeply. Hyperion. Thou speakest truly, poet ! and methinks More hearts are breaking in this world of ours Than one would say. The Spanish Student. O weary hearts ! O slumbering eyes ! O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain. Ye shall be loved again ! Endymion. February 10. Songs of departed glory are the privilege of a conquered people, and prophetic hopes are a con- solation seldom wanting to the oppressed. Drift-Wood. Pride and humiliation hand in hand Walked with them through the world where'er they went ; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, And yet unshaken as the continent. The Jewish Cemetery at Newport. 44 February 9. D. Bernouilli, 1700; C C. Volney, i757- February io. Henry Hart Milman, 1791 ; James Smith, 1775. 45 February ii. O glorious thought ! that lifts me above the power of time and chance, and tells me that I can- not pass away, and leave no mark of my existence. Outre-Mer. And the trembling maiden held her breath At the tales of the awful, pitiless sea, With all its terror and mystery. The Building of the Ship, The skilful hand that wrote The Indian tale of Hobomok, And Philothea's classic page. Interlude before the Sicilian's Tale. So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good. So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure. The Golden Legend. February 12. The sword of his spirit had been forged and beaten by poverty. It was not broken, not even blunted, but rather strengthened and sharpened, by the blows it gave and received. Hyperion. Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! Humanity with all its fears, With all its hopes of future years. Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! The Building of the Ship. 46 February ii. Fontenelle, 1657 ; W. Falconer, 1732 ; Lydia Maria Child, 1S02, February 12. La-Motte-Fouque, 1777; Abraham Lincoln, iSog. 47 February 13. The full soul is silent. Only the rising and fall- ing tides rush murmuring througlr their channels. Kavanagh. That was the first sound in the song of love ! Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude to our fate. We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone. The Spanish Student. A man of forecast and of thrift, And of a shrewd and careful mind In this world's business, but inclined Somewhat to let the next world drift. The Cobbler of Hagenau. February 14. Sooner or later, some passages of every one's romance must be written either in words or actions. Hyperion. No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own. Responds, — as if with unseen wings, An angel touched its quivering strings ; And whispers, in its song, " Where hast thou stayed so long ? '' Endymion. 48 February 13. Talleyrand, i754- February 14. C. R. von Gluck, 171. 49 February 15. Oh, did we but know when we are happy ! Could the restless, feverish, ambitious heart be still, but for a moment still, and yield itself, without one farther-aspiring throb, to its enjoyment, — then were I happy, — yes, thrice happy ! Outre-Mer. O lost days of delight, that are wasted in doubting and waiting ! O lost hours and days in which we might have been happy ! Elizabeth. ♦ — February 16. And ever faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent from those mountainous clouds Thus the evening set in ; and winter stood at the gate wag- ging his white and shaggy beard, like an old harper chanting an old rhyme : " How cold it is ! how cold It is ! " Hyperion. Philip Melancthon ! thou alone Faithful among the faithless known. My Philip, in the night-time sing This song of the Lord I send to thee ; And I will sing it for thy sake. Until our answering voices make A glorious an ti phony, And choral chant of victory! Second Interlude to N. E. Tragedies, Martin Luther. 50 February 15. R. W. Griswold, 1815. February i6. Philip Melancthon, 1497; Baron von Trenck, 1726. February 17. If we could read the secret history of our ene- mies, we should find in each man's life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Drift-Wood. I pledge you in this cup of grief, Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf ! The Battle of our Life is brief, The alarm, — the struggle, — the relief, Then sleep we side by side. The Goblet of Life. February 18. Did you ever read Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany ? an ode which seems to have been poured out of the author's soul, as from a golden pitcher. Hyperion. Even Redi, though he chanted Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, Never drank the wine he vaunted In his dithyrambic sallies. Then with water fill the pitcher Wreathed about with classic fables ; Ne'er Falernian threw a richer Light upon Lucullus' tables. Drinking Song. Inscription for an Antique Pitcher. His gracious presence upon earth Was as a fire upon a hearth. The Golden Legend. 52 February 17. -♦ — February 18. Redi, 1626; Charles Lamb, 1775; George Peabody, 1795. 53 February 19. There is something divine in the science of num- bers. Like God, it holds the sea in the hollow of its hand. It measures the earth; it weighs the stars ; it illumines the universe ; it is law, it is order, it is beauty. Kavanagh. I saw, as in a dream sublime, The balance in the hand of Time. O'er East and West its beam impended ; And day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight. While, opposite, the scale of night, Silently with the stars ascended. The Occultation of Orion. February 20. I have a strange fancy . . . whenever I come to the theatre, to see the end of all things. When the crowd is gone, and the curtain raised again to air the house, and the lamps are all out, save here and there one behind the scenes, the contrast with what has gone before is most impressive ... a com- mentary on the play, and makes the show com- plete. Hyperion. Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, Let us be merciful as well as just ! Emma and Eginhard. This is my birth-day, and a happier one Was never mine. The Divine Tragedy. 54 February 19. Copernicus, 1473; R. Cumberland, 1732; W. W. Story, 1819. February 20. Voltaire, 1694; David Garrick, 17 16. 55 February 21. He had but passed from one chapel to another in the same vast cathedral. He was still beneath the same ample roof, still heard the same divine service chanted in a different dialect of the same universal language. Kavanagh. Love is the Holy Ghost within ; Hate, the unpardonable sin ! Who preaches otherwise than this, Betrays his Master with a kiss ! Christus. First Interlude. February 22. These are the high nobility of Nature. . . . Pos- terity shall never question their titles. Hyperion. The name that dwells on every tongue No minstrel needs. CopLAS DE Manrique, Tr. from the Spanish. Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, Some one hath lingered to meditate, And send him unseen this friendly greeting : That many another hath done the same, Though not by a sound was the silence broken ; The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken. The Herons of Elmwood. 56 February 21. John Henry Newman, iSoi February 22. Washington, 1732; James Russell Lowell, 1819. 57 February 23. Truly, the love of home is interwoven with all that is pure, and deep, and lasting in earthly affec- tion. Let us wander where we may, the heart looks back with secret longing to the paternal roof. Hyperion. Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, Nor the march of the encroaching city Drives an exile From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. We may build more splendid habitations, Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, But we cannot Buy with gold the old associations ! The Golden Mile-stone. February 24. Have you real talent, — real feeling for art } Then study music, — do something worthy of the art, — and dedicate your whole soul to the beloved saint. If without this you have a fancy for quavers and demi-semi-quavers, practise for yourself and by yourself, and torment not therewith the Capell- meister Kreisler and others. Hyperion. Yea, music is the prophets' art ; Among the gifts that God hath sent, One of the most magnificent ! Christus. Second Interlude. 5S February 23. Samuel Pepys, 1632; William Mason, 1725. February 24. G. F. Handel, 16S4; George William Curtis, 1S24. 59 February 25. Her form arose, like a tremulous evening-star, in the firmament of his soul. He conversed with her, and with her alone ; and knew not when to go. All others were to him as if they were not there. He saw their forms, but saw them as the forms of in- animate things. Hyperion. Thy face is fair ; There is a wonder in thine azure eyes That fascinates me. Thy whole presence seems A soft desire, a breathing thought of love. Say, would thy star like Merope's grow dim If thou shouldst wed beneath thee .-* The Masque of Pandora. • February 26. Nature is a revelation of God ; Art, a revelation of man. Indeed, Art signifies no more than this, Art is Power. His fame was great in all the land. Emma and Eginhard. Come to me, O ye children ! For I hear you at your play. And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away. Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said ; For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead. Children. 60 t EBRUARY 25. Germain de St. Foix, 1703. February 26. F. J. D. Arago, 1786; Victor Hugo, 1802. 61 February 27. If there be a sympathy between the minds of the writer and reader, the bounds and barriers of a for- eign tongue are soon overleaped. ... In every man he loves his humanity only, not his superiority. Hyperion. Ah, yes ! we all Love him, from the bottom of our hearts. The Golden Legend. He the sweetest of all singers. All the many sounds of nature Borrowed sweetness from his singing; All the hearts of men were softened By the pathos of his music ; For he sang of peace ancj freedom, Sang of beauty, love, and longing ; Sang of death, and life undying In the Islands of the Blessed. Hiawatha. Only those are crowned and sainted Who with grief have been acquainted, Making nations nobler, freer. Prometheus. • — February 28. Every twig and shrub, with its sheath of crystal, flashed in the level rays of the rising sun. Outre-Mer. A man of mark. Saga of King Olaf. Never any marvellous story But himself could tell a stranger. Hiawatha. 62 February 27. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1S07. February 28. Michael de Montaigne, 1533; R- A. F. Reaumur, 1683. 63 February 29. He resolved henceforward not to lean on others ; but to walk self-confident and self-possessed ; — no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires ; but to live in the Present wisely, alike for- getful of the Past, and careless of what the myste- rious Future might bring. And from that moment he was calm and strong; he was reconciled with himself. Hyperion. Assert thyself ; rise up to thy full height ; Shake from thy soul these dreams effeminate. These passions born of indolence and ease. Resolve, and thou art free. The Masque of Pandora. 64 February 29. Edward Cave, 1692; G. Rossini, 1792. 65 THREE FRIENDS OF MINE. When I remember them, those friends of mine, Who are no longer here, the noble three, Who half my life were more than friends to me, And whose discourse was like a generous wine, I most of all remember the divine Something, that shone in them, and made us see The archetypal man, and what might be The amplitude of Nature's first design. In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands ; I cannot find them. Nothing now is left But a majestic memory. They meanwhile Wander together in Elysian lands, Perchance remembering me, who am bereft Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile. 66 a^arcl)* WOODS IN WINTER. When winter winds are piercing chill, And through the hawthorn blows the gale, With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale. Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs Pour out the river's gradual tide. Shrilly the skater's iron rings. And voices fill the woodland side. Alas ! how changed from the fair scene, When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green, And the song ceased not with the day ! But still wild music is abroad, Pale, desert woods ! within your crowd ; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud. Chill airs and wintry winds ! my ear Has grown familiar with your song ; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and it cheers me long. ^1 March i. The silent falling of the snow is to me one of the most solemn things in Nature. The fall of au- tumnal leaves does not so much affect me. Hyperion. Then over the waste of snows The noonday sun uprose, Through the driving mists revealed Like the lifting of the Host, By incense-clouds almost Concealed. The Saga of King Olaf, Be patient ; Time will reinstate Thy health and fortunes. The Golden Legend. March 2. From day to day, and from year to year, the triv- ial things of life postponed the great designs which he felt capable of accomplishing, but never had the resolute courage to begin. Kavan.\gh. We have not wings, we cannot soar ; But we have feet to scale and climb By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy summits of our time. The Ladder of St. Augustine. There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town, Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night. Monte Cassino. 68 March i. Sir Samuel Romilly, 1757- March 2. Juvenal, 40 a. d. ; Sir T. Bodley, 1544. 69 March 3. If it be painful to see this misunderstanding be- tween scholars and the world, ... it is still more painful to see the private suffering of authors by profession. How many have languished in pov- erty ! Hyperion. The dead laurels of the dead Rustle for a moment only. And I answer, — " Though it be, Why should that discomfort me ? No endeavor is in vain ; Its reward is in the doing, And the rapture of pursuing Is the prize the vanquished gain." The Wind Over the Chimney. March 4. Why perplex the spirit of a child with these met- aphysical subtleties, these dark, mysterious specu- lations, which man, in all his pride of intellect, can- not fathom or explain ? Outre-Mer. 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. Resignation. 70 March 3. Edmund Waller, 1605; Thomas Otway, 1651 March 4. Lord Somers, 1652; Karl Lachmann, 1793. 71 March 5. A melancholy train of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of this world are so strikingly mingled ! Our mirth and grief are brought so mournfully in contact ! We laugh when others weep, and others rejoice when we are sad ! Tiie light heart and the heavy walk side by side and go about together ! Outre-Mer. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way ; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. A Psalm of Life. And all men loved him for his modest grace And comeliness of figure and of face. Emma and Eginhard. March 6. What we call miracles and wonders of Art are not so to him who created them ; for they were created by the natural movements of his own great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows of himself; — shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. Hyperion. Nothing the greatest artist can conceive That every marble block doth not confine Within itself ; and only its design, The hand that follows intellect can achieve. The Artist. A Sonnet tr./rom Michael A ng^elo. 72 MARCH 5. James Madison, 1751 March 6. Michaelangelo Buonaiotti, 1475; Sir Charles Napier, 12 March 7. I venerate old age ; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding ! Outre-Mer. The wind, the rain, have passed away ; The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright, The house is full of life and light : It is the Golden Wedding Day. The ancient bridegroom and the bride Smiling contented and serene Upon the blithe, bewildering scene. Behold, well-pleased, on every side Their forms and features multiplied. The Hanging of the Crane. March 8. Thus from the distant past the history of the hu- man race is telegraphed from generation to genera- tion, through the present to all succeeding ages. Outre-Mer. The kingdoms crumble and fall Apart, like a ruined wall. Finale to New England Tragedies. Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. Evangeline. 74 March 7. sir J. F, Aland, 1670. March 8. Wm. Roscoe, 1753; A. M. Layard, 1817; C P. Cranch, 1813. 75 March 9. If you find a lady who pleases you very much, and you wish to marry her, and she will not listen to such a horrid thing, I see but one remedy, which is, to find another who pleases you more, and who will listen to it. Hyperion. Most untrue To him who keeps most faith with thee. Woe is me ! The falcon has the eyes of the dove. The Spanish Student. In life's delight, in death's dismay, In storm and sunshine, night and day, In health, in sickness, in decay, Here and hereafter, I am thine. The Golden Legend. March 10. " No ; it certainly is not the vocation of children to be silent," said Kavanagh, laughing. " That would be out of nature ; saving always the children of the brain, which do not often make so much noise in the world as we desire. Kavanagh. O little hands ! that, weak or strong, Have still to serve or rule so long, Have still so long to give or ask ; I, who so much with book and pen Have toiled among my fellow-men, Am weary, thinking of your task. /- Weariness. jMakch 9. Mirabeau, 1-49; F. J. Gall, 175S; William Cobbett.iyS; March io. p. Malpighi, 162S; Schlegel, 1772. 77 March ii. Torqtiati Tasso ossa hicjacent — Here lie the bones of Torquato Tasso, — is the simple inscription upon the poet's tomb, in the church of St. Onofrio. . . . He sleeps midway between his cradle at Sorrento and his dungeon at Ferrara In the distance rise the towers of the Roman Capitol, where after long years of sickness, sorrow, and imprisonment, the laurel crown was prepared for the great epic poet of Italy. Outke-Mer. O ye dead Poets, who are living still Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, And ye, O living Poets, who are dead Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, With drops of anguish falling fast and red From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head, Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil .'' . The Poets. March 12. Alas ! poor child ! thou too must learn, like others, that the sublime mystery of Providence goes on in silence, and gives no explanation of itself, — no answer to our impatient questionings ! Hyperion. To murmur against death in petulant defiance. Is never for the best, To will what God cloth will, that is the only science That gives us any rest. Consolation. Translated from Malherbe. 78 March ii. Torquato Tasso, 1544; Francis Wayland, 1796. March 12. Bishop Berkeley, 1684; Lady Stanhope, 1776. 79 March 13. As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies a dull brain. Drift-Wood. Sings the blackened log a tune Learned in some forgotten June From a school-boy at his play, When they both were young together, Heart of youth and summer weather Making all their holiday. The Wind Over the Chimney. Discovered The secret that so long had hovered Upon the misty verge of Truth. The Golden Legend. March 14. Why need one always explain.? Some feelings are quite untranslatable. No language has yet been found for them. Hyperion. Then the moon, in all her pride, Like a spirit glorified, Filled and overflowed the night With revelations of her light. And the Poet's song again Passed like music through my brain ; Night interpreted to me All its grace and mystery. Daylight and Moonlight. 80 March 13. Dr. Joseph Priestley, 1733. March 14. Klopstock, 1803. March 15. It was very brief; only a few lines, and not a name mentioned in it ; an impulse, an ejaculation of love ; every line quivering with electric fire, — every word a pulsation of the writer's heart. Kavanagh. .... I love thee as the good love heaven. The Spanish Student. Does not all the blood within me Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, As the springs to meet the sunshine ? HlAWATHA- A tender heart ; a will inflexible. John Endicott. New England Tragedies. « March 16. And, to cheer thy solitary labor, remember that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, span- ning the dark waters of Oblivion. They are out of sight ; but without them no superstructure can stand secure ! Hyperion. In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part ; For the Gods see everywhere. The Builders. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars ; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. The Light of Stars. 82 March 15. Andrew Jackson, 1767. March i6. Boileau, 1635; Caroline L. Herschel, 1750. 83 March 17. Men of iron ; men who have dared to breast the strong breath of public opinion. Hyperion. Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side ; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along Of the great army of the poor. To A Child. Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom Makes the flowers of poesy bloom In the forge's dust and cinders, In the tissues of the loom. Nuremberg. • March 18. Ah, how different were their themes ! Death and Love, — apples of Sodom, that crumble to ashes at a touch, — golden fruits of the Hesperides, — golden fruits of Paradise, fragrant, ambrosial, perennial ! Kavanagh. 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 Fire of Drift-Wood. 84 March 17. C. Niebuhr, 1733; T. Chalmers, 1780; Ebenezer ElJiott, 1781 March i8. J. C. Calhoun, 1782. 85 March 19. He did not so much denounce vice, as inculcate virtue ... he did not lacerate the hearts of his hearers with doubt and disbelief, but consoled, and comforted, and healed them with faith. Kavanagh. The dawn is not distant, Nor is the night starless ; Love is eternal ! God is still God, and His faith shall not fail us ; Christ is eternal ! Song of the Nun of Nidaros. March 20. He felt at that moment how sweet a thing it would be to possess one who should seem beau- tiful to him alone, and yet to him be more beautiful than all the world beside ! Hyperion. " He is in love. Were you ever in love, Baltasar ? " " I was never out of it, good Chispa. It has been the torment of my life." The Spanish Student. Ister, with hardening v/inds, congeals its cerulean waters. Under a roof of ice winding its way to the sea. There where ships have sailed, men go on foot ; and the billows. Solid made by the frost, hoof-beats of horses indent. Ovid in Exile, Translated frojtt Ovid's Tristia. 86 March 19. E. Bickersteth, 17S6; A. P. Peabody, iSii ; Livingstone, 1815. March 20. Ovid, 43 B. c. 87 March 21. You are startled at the boldness and beauty of his figures and illustrations which are scattered everywhere with a reckless prodigality. With a thousand extravagances are mingled ten thousand beauties of thought and expression He is difficult to understand, intricate, strange — a comet among the bright stars of German literature In everything there is strength, a rough good-nature, all sunshine overhead, and underneath the heavy moaning of the sea. Well may he be called "Jean Paul, the Only-One." Hyperion. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time. A Psalm of Life. • — March 22. Every one . . . forms an image in his fancy of per- sons and things he has never seen ; and the artist reproduces them in marble or on canvas. Hyperion. Figures that almost move and speak. Keramos. Where, twisted round the barren oak, The summer vine in bea\ity clung, And summer winds the stillness broke, The crystal icicle is hung. Woods in Winter. 88 March 21. R. Bruce, 1274; Jean Paul Richter, 1763; H. K. White, 1785. March 22. Vandyck, 1599; C. Le Brun, 1619; Rosa Bonheur, 1822. 89 March 23. Erelong even this glimpse into the ideal world had vanished ; and he felt himself bound to the earth with a hundred invisible threads, by which a hundred urchins were tugging and tormenting him ; and it was only with considerable effort, and at in- tervals, that his mind could soar to the moral dig- nity of his profession. Kavanagh. The conflict of the Present and the Past, The ideal and the actual in our life. As on a field of battle held me fast. While this world and the next world were at strife. Monte Cassino. March 24. Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun themselves, and think it is summer. They die in their conceit ; and so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the east- ern sea. Hyperion. How in the turmoil of life can love stand, Where there is not one heart, and one mouth, and one hand ? Annie of Tharaw, tra7islated from Simon Dock. 90 March 23. March 24. 91 March 25. It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation, which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. • Hyperion. Sorely tried and sorely tempted. From no agonies exempted, In the penance of his trial, And the discipline of pain ; Often by illusions cheated. Often baffled and defeated In the tasks to be completed, He, by toil and self-denial, To the highest shall attain. The Masque of Pandora. March 26. Material wealth gives a factitious superiority to the living, but the treasures of intellect give a real superiority to the dead. Outre-Mer. In their feverish exultations. In their triumph and their yearning. In their passionate pulsations. In their words among the nations, The Promethean fire is burning. Prometheus. 92 March 25. March 26. C. Gesner, 1516; Count Rumford, 1753; N. Bowditch, 1773. 93 March 27. " Answer me, thou mysterious future ! tell me, — shall these things be according to my desires ? " And the mysterious future, interpreted by those desires, replied, " Soon thou shalt know all. It shall be well with thee ! " Kavanagh. It is the mystery of the unknown That fascinates us ; we are children still, Wayward and wistful ; with one hand we cling To the familiar things we call our own, And with the other, resolute of will, Grope in the dark for what the day will bring. The Two Rivers. March 28. A temple dedicated to Heaven, and like the Pan- theon at Rome, lighted only from above. Hyperion. Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee ; All things are passing ; God never changeth ; Patient endurance Attaineth to all things ; Who God possesseth In nothing is wanting ; Alone God sufficeth. Santa Teresa's Book-mark. Tr. from tJie Spanish of Satita Teresa. 94 March 27. Michael Bruce, 1746- March 28. Santa Teresa, 1515; Orville Dewey, 1794. 95 March 29. It is the Transfiguration of Christ, by Raphael. A child looks not at the stars with greater wonder than the artist at this painting. He knows how many studious years are in that picture. He knows the difficult path that leads to perfection, having himself taken some of the first steps. Thus he recalls the hour when that broad canvas was first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood before it, and laid the first colors upon it, and beheld the figures one by one born into life. Hyperion. Forth from Urbino's gate there came A youth with the angelic name Of Raphael, in form and face Himself angelic, and divine In arts of color and design. Kkkamos. March 30. It seems impossible they should ever grow to be men, and drag the heavy artillery along the dusty roads of life. Kavanagh. O little feet ! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load ; I, nearer to the wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road ! Weariness. 96 March 29. Sanzio Raphae], 1413. March 30. Sir Henry Wotton, 1568. 97 March 31. The soul . . . seemed ... to be rapt away to heaven in the full, harmonious chorus, as it swelled onward, doubling and redoubling, and rolling up- ward in a full burst of rapturous devotion. Outre-Mer. RAPHAEL. I am the Angel of the Sun, Whose flaming wheels began to run When God's almighty breath vSaid to the darkness and the night, Let there be light ! and there was light ! I bring the gift of Faith. URIEL. I am the Minister of Mars, The strongest star among the stars ! My songs of power prelude The march and battle of man's life, And for the suffering and the strife, I give him Fortitude ! The Golden Legend. ( The A ngels of the Seven Planets.) 98 March 31. Descartes, 1596; F. J. Haydn, 1732; W. M. Hunt, 1824. 99 THE GALAXY. Torrent of light and river of the air, Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen Like gold and silver sands in some ravine Where mountain streams have left their channels bare ! The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway, where His patron saint descended in the sheen Of his celestial armor, on serene And quiet nights, when all the heavens were fair. Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched the skies Where'er the hoofs of his hot coursers trod ; But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable, The star-dust, that is whirled aloft and flies From the invisible chariot-wheels of God. 100 ^'>(k^^i^~ %^vih AN APRIL DAY. I LOVE the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms. From the earth's loosened mould The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives ; Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold, The drooping tree revives. The softly-warbled song Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings Glance quick in the bright sun that moves along The forest openings. Inverted in the tide Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw, And the fair trees look over, side by side. And see themselves below. Sweet April ! many a thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed : Nor shall they fail till, to its autumn brought, Life's golden fruit is shed. lOI April i. Already the grass shoots forth. The waters leap with thrilling pulse through the veins of the earth ; the sap through the veins of the plants and trees ; and the blood through the veins of man. What a thrill of delight in spring-time ! What a joy in being and moving ! Hyperion. Turn, turn, my wheel ! All life is brief ; What now is bud will soon be leaf, What now is leaf will soon decay ; The wind blows east, the wind blows west ; The blue eggs in the robin's nest Will soon have wings and beak and breast. And flutter and fly away. Keramos. April 2. The genius of the North seems always to have delighted in romantic fiction. Outre-Mer. Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside. And as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, So thy twittering songs shall nestle In my bosom. To AN Old Danish Song-book. April i. Wm. Harvej', 157S; Solomon Gesner, 1730; Bismarck, April 2. Thomas Jefferson, 1743 i H. C. Andersen, 1805. 103 April 3. It was Sunday morning/and the church bells were all ringing together Anon they ceased, and the woods, and the clouds, and the whole vil- lage, and the very air itself seemed to pray — so silent was it everywhere. Hyperion. Herbert's chapel at Bemerton Hardly more spacious is than this ; But Poet and Pastor, blent in one. Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun, That lowly and holy edifice. Old St. David's at Radnor. How sweet a life was his ; how sweet a death ! Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours, Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer; Dying, to leave a memory like the breath Of summers full of sunshine and of showers, A grief and gladness in the atmosphere. In the Churchyard at Tarrvtown. — ♦ April 4. Sects themselves he would not destroy, but sec- tarianism. Kavanagh. Not he that repeateth the name, But he that doeth the will ! Finale to New England Tragedies. Science of numbers, geometric art. And lore of stars, and music knew by heart. Emma and Eginhard. 104 April 3. G Herbert, 1593; W. Irving, 1783; E. E. Hale, 1822. April 4. B. Pierce, 1809; J. F. Clarke, iSio. 105 April 5. Weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and trj' to purchase happiness at the expense of principle. But the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and struggles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds. Hyperion. But noble souls, through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat The stronger ; And conscious still of the divine Within them, lie on earth supine No longer. The Sifting of Peter. April 6. He did not refrain from reprobating intemper- ance because one of his deacons owned a distil- lery .... nor slavery, because one of the great men of the village slammed his pew-door, and left the church with a grand air, as much as to say, that all that sort of thing would not do. Kavanagh. You know I say Just what I think, and nothing more nor less, And, when I pray, my heart is in my prayer. I cannot say one thing and mean another. If I can't pray, I will not make believe. Giles Corey, New England Tragedies- 106 April 5. T. Hobbes, 1588; General Havelock, 1795. April 6. John Pierpont, 1785 107 April 7. He preached the doctrines of Christ. He preached holiness, self-denial, love. Kavanagh. Well done ! Thy words are great and bold ; At times they seem to me, Like Luther's, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. To William E. Channing. Skilful alike with tongue and pen, He preached to all men everywhere The Gospel of the Golden Rule, The New Commandment given to men, Thinking the deed, and not the creed. Would help us in our utmost need. Prblude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. — • April 8. How well does the song of a passing bird reprc: sent the glad but transitory days of youth ! Outre-Mer. With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow ; But that, ah ! that was long ago. How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth ! Dedication of Ultima Thule, To G. W. G- 108 April 7. H. Blair, 1718; W.Wordsworth, 1770; W. E. Channing. April 8. D. Rittenhouse, 1732 ; G. W. Greene, iSi 109 April 9. If the clouds are overcast, it is no wild storm of wind and rain, but clouds that melt and fall in showers. One does not wish to sleep, but lies awake to hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain. Hyperion. All the soul in rapt suspension, All the quivering, palpitating Chords of life in utmost tension. Prometheus. Not for triumph in the battle, Nor renown among the warriors. But for profit of the people, For advantage of the nations. Hiawatha. • April 10. The strength of criticism lies only in the weakness of the thing criticised. Kavanagh. Build to-day, then, strong and sure, With a firm and ample base ; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. The Builders. Within her tender eye The heaven of April, with its changing light. The Spirit of Poetrv. April 9. Fisher Ames, 1758. April io. H. Grotiiis, 1583; W. Hazlitt, 1778. Ill April ii. This earthly life, when seen hereafter from Heaven, will seem like an hour passed long ago, and dimly remembered. Hyperion. The daybreak of great truths as yet unrisen, The intuition and the expectation Of something, which, when come, is not the same But only like its forecast in men's dreams, The longing, the delay, and the delight. Sweeter for the delay ; youth, hope, love, death. And disappointment which is also death, All these make up the sum of human life. The Divine Tragedy. Around thee would have swarmed the Attic bees ; And Plato welcomed thee to his demesne. Three Friends of 'Miiiu(Son?iet to Felton). • April 12. We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have al- ready done. Kavanagh. Great men die and are forgotten. Wise men speak ; their words of wisdom Perish in the ears that hear them. Hiawatha. Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. The Poet. 112 April ii. C. Smart, 1752; G. Canning, 1770; E. Everett, 1794. April 12. Henry Clay, 1777. "3 April 13. When imagination spreads its wings in the bright regions of devotional song, . . . judgment should direct its course, but there is no danger of its soar- ing too high. Outre-Mer. And as the flowing of the ocean fills Each creek and branch thereof, and then retires, Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome savor ; So doth the virtue and the life of God Flow evermore into the hearts of those Whom he hath made partakers of his nature ; And when it but withdraws itself a little, Leaves a sweet savor after it, that many Can say they are made clean by every word That he hath spoken to them in their silence. New England Tragedies, Leddras JMessage from Prison. • April 14. One half of the world must sweat and groan, that the other half may dream. Hyperion. Let our unceasing, earnest prayer Be, too, for light, — for strength to bear Our portion of the weight of care That crushes into dumb despair One half the human race. The Goblet of Life. Came the Spring with all its splendor, All its birds and all its blossoms. All its flowers and leaves and grasses. Hiawatha. 114 April 13. Earl Strafford, 1593; Madame Guj'on, 164S. April 14. Huyghens, 1629; H. Bushnell, 1802. 115 April 15. I do not see why a successful book is not as great an event as a successful campaign, only different in kind and not easily compared. Hyperion. At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there, Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air. Not a sound rose from the city at that early morn- ing hour, But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower. Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain ; They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again. The Belfry of Bruges. April 16. The dream of science, the historical research, . . . the tried courage . . . where are they ? With the living, and not with the dead. Outre-Mer. Southward with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death ; Wild and fast blew the blast. And the east-wind was his breath. Alas ! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night ; And nevermore, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. Sir Humphrey Gilbert. 116 April 15. Sir J. C. Ross, 1800; J. L. Motley, 18 14. April i6. Sir H. Sloane, 1660; Sir J. Franklin, 17S6. 117 April 17. The stone was rolled away from the door of his heart ; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed in white . . . and looking into the bright morning heaven, he said, " I will be strong." Hyperion. The churches are all decked with flowers, The salutations among men Are but the Angel's words divine, " Christ is arisen ! " and the bells Catch the glad murmur, as it swells, And chant together in their towers. The Golden Legend. 'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy. The Spanish Student. ♦ April 18. History casts its shadow far into the land of song. Outre-Mer. To 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 foievermore ! 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 hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed. And the midnight message of Paul Revere. Paul Revere"s Ride, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 118 April 17. Bishop Stillingfleet, 1635; W. G. Simms, 1806. April i8. Sir F. Baring, 1740; G. H. Lewes, 1817. 19 April 19. The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood follows, with rose- colored buds and leaves ; and the dog-wood, robed in the white of its own pure blossoms. Then comes the sudden rain-storm ; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they hide themselves in such storms ? at what firesides dry their feathery cloaks ? Hyperion. It was the season, when through all the land The merle and mavis build, and building sing Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand, Whom Saxon Caedmon calls the Blithe-heart King ; When on the boughs the purple buds expand, The banners of the vanguard of the Spring. The Birds of Killingworth. April 20. Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air. Kavanagh. Our feelings and our thoughts Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present. As drops of rain fall into some dark well, And from below comes a scarce audible sound, So fall our thoughts into the dark Hereafter, And their mysterious echo reaches us. The Spanish Student. 120 April 19. R. Sherman, 1721 April 20. April 21. There is one kind of wisdom which we learn from the world, and another kind which can be acquired in solitude only. Outre-Mer. The pen became a clarion . . . Monte Cassino. Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endur- ance is godlike. Evangeline. I have within myself All that my heart desires ; the ideal beauty Which the creative faculty of mind Fashions and follows in a thousand shapes More lovely than the real. The Masque of Pandora. April 22. He does not so much idealize as realize. — He only copies nature. Hyperion. The counterfeit and counterpart Of Nature reproduced in Art. Keramos. I can see the breezy dome of groves, The shadows of Deering's Woods ; And the friendships old and the early loves Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves In quiet neighborhoods. And the verse of that sweet old song, It flutters and murmurs still : " A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." Mv Lost Youth. April 21. Kant, 1724; Bishop Heber, 17S3 ; C. Bronte, i8i6. April 22. H. Fielding, 1707; J. Grahame, 1765; Madame de Stael, 1766. [23 April 23. Thus, O Genius ! are thy footprints hallowed ; and the star shines for ever over the place of thy nativity. Hyperion. A vision as of crowded city streets, With human life in endless overflow ; Thunder of thoroughfares ; trumpets that blow To battle ; clamor, in obscure retreats, Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets ; Tolling of bells in turrets, and below Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets ! This vision comes to me when I unfold The volume of the Poet paramount. Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone ; — Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount. Placed him as Musagetes on their throne. Shakespeare. April 24. Don Quixote thought he could have made beauti- ful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions. Note-Book. Nothing useless is or low. Each thing in its place is best, And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest. The Builders. 124 April 23. J. C. Scaliger, 1484; Shakespeare, 1564. April 24. J. Trumbull, 1750 125 April 25. These flowers and green leaves of poetry have not the dust of the highway upon them. They have been gathered fresh from the secret places of a peaceful and gentle heart. There flow deep waters, silent, calm, and cool ; and the green trees look into them and " God's blue heaven.'' Drift-Wood. For voices pursue him by day, And haunt him by night. And he listens, and needs must obey, When the Angel says : " Write." The Poet and his Songs, Ultima Thule. April 26. " And is Uhland always so soothing and spirit- ual ? " " Yes, he generally looks into the spirit-world, . . . but there is nothing morbid in his mind. He is always fresh and invigorating, like a breezy morn- ing." Hyperion. The stranger at my fireside cannot see The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear; lie but perceives what is ; while unto me All that has been is visible and clear. Haunted Houses. [26 April 25. O. Cromwell, 1599; John Keble, 1792. April 26. T. Reid, 1710; D. Hume, 171 1 ; J. L. Uhland, 1787. 127 April 27. Mighty is the spirit of the past, amid the ruins of the Eternal City ! Outre-Mer. The silence of the place was like a sleep, So full of rest it seemed ; each passing tread Was a reverberation from the deep Recesses of the ages that are dead. Monte Cassino. Ah ! what a wondrous thing it is To note how many wheels of toil One thought, one word, can set in motion ! The Building of the Ship. April 28. Ah, how wonderful is the advent of the Spring ! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches ! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle, and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. Kavanagh. Thus came the lovely spring with a rush of blos- soms and music, Flooding the earth with flowers, and the air with melodies vernal. Elizabeth. 128 April 27. E. Gibbon, 1737; M. Wollstonecraft, 1753; F. B. Morse, 1791 April 28. C. Cotton, 1630; J. Monroe, 1758. J 29 April 29. " Friends must be torn asunder, and swept along in the current of events, to see each other seldom, and perchance no more. For ever and ever in the eddies of time and accident, we whirl away." Hyperion. Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness ; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one an- other, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. Elizabeth. — « — April 30. Dignified, affable, somewhat bent by his legal erudition, as a shelf is by the weight of the books upon it. Kavanagh. With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter. Wayward as the Minnehaha, With her moods of shade and sunshine, Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate, Feet as rapid as the river. Tresses flowing like the water. And as musical a laughter ; And he named her from the river, From the waterfall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water. Hiawatha. 130 April 29. April 30. 131 MOODS. O THAT a song would sing itself to me Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art, Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea, With just enough of bitterness to be A medicine to this sluggish mood, and start The life-blood in my veins, and so impart Healing and help in this dull lethargy ! Alas ! not always doth the breath of song Breathe on us. It is like the wind that bloweth At its own will, not ours, nor tarrieth long ; We hear the sound thereof, but no man knoweth From whence it comes, so sudden and swift and strong, Nor whither in its wayward course it goeth. 132 ai9ap. IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY. No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano. Spanish Proverb. The sun is bright, — the air is clear, The darting swallows soar and sing, And from the stately elms I hear The bluebird prophesying Spring. So blue yon winding river flows. It seems an outlet from the sky, Where waiting till the west-wind blows, The freighted clouds at anchor lie. All things are new ; — the buds, the leaves. That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest. And even the nest beneath the eaves ; — There are no birds in last year's nest ! All things rejoice in youth and love, The fulness of their first delight ! And learn from the soft heavens above The melting tenderness of night. Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay ; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For oh, it is not always May ! Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, To some good angel leave the rest ; For Time will teach thee soon the truth, There are no birds in last year's nest ! 133 May I. In character, in manners, in style, in all thing.", the supreme excellence is simplicity. Kavanagh. You know that people nowadays To what is old give little praise ; All must be new in prose and verse : They want hot bread, or something worse. The wholesome bread of yesterday, Too stale for them, is thrown away. Nor is their thirst with water slaked. Interlude before the Poet's Tale, Wayside Inn. His was Octavian's prosperous star. The rush of Caesar's conquering car At battle's call ; His, Scipio's virtue ; his, the skill And the indomitable will Of Hannibal. CoPLAS DE Manrique, Translated from ike Spanish. May 2. Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great pur- poses. Hyperion. Honor to those whose words or deeds Thus help us in our daily needs. And by their overflow Raise us from what is low. Santa Filomena 134 May 1. J. Addison, 1672; Duke of Wellington, 1769, May 2. R. Hall, 1764; J. Gait, 1779; J. G. Palfrey, 1796. 135 May 3. It is the part of an indiscreet and troublesome am- bition to care too much about fame. Hyperion. The thirst of power, the fever of ambition. The Divine Tragedy. " TariT awhile behind, for I have something to tell thee, Not to be spoken lightly, nor in the presence of others ; Them it concerneth not, only thee and me it con- cerneth." And they rode slowly along through the woods, conversing together. It was a pleasure to live on that bright and happy May morning ! Elizabeth. •— May 4. I never hear the sweet warble of a bird from its na- tive wood, without a silent wish that such a cheerful voice and peaceful shade were mine. Outre-Mer. Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these ? Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught The dialect they speak, where melodies Alone are the interpreters of thought ? Whose household words are songs in many keys, Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught ! Whose habitations in the tree-tops even Are half-way houses on the road to heaven ! The Birds of Killingworth, Ta/es of a IVayside Inn. 136 May 3. N. Machiavelli, 1469; E C. von Kleist, 1715- May 4. J. J. Audubon, 17S0; W. W. Prescott, 1796, H. Mann, 1796. 137 May 5. Men are at work in gardens ; and in the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes ; and erelong our next-door neighbors will be com- pletely hidden from us by the dense green foliage. Hyperion. The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, Filled-all the blossoming orchards with their glee ; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be. The Birds of Killingworth. May 6. How often, ah, how often between the desire of the heart and its fulfilment, lies only the briefest space of time and distance, and yet the desire re- mains forever unfulfilled ! Kavanagh. 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 changed, but transfigured. Evangeline. 138 May 5. May 6. 139 May 7. A torn jacket is soon mended ; but hard words bruise the heart of a child. Drift-Wood. Ah ! what would the world be to us If the children were no more ? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. Children. Life is the gift of God, and is divine. Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn. May 8. It is recorded in the Adventures of Gil Bias de Santillana, that, when this renowned personage first visited the city of Madrid, he took lodgings ... in the Puerta del Sol. ... I followed, as far as prac- ticable, this illustrious example, . . . and my bal- conies looked down into . . . the heart of Madrid, through which circulates the living current of its population at least once every twenty-four hours. Outre-Mer. How like a ruin overgrown With flowers that hide the rents of time. Stands now the Past that I have known ; Castles in Spain, not built of stone But of white summer clouds, and blown Into this little mist of rhyme ! Castles in Spain. 140 May 7. Conde, 1530; G. V. Swieten, 1700. May 8. Le Sage, 1668; Dr. Porteus, 1731 141 May 9. I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light. Hyperion. Maiden ! with the meek brown eyes, In whose orbs a shadow lies Like the dusk in evening skies ! Standing, with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet. Womanhood and childhood fleet. Hearest thou voices on the shore, That our ears perceive no more, Deafened by the cataract's roar ? Maidenhood. • May 10. lie laid the lesson to heart ; and it would have saved him many an hour of sorrow, if he had learned that lesson better, and remembered it longer. Hyperion. The robin, the forerunner of the spring, The bluebird with its jocund carolling. The restless swallows building in the eaves, The golden buttercups, the grass, the leaves. The lilacs tossing in the winds of May, All welcomed this majestic holiday ! Lady Wentworth, IVayside Inn. 142 May 9. G. Paisiello, 1741 ; Sismondi, 1773. May 10. Turgot, 1727; J. Sparks, 1789; Thierry, 1795. 143 May II. I confess, with all humility, that at times the line of demarcation between truth and fiction is rendered so indefinite and indistinct, that I cannot always determine, with unerring certainty, whether an event really happened to me, or whether I only dreamed it. Outre-Mer. Is this a dream ? Oh, if it be a dream, Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet ! It is a dream, sweet child ! a waking dream, A blissful certainty, a vision bright Of that rare happiness, which even on earth Heaven gives to those it loves. The Spanish Student. May 12. His heart was full of indefinite longings, mingled with regrets ; longings to accomplish something worthy of life ; regret that as yet he had accom- plished nothing, but had felt and dreamed only. Thus the warm days in spring bring forth passion- flowers and forget-me-nots. Hyperion. Thoughts, like a loud and sudden rush of wing.s, Regrets and recollections of things past, With hints and i)rophecies of things to be. And inspirations, which, could they be things. And stay with us, and we could hold them fast, Were our good angels, — these I owe to thee. The Two Rivers, Sonnet III. 144 May II. p. Camper, 1722; J. F. Blumenbach, 1752; J. P. Hebel, 1760. May 12. Santeuil, 1630: J. Bell, 1763; R. C. Winthrop, 1809. 145 May 13. Music is the universal language of mankind, — poetry their universal pastime and delight. Outke-Mer. Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous, When they came to me unbidden ; Voices single, and in chorus, Like the wild-birds singing o'er us In the dark of branches hidden. Epimetheus. Her step was royal, — queen-like. The Spanish Student. •— May 14. " By the way," said the Baron, " did you mind what a curious head he has ? There are two crowns upon it." " That is a sign," replied Flemming, " that he will eat his bread in two kingdoms." " I think the poor man would be very thankful," said the Baron, with a smile, " if he were always sure of eating it in one ! " Hyperion. Thou hast a stout heart and strong hands. Thou canst supply thy wants ; what wouldst thou more ? The Spanish Student. Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the valley stretching for miles below Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with lightest snow. The Golden Legend. 146 May 13. Maria Theresa, 1717; J. S. Dwight, 1813. May 14. Fahrenheit, 16S6; T. Dwight, 1752; R. Owen, 1770. 147 May 15. On every side comes up the fragrance of a thou- sand flowers, the murmur of innumerable leaves ; and overhead is a sky where not a vapor floats, — as soft, and blue, and radiant as the eye of child- hood ! Hyperion. There is in the air A fragrance, like that of the Beautiful Garden Of Paradise, in the days that were ! An odor of innocence and of prayer, And of love, and faith that never fails, Such as the fresh young heart exhales Before it begins to wither and harden ! The Golden Legend. May 16. Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song ; there lies the poet's native land. Hyperion. The Land of Song within thee lies, Watered by living springs ; The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes Are gates unto that Paradise, Holy thoughts, like stars, arise, Its clouds are angels' wings. Prelude to Voices of the Night- "Who walked with Nature hand in hand ; Whose country was their Holy Land. Interlude to the Landlord's Tale. 148 May 15. May 16. F. Ruckert, 1789; W. H. Seward, 1801. 149 May 17. " As for excellence, I can only desire it and dream of it ; I cannot attain to it ; it lies too far from me ; I cannot reach it. These very books about me here, that once stimulated me to action, have now become my accusers. They are my Eumenides, and drive me to despair." Kavanagh. I see, but cannot reach, the height That lies forever in the light. For Thine own purpose, Thou hast sent The strife and the discouragement. The Golden Legend. May 18. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. They hold buttercups under each other's chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls adorn themselves with chains and curls of dandelions, pull out the yellow leaves, to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the down from the leafless stalk to find out if their mothers want them at home. Hyperion. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May. The Wreck oi-- the Hesperus. May 17. May 18. 151 May 19. It is curious to note the old sea-margins of hu- man thought ! Each subsiding century reveals some new myster}'. Kavanagh. Who dares To say that he alone has found the truth ? John Endicott, New England Tragedies. It comes, — the beautiful, the free, The crown of all humanity, — In silence and alone To seek the elected one. Endvmion. • — May 20. Art is the revelation of man ; and not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature, speak- ing through man. Art preexists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art. Hyperion. Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart, Lived and labored Albrecht Diirer, the Evangelist of Art ; Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Bet- tor Land. Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone wUere he lies ; Dead he is not, but departed, — for the artist never dies. Nuremberg. 152 May 19. Fichte, 1762 ; J. Wilson, 1785; Mrs. Jameson, 1797. May 20. A. Diirer, 1471; Balzac, 1799; J. S. Mill, 1806. 153 May 21. We often excuse our own want of philanthropy by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ar- dent zeal of others. Drift-Wood. God sent his messenger of faith, And whispered in the maiden's heart, " Rise up, and look from where thou art, And scatter with unselfish hands Thy freshness on the barren sands And solitudes of Death." The Golden Legend, Epilogue. May 22. All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is uni- versal. Their roots are in their native soil; but their branches wave in the unpatriotic air, that speaks the same language unto all men, and their leaves shine with the illimitable light that pervades all lands. Kavanagh. Thoughts in attitudes imperious. Prometheus. Turn, turn, my wheel ! Turn round and round Without a pause, without a sound : So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand. Follows the motion of my hand ; For some must follow, and some command. Though all are made of clay ! Keramos. 154 May 21. Lord Lyndhurst, 1772; S. Girard, 1750; Elizabeth Fry, 1780. May 22. Alexander Pope, i688. 15s May 23. Toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much. Hyperion. Patience is powerful. The Saga of King Olaf. This life of ours is a wild asolian harp of many a joyous strain, But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail as of souls in pain. The Golden Legend. The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, And the great elms o'erhead Dark shadows wore on their aerial looms Shot through with golden thread. Hawthorne. May 24. The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone. Shad- ows of evening fall around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection, — itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars arise, and the night is holy. Hyperion. For death, that breaks the marriage band In others, only closer pressed The wedding-ring upon her hand And closer locked and barred her breast. Vittoria Colonna. Noble by birth, yet nobler by great deeds. Emma and Eginhard- 156 May 23. J. Hunter, 1718; T. Hood, 1799; M. F. Tupper, 1810. May 24. Linnaeus, 1707; E. Hitchcock, 1793; Queen Victoria, 1819. 157 May 25. It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in advance of their age ; which is true. There is something equally true, yet not so common ; namely, that, of these men of genius, the best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, but of every age. Hyperion. Forevermore, forevermore, It shall be as it hath been heretofore ; The age in which they live Will not forgive • The splendor of the everlasting light That makes their foreheads bright, Nor the sublime Fore-running of their time ! The Divine Tragedy. Introitus. — ^_ May 26. Charles d'Orleans was taken prisoner at the bat- tle of Agincourt, in 141 5, and carried into Eng- land, where he remained twenty-five years in cap- tivity. It was there that he composed the greater part of his poetry. Outre-Mer. Gentle Spring ! in sunshine clad, Well dost thou thy power display ! For Winter maketh the light heart sad, And thou, thou makest the sad heart gay. Spring, Translated fro7n Charles d''Orlcaiis. 158 May 25. J. p. Smith, 1774; R. W. Emerson, 1803; Lord Lytton, 1806. May 26. Charles d'Orleans, 1391 ; Count Zinzendorf, 1700. 159 May 27. Oh ! how majestically they walk in history ; some like the siin . . . others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars ! Hyperion. Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise, Like Farinata from his fiery tomb. Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom ; Yet in thy heart what human sympathies, What soft compassion glows, as in the skies The tender stars their clouded lamps relume ! Dante. O star of morning and of liberty ! The voices of the city and the sea, The voices of the mountains and the pines. Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines Are footpaths for the thought of Italy ! DiVlNA COMMEDIA, VI. May 28. For awhile there was a breathless silence in the church which to Flemming was more solemnly im- pressive than any audible prayer. Hyperion. Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men Are busy with their trivial affairs, Having and holding ? Why, when thou hadst read Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears. Why art thou silent ? Why shouldst thou be dead ? Sonnet on Agassiz, Three Friends of Mine. 160 May 27. Dante Alighieri, 1265; J. W. Hiise, 1819. May 28. Lord Chatham, 1759; T. Moore, 1780; L. Agassiz, 1807. 161 May 29. Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Hyperion. Gathering still, as he went, the May-flowers bloom- ing around him, Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonder- ful sweetness. "Puritan flowers," he said, "and the type of Puri- tan maidens, Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla ! " The Courtship of Miles Standish. May 30. We shall all meet again at the last roll-call. Outre-Mer. I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white Through the pale dusk of the impending night ; O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws Its golden lilies mingled with the rose ; Wc give to each a tender thought, and pass Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass. RIORITURI SaLUTAMUS. And the words break from his lips : " I am the builder of ships. And my ships shall sail these seas To the Pillars of Hercules ! I say it ; the White Czar, Batyushka ! Gosudar ! " The White Czar. 162 May 29. Patrick Henry, 1736; Gerald Massey, 1828. May 30. Decoration Day; Peter the Great, 1672; T. Mitchell, 1783. 163 May 31. As no saint can be canonized until the Devil's Advocate has exposed all his evil deeds, and showed why he should not be made a saint, so no poet can take his station among the gods until the critics have said all that can be said against him. Kavanagh. That delicious season when the coy and capri- cious maidenhood of spring is swelling into the warmer, riper, and more voluptuous womanhood of summer. Outre-Mer. Like the swell of some sweet tune. Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June. Bear a lily in thy hand ; Gates of brass cannot withstand One touch of that magic wand. Maidenhood. 164 May 31. A. Ciuden, 1701; J. A. Andrew, iSiS ; Walt Whitman, 1819. 165 HOLIDAYS. The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart ; The secret anniversaries of the heart, ^ When the full river of feeling overflows ; — The happy days unclouded to their close ; The sudden joys that out of darkness start As flames from ashes ; swift desires that dart Like swallows singing down each wind that blows ! White as the gleam of a receding sail, Wniite as a cloud that floats and fades in air, White as the whitest lily on a stream, These tender memories are ; — a Fairy Tale Of some enchanted land we know not where, But lovely as a landscape in a dream. [66 Sfw^ic. A DAY OF SUNSHINE. GIFT of God ! O perfect day : Whereon shall no man work, but play ; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be ! Through every fibre of my brain. Through every nerve, through every vein, 1 feel the electric thrill, the touch Of life, that seems ahnost too much. I hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies ; I see the branches downward bent. Like keys of some great instrument. And over me unrolls on high The splendid scenery of the sky, Where through a sapphire sea the sun Sails like a golden galleon, Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, Whose steep sierra far uplifts Its craggy summits white with drifts. Blow, winds ! and waft through all the rooms The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms ! Blow, winds ! and bend within my reach The fiery blossoms of the peach ! O Life and Love ? O happy throng Of thoughts, whose only speech is song ! O heart of man ! canst thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free ? 167 June i. What a time it is ! How June stands illuminated in the calendar ! The windows are all wide open ; only the Venetian blinds closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in through a crev- vice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the trees ; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to, with a sudden sound. Hyperion. O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river Linger to kiss thy feet ! O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever The world more fair and sweet. Flower-de-Luce. — • — June 2. Noiseless as a feather or a snow-flake falls, did her feet touch the earth. Hyperion. There is with him a damsel fair to see, As slender and graceful as a reed ! When she alighted from her steed, It seemed like a blossom blown from a tree. The Golden Legend. Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred pro- fessions of friendship. The Courtship of Miles Standish. . . . The mirth Of this green earth Laughed and revelled in his line. Oliver Basselin. 168 June i. H. F. Lyte, 1793. June 2. Le Fevre, 1544; J. G. Saxe, 1816. L69 June 3. Many sweet little poems are the outbreaks of momentary feelings ; — words to which the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, and the gurgle of cool waters form the appropriate music. Hyperion. Read from some humbler poet Whose songs gushed from his heart As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start. The Day is Done. June 4. The trees are heavy with leaves ; and the gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The whole at- mosphere is laden with perfume and sunshine. The birds sing. The cock struts about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow butter- cups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and the red blossoms of the clover like rubies. Hyperion. Something there was in her life incomplete, imper- fect, unfinished ; As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- shine. Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. Evangeline. 170 June 3. R. Tannaliill, 1774; Sir W. Ross, 1794; N. Macleod, 1S12. June 4. 171 June 5. What were the nations of old, without their phi- losophers, poets, and historians ? Hyperion. I have already The bitter taste of death upon my lips ; I feel the presence of the heavy weight That will crush out my life within this hour ; But if a word could save me, and that word Were not the truth ; nay, if it did but swerve A hair's-breadth from the truth, I would not say it ! How mean I seem beside a man like this ! New England Tragedies. June 6. The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Na- ture ; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made. Drift-Wood. Art is the child of Nature ; yes. Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face. Her aspect and her attitude. Keramos. Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks, And through the opening door that time unlocks Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep. To-morrow. 172 June 5. Socrates, 468 b. c. ; A. Smith, 1723. June 6. D. Velasquez, 1599", Corneille, 1606. 173 June 7. People drive out from town to breathe and to be happy. Most of them have flowers in their hands, bunches of apple-blossoms, and still oftener, lilacs. Hyperion. The doors are all wide open ; at the gate The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze, And seem to warm the air ; a dreamy haze Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like a fate, And on their margin, with sea-tides elate, The flooded Charles, as in the happier days. Writes the last letter of his name, and stays His restless steps, as if compelled to wait. Sonnet V. June 8. I first saw Venice by moonlight. ... A thousand lamps glittered from the square of St. Mark, and along the water's edge. Above rose the cloudy shapes of spires, domes, and palaces, emerging from the sea ; and occasionally the twinkling lamp of a gondola darted across the water like a shoot- ing star, and suddenly disappeared as if quenched in the wave. Outre-Mer. White water-lily, cradled and caressed By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds, Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest ! White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of palaces and strips of sky. Venice. 174 June 7. June 8. Chiabrera, 1552. 175 June 9. Underneath . . . the good principles which would have taken root, had he given them time, there lay a strong and healthy soil of common sense, fresh- ened by living springs of feeling, Hyperion. Trained for either camp or court. Skilful in each manly sport. The Saga of King Olaf. Taste the joy That springs from labor. The Masque of Pandora. June 10. It is a beautiful morning in June ; — so beautiful, that I almost fancy myself in Spain. The tessel- lated shadow of the honey-suckle lies motionless upon the floor, as if it were a figure in the carpet ; and through the open window comes the fragrance of the wild-brier and the mock-orange, reminding me of that soft, sunny clime where the very air is laden, like the bee, with sweetness. Outre-Mer. How much of my young heart, O Spain, Went out to thee in days of yore ! What dreams romantic filled my brain, And summoned back to life again The paladins of Charlemngne The Cid Campeador ! Castles in Spain. 176 June 9. June 10. LordThurlow, 1781. 177 June ii. The lives of literary men, with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and calamities, pre- sent a melancholy picture of man's strength and weakness. Hyperion. Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires ; The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, And the more noble instinct that aspires. These perturbations, this perpetual jar Of earthly wants and aspirations high, Come from the influence of an unseen star, An undiscovered planet in our sky. Haunted Houses. June 12. It became more and more clear to him, that the life of man consists not in seeing visions, and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and willing service. Kavanagh. The clashing of creeds, and the strife Of the many beliefs, that in vain Perplex man's heart and brain, Are naught but the rustle of leaves, When the breath of God upheaves The boughs of the Tree of Life. Finale to New England Tragedies. 178 June ii. Ben Jonsou, 1574; G. Wither, 1588; Sir K. Digby, 1603. June 12. Harriet Martineau, 1802 ; Canon Kingsley, 1819. 179 June 13. The school-room, the theatre of those life-long labors, which theoretically are the most noble, and practically the most vexatious, in the world. Kavanagh. He touched the lips of some, as best befit. With honey from the hives of Holy Writ ; Others intoxicated with the wine Of ancient history, sweet but less divine ; Some with the wholesome fruits of grammar fed ; Others with mysteries of the stars o'erhead. Gentle of speech, but absolute of rule. Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn. For him the teacher's chair became a throne. Sonnet to Parker Cleaveland. June 14. If by incidents, you mean events in the history of the human mind, . . . noiseless events that do not scar the forehead of the world as battles do, yet change it not the less, then surely the lives of literary men are most eventful. Hyperion. All things above were bright and fair. All things were glad and free ; Lithe squirrels darted here and there, And wild birds filled the echoing air With songs of Liberty ! The Slave in the Dismal Swamp. _ 180 June 13. Madame D"Arblay, 1752; Thomas Arnold, 1795. June 14. T. Pennant, 1723; Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1812. 181 June 15. " How absolute," he exclaimed, " how absolute and omnipotent is the silence of the night ! And yet the stillness seems almost audible." Kavanagh. The night is calm and cloudless, And still as still can be, And the stars come forth to listen To the music of the sea. They gather, and gather, and gather, Until they crowd the sky. And listen, in breathless silence, To the solemn litany. The Golden Legend. But thou dost make the very night itself Brighter than day. The Divine Tragedy. June 16. Shall I thank God for the green summer, and the mild air, and the flowers and the stars, and all that makes the world so beautiful, and not for the good and beautiful beings I have known in it ? Hyperion. Oh ! though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside. If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died. Footsteps of Angels. 182 June 15. T. Randolph, 1605 : A. Ludolf, 1624. June i6. Tauler, 1361 ; Sir J. Cheke, 1514. 183 June 17. In the mouths of many men soft words are like roses that soldiers put into the muzzles of their muskets on holidays. Drift-Wood. Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases, I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender, But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not. I 'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon. But of a thundering ** No ! " point-blank from the mouth of a woman, That I confess I 'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it ! The Courtship of Miles Standish. June 18. The eye of age looks meekly into my heart ! the voice of age echoes mournfully through it ! the hoary head and palsied hand of age plead irresist- ibly for its sympathies ! Outre-Mer. Whatever poet, orator, or sage May say of it, old age is still old age. Age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress. And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. MORITURI SaLUTAMUS. 184 June 17. J. Wesley, 1703; Freiligrath, 1810. June i8. K. von Rotteck, 1775. 1S5 June 19. The birds are carolling in the trees, and their shadows flit across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine ; while the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the whirr- ing of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle, send up a sound of joy to meet the rising sun. Outre-Mer. That book of gems, that book of gold, Of wonders many and manifold. Interlude before the Spanish Jew's Tale. The distant mountains, that uprear Their solid bastions to the skies, Are crossed by pathways, that appear As we to higher levels rise. The Ladder of St. Augustine. June 20. In this wondrous world wherein we live, which is the world of Nature, man has made to himself an- other world hardly less wondrous, which is the world of Art. Hyperion. How sweet the air is ! How fair the scene ! I wish I had as lovely a green To paint my landscapes and my leaves ! The Golden Legend. Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues. Flaunting gayly in the golden light ; Large desires, with most uncertain issues, Tender wishes, blossoming at night ! Flowers. 186 June 19. Confucius, 551 B. c ; Pascal, 1623; Lord Houghton, June 20. S. Rosa, 1615; A. Ferguson, 1724, [87 June 21. -It would have been well if he could have forgot- ten the past, that he might not so mournfully have lived in it, but might have enjoyed and improved the present. Hyperion. There groups of merry children played, There youths and maidens dreaming strayed ; 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!" The Old Clock on the Stairs. ♦ June 22. Overhead bends the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars, like the inverted bell of some blue flower sprinkled with golden dust, and breathing fragrance. Hyperion. Stars of the summer night ! Far in yon azure deeps, Hide, hide your golden light ! She sleeps ! My lady sleeps ! Sleeps ! The Spanish Student. 1 beseech you, for this once, be not loud, but pathetic ; for it is a serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to the Man in the Moon. Ibid. 188 June 21. June 22. J. Delille, 1738; T. Day, 1748; W. von Humboldt, 1767 [89 June 23. There is no scene over which my eye roves with more delight than the face of a summer landscape dimpled with soft sunny hollows, and smiling in all the freshness and luxuriance of June. Outre-Mer. And the morning pouring everywhere Its golden glory on the air. New England Tragedies. Interlude. Time has laid his hand Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations. The Golden Legend. • June 24. Let us throw all the windows open ; let us admit the light and air on all sides ; that we may look towards the four corners of the heavens, and not always in the same direction. Kavanagh. The atmosphere In which the soul delights to be. And finds that perfect liberty. Which Cometh only from above. First Interlude to The Divine Tragedy. A noble type of good Heroic womanhood. Santa Filomena, 190 June 23. J. Fell, 1625. June 24. Empress Josephine, 1 76.1. 191 June 25. It was now that season of the year which an old English writer calls the amiable month of June, and at that hour of the day when, face to face, the rising moon beholds the setting sun. Hyperion. And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams, Had dropt her silver bow Upon the meadows low. On such a tranquil night as this. She woke Endymion with a kiss. When, sleeping in the grove. He dreamed not of her love. Endvmiok — ♦ — June 26. On the outside of the door Kavanagh had written the vigorous line of Dante, — " Think that To-day shall never dawn again ! " that it might always serve as a salutation and me- mento to him as he entered. Kavanagh. Do not delay : Do not delay ; the golden moments fly ! The Masque of Pandora 192 June 25. J. H. Tooke, 1736. June 26. p. Doddridge, 1702; G. Morland, 1763(1764)- 193 June 27. A mountain streamlet, overhung by woods, im- peded by a mill, encumbered by fallen trees, but ever racing, rushing, roaring down through gurgling gullies, and filling the forest with its delicious sound and freshness. Kavanagh. " Where are the kings, and where the rest Of those who once the world possessed ? They 're gone with all their pomp and show, They 're gone the way that thou shalt go." Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head : Tears fell upon the page he read. Haroun Al Raschid. June 28. " We must pardon much to men of genius. A delicate organization renders them keenly suscepti- ble to pain and pleasure. And then they idealize everything ; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even the deformity of vice seems beautiful." Hyperion. Thus by aspirations lifted, By misgivings downward driven, Human hearts are tossed and drifted Midway between earth and heaven. King Trisanku. How bleak and bare it is ! Nothing but mosses Grow on these rocks. Yet they are not forgotten ; Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them. The Golden Legend. 194 June 27. Charles XII., 1682. June 28. Rubens, 1577; Rousseau, 1712; F. W. Faber, 1814. 195 June 29. My life is given to others, and to this destiny I submit without a murmur ; for I have the satisfac- tion of having labored in my calling, and of having perhaps trained and incited others to do what I shall never do. Life is still precious to me for its many uses, of which the writing of books is but one. Kavanagh. Then a voice within his breast Whispered, audible and clear As if to the outward ear : " Do thy duty ; that is best ; Leave unto thy Lord the rest ! " The Legend Beautiful, Tales of a Wayside Inn. June 30. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still, save the contin- uous wind of the summer night. Hyperion. 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 reflection In the waters under me, Like a golden goblet falling And sinking into the sea. The Bridge. 196 June 29. June 30. 197 TO THE RIVER RHONE. Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower In chambers purple with the Alpine glow, Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow And rocked by tempests ! — at the appointed hour Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower, With clang and clink of harness dost thou go To meet thy vassal torrents, that below Rush to receive thee and obey thy power. And now thou movest in triumphal march, A king among the rivers ! On thy way A hundred towns await and welcome thee ; Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch, Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay, And fleets attend thy progress to the sea ! 198 1 fulp. In the pleasant summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited. All the air was full of freshness, All the earth was bright and joyous, And before him, through the sunshine. Westward toward the neighboring forest Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo, Passed the bees, the honey-makers, Burning, singing in the sunshine. Bright above him shone the heavens, Level spread the lake before him ; From its bosom leaped the sturgeon, Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine ; On its margin the great forest Stood reflected in the water, Every tree-top had its shadow, Motionless beneath the water. Hiawatha's Departure. 199 July i. Generations perish, like the leaves of the forest passing away when their mission is completed ; but at each succeeding spring, broader and higher spreads the human mind unto its perfect stature, unto the fulfilment of its destiny, unto the perfec- tion of its nature. Outre-Mer. Guarding the mountains around Majestic the forests are standing, Bright are their crested helms, Dark is their armor of leaves ; Filled with the breath of freedom Each bosom subsiding, expanding, Now like the ocean sinks, Now like the ocean upheaves. The Masque of Pandora. July 2. He was not yet in love, but very near it ; for he thanked God that he had made such beautiful be- ings to walk the earth. Hyperion. As thou sittest in the moonlight there. Its glory flooding thy golden hair, And the only darkness that which lies In the haunted chambers of thine eyes, I feel my soul drawn unto thee, Strangely and strongly, and more and more, As to one I have known and loved before. The Golden Legend. July i. Joseph Hall, 1574. July 2. July 3. The elm-trees reach their long, pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft; and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. Hyperion. I will send a prophet to you, A deliverer of the nations, Who shall guide you and shall teach you, Who shall toil and suffer with you. If you listen to his counsels, You will multiply and prosper. Hiawatha. July 4. To such souls no age and no country can be ut- terly dull and prosaic. They make unto them- selves their age and country ; dwelling in the uni- versal mind of man, and in the universal forms of things. Drift-Wood. There in seclusion and remote from men The wizard hand lies cold. Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, And left the tale half told. Ah ! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain ? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain ! Hawthorne. 202 July 3. Derzhavin, 1743. July 4. C. F. Gellert, 1715; A. Santa Clara, 1642. 203 July 5. In surveying a national literature, the point you must start from is national character. The most prominent trait in the French character is love of amusement and excitement, and — "I should say, rather, the fear of ennui," interrupted Flemming. Hyperion. Hereafter ? — And do you think to look On the terrible pages of that Book To find her failings, faults, and errors ? Ah, you will then have other cares, In your own shortcomings or despairs. In your own secret sins and terrors ! In the Churchyard at Cambridge. Thy voice Is a celestial melody, and thy form Self-poised as if it floated on the air ! The Masque of Pandora. • July 6. As vapors from the ocean, floating landward and dissolved in rain, are carried back in rivers to the ocean, so thoughts and the semblances of things that fall upon the soul of man in showers flow out again in living streams of Art, and lose themselves in the great ocean, which is Nature. Hyperion. All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dog under the creaking wain Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward the horses toil and strain. The Golden Legend. 204 July 5. S. Siddons, 1755 ; George Sand (Dudevant), 1S04. July 6. J. Flaxman, 1755. 205 July 7. This morning I visited the Alhambra ; an en- chanted palace, whose exquisite beauty baffles the power of language to describe. . . . Imagination itself is dazzled, — bewildered, — overpowered ! Outre-Mer. And there the Alhambra still recalls Aladdin's palace of delight : Allah il Allah ! through its halls Whispers the fountain as it falls, The Darro darts beneath its walls, The hills with snow are white. ^ Castles in Spain. July 8. Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ. Hvperion. On the cross the dying Saviour Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm, Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling In his pierced and bleeding palm. And by all the world forsaken, Sees he how with zealous care At the ruthless nail of iron A little bird is striving there. And the Saviour speaks in mildness : " Blest be thou of all the good ! Bear, as token of this moment, Marks of blood and holy rood ! " The Legend of the Crossbill, Tr. from the Gcrimm o/Juliits Mo sen. 206 July 7. Earl of Arundel, 1592; Dr. Malan, 17S7; R. Schumann, 1810. July 8. La Fontaine, 1621; F. Halleck, 1795; Julius Mosen, 1803. 207 July 9. Wondrous strong are the spells of fiction ! Outre-Mer. ^ Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest, Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river Fell here and there through the branches a tremu- lous gleam of the moonlight, Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 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. Evangeline. July 10. A very strange, fantastic world ; where each one pursues his own golden bubble, and laughs at his neighbor for doing the same. I have been thinking how a moral Linnaeus would classify our race. Hyperion. Why seek to know ? Enjoy the merry shrove-tide of thy youth ! Take each fair mask for what it gives itself, Nor strive to look beneath it. The Spanish Student. • 208 July 9. Ann Radcliffe, 1764; H. Hallam, 1777. July io. Sir W. Blackstone, 1722. 209 July ii. Many curious eyes watched them from the win- dows, many hearts grown cold or careless rekindled their household fires of love from the golden altar of God, borne through the streets by those pure and holy hands ! Kavanagh. O fortunate, O happy day, When a new household finds its place Among the myriad homes of earth, Like a new star just sprung to birth, And rolled on its harmonious way Into the boundless realms of space ! The Hanging of the Crane. July 12. There is a beautiful moral feeling connected with everything in rural life, which is not dreamed of in the philosophy of the city. Outre-Mer. You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skilful ! Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Caesar ! Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it. The Courtship of Miles Standish. 210 July ii. J Q. Adams, 1767 July 12. Julius Caesar, b. c. too; H. D. Thoreau, 1817- 211 July 13. They saw him daily moiling and delving in the common path, like a beetle, and little thought that underneath that hard and cold exterior, lay folded delicate golden wings, wherewith, when the heat of day was over, he soared and revelled in the pleas- ant evening air. Kavanagh. Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. The Day is Done. July 14. In the life of every man there are sudden transi- tions of feeling which seem almost miraculous. Hyperion. As torrents in summer, Half dried in their channels, Suddenly rise, though the Sky is still cloudless, For rain has been falling Far off at their fountains ; So hearts that are fainting Grow full to o'erflowing, And they that behold it Marvel, and know not That God at their fountains Far off has been raining ! The Saga of King Olaf {The Nun of Nidaro^). 212 July 13. J. Clare, 1793; G Freytag, 1816. July 14. 213 July 15. Through the meadow winds the river, — careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work, — the hot and angry bee. All things else are at play ; he never plays, and is vexed that any one should. Hyperion. Very hot and still the air was, Very smooth the gliding river. Motionless the sleeping shadows. Hiawatha. I brought to man the fire And all its ministrations. My reward Hath been the rock and vulture. The Masque of Pandora. Figures in color and design Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, Half darkness and half light. A Dutch Picture. ♦ July 16. Their most striking peculiarity [ballads] . . . con- sists in the simple and direct expression of feeling which they contain. Outre-Mer. Full of hope and yet of heart-break. Full of all the tender pathos Of the Here and the Hereafter. Hiawatha. Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not. Evangeline. 214 July 15. Galileo, 1564; Rembrandt, 1606. July i6. Sir J. Reynolds, 1723; Baroness Nairne, 1766. 215 July 17. The morning came ; the dear, delicious, silent Sunday ; to the weary workman, both of brain and hand, the beloved day of rest. Kavanagh. O day of rest ! How beautiful, how fair, How welcome to the weary and the old ! Day of the Lord ! and truce to earthly cares ! Day of the Lord, as all our days should be ! John Endicott, New England Tragedies. July 18. Painful indeed it is to be misunderstood and un- dervalued by those we love. But this, too, in our life, must we learn to bear without a murmur, for it is a tale often repeated. Hyperion. But the nearer the dawn, the darker the night, And by going wrong all things come right ; Things have been mended that were worse, And the worse, the nearer they are to mend. For the sake of the living and the dead. Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed, And all things come to a happy end. The Baron of St. Castine, Tales of a IVayside Inn. 216 July 17. Watts, 1674; Reland, 1676; M. F. Tupper, 1810. July i8. R. Hooke, 1635; Bettinelli, 1718. 217 July 19. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man ! Hyperion. I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the school-boy's brain ; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song Sings on, and is never still : "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." My Lost Youth. July 20. Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, and how much would be wanting to the completeness of her glory ! Not Aphrodite's self appeared more fair, When first upwafted by caressing winds She came to high Olympus, and the gods Paid homage to her beauty. Thus her hair Was cinctured ; thus her floating drapery Was like a cloud about her, and her face Was radiant with the sunshine and the sea. The Masque of Pandora- 218 July 19. Vorstius, 1623. July 20. Petrarch, 1304; J- Sterling, i8c6. 219 July 21. Those who bow down upon their knees to drink of these bright streams that water life are not chosen of God either to overthrow or to overcome ! Hyperion. ORIFEL. The Angel of the uttermost Of all the shining, heavenly host, From the far-off expanse Of the Saturnian, endless space I bring the last, the crowning grace, The gift of Tem]:)erance ! The Golden Legend. { TJie A jigels of the Seven Planets. ) • July 22. As he walked, his step grew slower, and his heart calmer. The coolness and shadows of the great trees comforted and satisfied him, and he heard the voice of the wind as it were the voice of spirits calling around him in the air. Kavanagh. Ye voices, that arose After the Evening's close, And whispered to my restless heart repose ! Go, breathe it in the ear Of all who doubt and fear. And say to them, " Be of good cheer ! " L'Envoi. Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights. DiviNA Commedia, VL 220 July 21. Matthew Prior, 1664. July 22. Garibaldi, 1807. July 23. Oh, there is something sublime in calm endur- ance. Hyperion. How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read, Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages Of the great poet who foreruns the ages, Anticipating all that shall be said ! O happy Reader ! having for thy text The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught The rarest essence of all human thought ! Sonnet on Mrs. Kemble's Readings from Shakespeare. « July 24. It was a glorious morning, and the sun rose up into a cloudless heaven, and poured a flood of gorgeous splendor over the mountain landscape, as if proud of the realm he shone upon. Outre-Mer. I, the friend of man, Mondamin, Come to warn you and instruct you, How by struggle and by labor You shall gain what you have prayed for. Hiawatha. As come the white sails of ships O'er the ocean's rage ; As comes the smile to the lips, The foam to the surge ; So come to the Poet his songs, All hitherward blown •From the misty realm that belongs To the vast Unknown. The Poet and His Songs. 222 July 23. N. L. Frothingham, 1793; Charlotte Cushman, 1816. July 24. J. Newton, 1725; J. P. Curran, 1750; J. G. Holland, 1819. 223 July 25. A beautiful girl, with flaxen hair, . . . and the form of a fairy in a midsummer night's dream, has just stepped out on the balcony beneath us ! See how coquettishly she crosses her arms upon the balcony, thrusts her dainty little foot through the bars, and plays with her slipper ! Outre-Mer. She has two eyes, so soft and brown. Take care ! She gives a side-glance and looks down, Beware ! Beware ! Trust her not, She is fooling thee ! Beware, From iJie German. Thou comest between me and those books too often ? The Spanish Student. July 26. In great cities we learn to look the world in the face. We shake hands with stern realities. D rift-Wood. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! Be a hero in the strife ! A Psalm of Life. 224 July 25. Elizabeth Hamilton, 1758. July 26. 225 July 27. At the court of Naples, v/hen the dead body of a monarch lies in state, his dinner is carried up to him as usual, and the court physician tastes it to see that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear it out again, saying, " The king does not dine to- day." Hope in our souls is king ; and we also say, « The king never dies." Hyperion. I am the Angel of the Moon, Darkened to be rekindled soon Beneath the azure cope ! Nearest to earth, it is my ray That best illumes the midnight way, I bring the gift of Hope ! The Golden Legend. ( The A 7igels of the Seven Planets.) ♦ . July 28. Sultry grows the day and breathless ! The lately crowded street is silent and deserted — hardly a footfall. Outke-Mer. How beautiful is the rain ! After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain ! How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs ! How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout. Rain in Summer 226 July 27. Thomas Campbell, x^^^. July 28. J- Sannazaro, 145S. 227 July 29. His household gods were broken. He had no home. Hyperion. Yet oft I dream, that once a wife Close in my heart was locked, And in the sweet repose of life A blessed child I rocked. And when I see that lock of gold, Pale grows the evening-red ; And when the dark lock I behold I wish that I were dead. The Two Locks of Hair, TrnnsJated /roil the German of Pfizer. What else remains for me ? Youth, hope, and love : To build a new life on a ruined life. The Masque of Pandora. July 30. This journey is written in my memory with a sunbeam. We were a company whom chance had thrown together, — different in ages, humors, and pursuits, — and yet so merrily the days went by, in sunshine, wind, or rain, that methinks some lucky star must have ruled the hour that brought us five so auspiciously together. Outre-Mer. Never from my heart has faded quite Its memory, that, like a summer sunset, Encircles with a ring of purple light All the horizon of my youth. The Golden Legend. 228 July 29. Hiram Powers, 1S05 ; G. Pfizer, 1809. July 30. Samuel Rogers, 1763. 229 July 31. The same object, seen from three different points of view, — the Past, the Present, and the Future, — often exhibits three different faces to us ; like those sign-boards over shop-doors, which represent the face of a lion as we approach, of a man when we are in front, and of an ass when we have passed Kavanagh. Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth, Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but of actions, Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier, 'T was but a dream, — let it pass, — let it vanish like so many others ! What T thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is worthless ! The Courtship of Miles Standish. 230 July 31, 231 WOODSTOCK PARK. Here in a little rustic hermitage Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great, Postponed the cares of king-craft to translate The Consolations of the Roman sage. Here Geoffrey Chaucer, in his ripe old age Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon or late The venturous hand that strives to imitate Vanquished must fall on the unfinished page. Two kings were they, who ruled by right divine, And both supreme ; one in the realm of Truth, One in the realm of Fiction and of Song. WHiat prince hereditary of their line, Uprising in the strength and flush of youth, Their glory shall inherit and prolong ? 232 3llu0U^t. A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA. The sun is set ; and in his latest beams Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, The falling mantle of the Prophet seems. From the dim headlands many a light-house gleams, The street-lamps of the ocean ; and behold, O'erhead the banners of the night unfold ; The day hath passed into the land of dreams. O summer day beside the joyous sea ! O summer day so wonderful and white, So full of gladness and so full of pain ! Forever and forever shalt thou be To some the gravestone of a dead delight. To some the landmark of a new domain. '-33 August i. The darkening foliage ; the embrowning grain ; the golden dragon-fly haunting the blackberry bushes ; the cawing crows, that looked down from the mountain on the cornfield, and waited day after day for the scarecrow to finish his work and depart ; and the smoke of far-off burning woods that pervaded the air and hung in purple haze about the summits of the mountain; — these were the avant-couriers and attendants of the hot August. Kavanagh. Ah, how bright the sun Strikes on the sea and on the masts of vessels, That are uplifted in the morning air, Like crosses of some peaceable crusade ! John Endicott, New England Tragedies. ♦ August 2. I may not know the purpose of my being . . . but I do know that my being has a purpose in the om- niscience of my Creator, and that all my actions tend to the completion, to the full accomplishment of that purpose. Outre-Mer. To-morrow ! the mysterious, unknown guest, Who cries to me : " Remember Barmecide, And tremble to be happy with the rest." And I make answer : " I am satisfied ; I dare not ask ; I know not what is best ; God hath already said what shall betide." To-morrow. Thou hast the patience and the faith of Saints ! John Endicott, New England Tragedies. 234 August i. George Tickiior, 1791 ; Spitta, 1801 ; R. H. Dana, 1815, August 235 August 3. He told not to his friend the sorrow with which his heart was heavy, but kept it for himself alone. He knew that the time, which comes to all men, — the time to suffer and be silent, — had come to him likewise, and he spake no word. Oh, well has it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak ! Hyperion. We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not w^iolly stay ; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. Resignation. Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike. Evangeline. August 4. The thought springs heavenward from the soul . the imagination of the poet seems spiritualized. Outre-Mer. His song was of the summer-time, The very birds sang in his rhyme ; The sunshine, the delicious air. The fragrance of the flowers, were there ; And I grew restless as I heard, Restless and buoyant as a bird, Down soft, aerial currents sailing. Yielding and borne I know not where, But feeling resistance unavailing. The Golden Legend. 236 August 3. Earl Stanhope, 1753 ; W. Ware, 1797. • August 4. J. J. Scaliger, 1540; Percy Bysslic Shelley, 1792, 237 August 5. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I can- not see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. Hypeeion. Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! Many a lesson, deep and long ; Thou hast been a generous giver ; I can give thee but a song. Oft in sadness and in illness, I have watched thy current glide, Till the beauty of its stillness Overflowed me, like a tide. To THE River Charles. ♦ August 6. Beware of dreams ! Beware of the illusions of fancy ! Beware of the solemn deccivings of thy vast desires! Hyperion. Let not the illusion of thy senses Betray thee to deadly offences. Be strong ! be good ! be pure ! The Golden Legend- He was born at the break of day, When abroad the angels walk ; He hath listened to their talk, And he knoweth what they say. The Fugitive, Tartar So/ts:; f^- from prose of Chodsko. August 5- August 6. Malebranche, 1638; Fenelon, 1651. 239 August 7. Field, forest, hill and vale, fresh air, and the perfume of clover-fields and new-mown hay, birds singing, and the sound of village bells, and the moving breeze among the branches, — the beaut)' and quiet of the holy day of rest, — all, all in earth and air, breathed upon the soul like a benediction. Drift- Wood. 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 ! 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. August 8. The hand of man unconsciously inscribes upon all his works the sentence of imperfection, which the finger of the invisible hand wrote upon the wall of the Assyrian monarch. Outre-Mer. Labor with what zeal we will. Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun. Something Left Undone. 240 August 7. C. Aquila, 148S; J. R. Drake, 1795. August 8. B. Silliman, 1779. 24] August 9. I become aware of tl\e great importance, in a na- tion's history, of the individual fame of scholars and literary men. Hyperion. " Sing me a song divine, With a sword in every line, And this shall be thy reward." And he loosened the belt at his waist, And in front of the singer placed His sword. Then the Scald took his harp and sang, And loud through the music rang The sound of that shining word ; And the harp-strings a clangor made, As if they were struck with the blade Of a sword. The Saga of King Olaf. • August 10. How beautiful is this green world which we in- habit ! See, yonder, how the moonlight mingles with the mist. What a glorious night is this ! Hyperion. The rising moon has hid the stars ; Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green, With shadows brown between. Endymion. Ah ! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair. That they might fear thee more, or love thee less. To Italy, From Filicaja. 242 August 9. John Drydeii, 1631 August io. Count Cavour, 1810. 243 August ii. The piny odors in the night air, the soHtary light at her father's window, the familiar bark of the dog Major at the sound of the wheels, awakened feel- ings at once new and old. A sweet perplexity of thought, a strange familiarity, a no less pleasing strangeness ! Kavanagh. The well-remembered odor Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back To other days. Judas Maccabeus. August 12. Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, ■but in its suggestions, unlimited and infinite. Drift-Wood. Ah ! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, Should be to wet the dusty soil With the hot tears and sweat of toil, — To struggle with imperious thought, Until the overburdened brain. Weary with labor, faint with pain, Like a jarred pendulum, retain Only its motion, not its power, — Remember, in that perilous hour, When most afflicted and oppressed, From labor there shall come forth rest. To A Child. 244 August ii. J. Nollekins, 1737; J. V. Moreau, 1763. August 12. Robert Southey, 1774. 245 August 13. I am ; thou art ; he is ! seems but a school-boy's conjugation. But therein lies a mysterious mean- ing. We behold all round about us one vast union, in which no man can labor for himself, without la- boring at the same time for all others, Hyperion. Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, Our hearts, in glad surprise, To higher levels rise. Santa Filomena. August 14. " You do not certainly mean to deny the influ- ence of scenery on the mind ? " " No, only to deny that it can create genius. At best, it can only develop it. Switzerland has produced no extraordinary poet ; nor as far as I know, have the Andes, or the Himalaya moun- tains, or the Mountains of the Moon in Africa." Kavanagh. Look, then, into thine heart, and write ! Yes, into Life's deep stream ! All forms of sorrow and delight. All solemn Voices of the Night, That can soothe thee, or affright, — Be these henceforth thy theme. Prelude to Voices of the Nic#t. 246 August 13. Lavoisier, 1743- August 14. Letitia E. Landon, 1802. 247 August 15. It seems as natural to make tales out of tumble- down traditions, as canes and snuff-boxes out of old steeples, or trees planted by great men. Drift-Wood. He loved the twilight that surrounds The border-land of old romance ; Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance. And banner waves, and trumpet sounds, And ladies ride with hawk on wrist, And mighty warriors sweep along. Magnified by the purple mist, The dusk of centuries and of song. Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. It was no dream ; the world he loved so much Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch ! King Robert of Sicily, Tales of a Wayside Inn. ♦ August 16. Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality ! I will work in my own sphere, nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. This alone is Life. Hyperion. Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, Onward through life he goes ; Each morning sees some task begin. Each evening sees it close ; Something attempted, something done. Has earned a night's repose. The Village Blacksmith. 248 August 15. R. Blakfe, 1599 ; Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769 ; Walter Scott, 1771 August i6. Pierre Mechain, 1744. 249 August 17. Day, panting with heat, and laden with a thou- sand cares, toils onward like a beast of burden ; but Night, calm, silent, holy Night, is a ministering angel that cools with its dewy breath the toil-heated brow ; and, like the Roman sisterhood, stoops down to bathe the pilgrim's feet. Outke-Mer. I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o'er me from above ; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. Hymn to the Night. August 18. It was as if the authors themselves were gazing at him from the walls, with countenances neither sorrowful nor glad, but full of calm indifference to fate, like those of the poets who appeared to Dante in his vision, walking together on the dolorous iihore. Kavanagh. A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse ; The inspiration, the delight. The gleam, the glory, the swift flight, Of thoughts so sudden, t' at they seem The revelations of a dream, All these were his ; but with them came No envy of another's fame. Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 250 August 17. Thomas Stothaid, 1755 August i8. Earl Russell, 1792; Thomas W. Parsons, iSig. 251 August 19. To say the least, a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgment of others. One is not eternally wrapped up in self-contempla- tion, which, after all, is only a more holy kind of vanity. Hyperion. " I hate the crowded town ! I cannot breathe shut up within its gates ! Air, — I want air, and sunshine, and blue sky, The feeling of the breeze upon my face. The feeling of the turf beneath my feet, And no walls but the far-off mountain-tops." The Spanish Student. Like the river, swift and clear, Flows his song through many a heart. Oliver Basselin. August 20. From the hand of a man of genius. Everything , . has the freshness of morning and of May. Drift-Wood. Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities Hauntest the sylvan streams, Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties That come to us as dreams. Flower-de-Luce. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining. Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day. Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, Buds that open only to decay. Flowers. 252 August 19. Mendoza, 1398; Beranger, 1780; S. G. Goodrich, 1793. August 20. Robert Herrick, 1591. 253 August 21. From the neighboring villages came the solemn, joyful sounds, floating through the sunny air, mel- low and faint and low, all mingling into one harmo- nious chime like the sound of some distant organ in heaven. Hyperion. Through the closed blinds the golden sun Poured in a dusty beam, 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 That on the window lay. a Gleam of Sunshine. He who followeth Love's behest Far excelleth all the rest. The Building of the Ship. • August 22. His heart was like the altar of the Israelites of old ; and, though drenched with tears, as with rain, it was kindled at once by the holy fire from heaven ! Hyperion. The sick man from his chamber looks At the twisted brooks ; He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool ; His fevered brain Grows calm again, And he breathes a blessing on the rain. Rain in Summer 254 August 21. J. Crichton, 1561 ; F. de Sales, 1567; Michelet, 1798- August 22. J. K. Paulding, 1779. 255 August 23. Glorious scene ! one glance at thee would move the dullest soul — one glance can melt the painter and the poet into tears. Outre-Mer. Sweet vision ! Do not fade away ; Linger until my heart shall take Into itself the summer day, And all the beauty of the lake. Cadenabbia. " Come, wander with me," she said, " Into regions yet untrod ; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz. • August 24. Continually and ever with more distinctness, arose in his memory the tradition of Saint Christo- pher — the beautiful allegory of humility and labor. Kavanagh. Poor, sad Humanity, Through all the dust and heat Turns back with bleeding feet, By the weary road it came, Unto the simple thought By the Great Master taught, And that remaineth still : Not he that repeateth the name, But he that doeth the will ! Finale to New England Tragedies. 256 August 23. Sir Astley Cooper, 176S ; Cuvier, 1769. August 24. W. Wilberforce, 1759; Theodore Parker, 1810. 557 August 25. Just at my feet lay a little silver pool, with the sky and the woods painted in its mimic vault, and occasionally the image of a bird, or the soft, watery outline of a cloud, floating silently through its sunny hollows. The water-lily spread its broad, green leaves on the surface, and rocked to sleep a little world of insect life in its golden cradle. Ol'tre-Mer. There is a quiet spirit in these woods, That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows ; With what a tender and impassioned voice It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought ! The Spirit ok Poetry. • August 26. One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for support. Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love and joy and sorrow learn, Something with passion clasp, or perish, And in itself to ashes burn. Forsaken. From the German. " A fine morning." " Nothing 's the matter with it that I know of. I have seen better, and I have seen worse." John Endicott, Ne'rv England Tragedies. 258 August 25. C. E. L. Camus, 1699; Herder, 1744. August 26. Sir R. Walpole, 167J. '69 August 27. It vas a bright, beautiful morning after night- rain. Ever}' dew-drop and rain-drop had a whole heaven within it ; and so had the heart of Paul P'lemming. Hyperion. There was no moment's space Between my seeing thee and loving thee. Oh, what a tell-tale face thou hast ! Again I see the wonder in thy tender eyes. The Masque of Pandora. » August 28. Only think of his [Goethe's] life ; his youth of pas- sion, alternately aspiring and desponding, stormy, impetuous, headlong ; his romantic manhood, in which passion assumes the form of strength ; assid- uous, careful, loiling without haste, without rest ; and his sublime old age — the age of serene and classic repose ! . . . I affirm that with all his errors and shortcomings, he was a glorious specimen of a man. Hyperion. Thou that from the heavens art. Every pain and sorrow stillest, And the doubly wretched heart Doubly with refreshment fillest, I am weary with contending ! Why this rapture and unrest .'' Peace descending Come, ah, come into my breast ! Wanderer's Night-Songs, Tr. from Goethe. 260 August 2.7. W. Woo'.let, 1735; C. W. F. Negel, 1770; Niebuhr, 1776. ' August 28. John Locke, 1632; Goethe, 1749. August 29. Fame comes only when deserved, and then it is as inevitable as destiny. Hyperion. God send his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again. The Singers. . . . Songs of that high art Which, as winds do in the pine. Find an answer in each heart. Oliver Basselin. August 30. In the morning Kavanagh sallied forth to find the Fairmeadow of his memory, but found it not. Kavanagh. From the outskirts of the town, Where of old the mile-stone stood. Now a stranger, looking down I behold the shadowy crown Of the dark and haunted wood. Is it changed, or am I changed .'' Ah ! the oaks are fresh and green, But the friends with whom I ranged Through their thickets are estranged By the years that intervene. Changed. 262 August 29. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809. August 30. 263 August 31. The vast cathedral of Nature is full of holy scrip- tures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning, but all is solitary and silent there ; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, no lip adoring, praying. Hyperion. Like two cathedral towers these stately pines Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones ; The arch beneath them is not built with stones, Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines, And carved this graceful arabesque of vines ; No organ but the wind here sighs and moans, No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones, No marble bishop on his tomb reclines. Enter ! the pavement, carpeted with leaves, Gives back a softened echo to thy tread ! Listen ! the choir is singing ; all the birds, In leafy galleries beneath the eaves. Are singing ! listen, ere the soiyid be fled, And learn there may be worship without words. Mv Cathedral. 264 August 31. Cliarles Lever, iSo6. 265 SLEEP. Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint ^olian harp -string caught ; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound ; For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care dis^ traught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, peaceful Sleep ! until from pain released 1 breathe again uninterru])ted breath ! Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast Whereof the greater mystery is death ! 266 ^cj^tcmbct. AUTUMN. Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, With banners, by great gales incessant fanned, Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand, And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain ! Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, Upon thy bridge of gold ; thy royal hand Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land, Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain ! Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended So long beneath*the heaven's o'erhanging eaves ; Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended ; Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves ; And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid, Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves ! 267 September i. Over warm uplands, smelling of clover and mint ; through cool glades, still wet with the rain of yes- terday; along the river; across the rattling and tilting planks of wooden bridges; by orchards ; by the gates of fields, with the tall mullen growing at the bars ; by stone walls overrun with privet and barberries ; in sun and heat, in shadow and cool- ness, — forward drove the happy party. Kavanagh. This memory brightens o'er the past, As when the sun, concealed Behind some cloud that near us hangs, Shines on a distant field. A Gleam of Sunshine. With the beauty of his mother, With the courage of his father. Hiawatha. September 2. The superiority of one [grave] over another is in the nobler and better emotions which it excites ; in its more fervent admonitions to virtue ; in the live- lier recollection which it awakens of the good and the great, whose bodies are crumbling to dust be- neath our feet ! Outre-Mer. And the inward voice was saying : " Whatsoever thing thou doest To the least of mine and lowest. That thou doest unto me ! " The Legend Beautiful. 268 September i. Alleyn, 1566; Countess of Bless'nglon, lySg; Sigourney, 1791. September 2. John Howard, 1726; Lant Carpenter, 1780; Rosen, 1805. 269 September 3. There are times when my soul is restless, and a voice sounds within me like the trump of the arch- angel, and thoughts that were buried long ago come out of their graves. At such times, my favorite occupations and pursuits no longer charm me. The quiet face of Nature seems to mock me. Hyperion. How often, oh how often, I had wished that the ebbing tide Would bear me away on its bosom O'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 me Seemed greater than I could bear. The Bridge. September 4. When we reflect that all the aspects of Nature, all the emotions of the soul, and all the events of life, have been the subjects of poetry for hundreds and thousands of years, we can hardly wonder that there should be so many resemblances, and coinci- dences of expression among poets, but rather that they are not more numerous and striking. Drift-Wood. World-wide apart, and yet akin. As showing that the human heart Beats on forever as of old. Interlude before Elizabeth, Tales of a Wayside I iin 270 September 3. Sir John Soane, 1753. September 4. Pindar, 520 b. c. ; Chateaubriand, 1769; Phoebe Gary, 1824 271 September 5. Man is begotten in delight and born in pain, and in these are the rapture and labor of his life fore- shadowed from the beginning. Hyperion. Thou mighty Prince of Church and State, Richelieu ! until the hour of death, Whatever road man chooses. Fate Still holds him subject to her breath. Spun of all silks, our days and nights Have sorrows woven with delights; And of this intermingled shatle Our various destiny appears, Even as one sees the course of years Of summers and of winters made. To Cardinal Richelieu. From Malherbe. September 6. If this genius is to find any expression, it must employ art ; for art is the external expression of our thoughts. Kavanagh. Here in seclusion, as a widow may. The lovely lady whiled the hours away, Pacing in sable robes the statued hall. Herself the stateliest statue among all. And seeing more and more, with secret joy. Her husband risen and living in her boy. The Falcon of Ser Federigo. Great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, courageous. The Courtship of Miles Standish. September 5. Richelieu, 1585; Louis XIV., 163S: C. M. Wieland, 1733. September 6. Marquis de Lafayette, 1757; Horatio Greenough, 1S05. 273 SeptEiMber 7. Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted with the strong excitement ; and, in that hour, when, sleep being " nigh unto the soul," visions are deemed prophetic, he dreamed. O blessed vision of the morning, stay ! thou wast so fair ! Hyperion. " Do you believe in dreams ? " " Why, yes and no. When they come true, then I believe in them ; When they come false, I don't believe in them." Giles Corey. New England Tragedies. Monarchs, the powerful and the strong, Famous in history and in song. CopLAS de Manrique, Tr.from the Spanish. ♦ September 8. Our passions never wholly die ; but in the last cantos of life's romantic epos, they rise up again and do battle, like some of Ariosto's heroes, who have already been quietly interred, and ought to be turned to dust. Kavanagh. All thought and feeling and desire, I said. Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song Have ebbed from me forever ! Suddenly o'er me They swept again from their deep ocean bed, And in a tumult of delight, and strong As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me. The Tides. 274 September 7. Elizabeth, 1533; Buffon, 1707. September 8. Ariosto, 1474; J. Leyden, 1775. ^1^ September 9. With a feeling of infinite relief, he left behind him the empty school-house, into which the hot sun of a September afternoon was pouring. All the fresh voices, shrill, but musical with the melody of childhood, were gone ; and the lately busy realm was given up to silence, and the dusty sunshine and the old gray flies that buzzed and bumped their heads against the window-panes, Kavanagh. Not too proud To teach in schools of little country towns Science and song, and all the arts that please. The Descent of the Muses. Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance. Thou dost not toil nor spin, But makest glad and radiant with thy presence The meadow and the lin. Flower-de-Luce. ♦ September 10. Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not ; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad. Hyperion. 1 have read, in the marvellous heart of man, That strange and mystic scroll, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Beleaguer the human soul. The Beleaguered City. Youths, who in their strength elate Challenge the van and front of fate. The Hanging of the Crane. 276 September 9. L. Galvani, 1737; R- C Trench, i 07. September io. Mungo Park, 1771. 277 September ii. The greatest works of his [man's] handicraft delight me hardly less than the greatest works of Nature. They are " the masterpieces of her own masterpiece." Drift-Wood. Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf. Autumn. Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep. To A Child. September 12. ** I like," said he, " after a long day's march, to lie down in this way upon the grass, and enjoy the cool of the evening. It reminds me of the bivouacs of other days, and of old friends who are now up there." Here he pointed with his finger to the sky. . . . Outre-Mer. He is dead, the beautiful youth. The heart of honor, the tongue of truth, He, the life and light of us all, Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call, Whom all eyes followed with one consent, The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word, Hushed all murmurs of discontent. Killed at the Ford. Thy finer sense perceives Celestial and perpetual harmonies. The Golden Legend. 278 September ii- Pierre de Ronsard, 1524; Lowth, 1661 ; James Thomson, 1700. September 12. Rameau, 16S3 ; J- H. G. Stilling, 1740. 279 September 13. When he emerged from the black woodlands into the meadows by the river's side, all his cares were forgotten. Kavanagh. If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, If tliou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart frgm fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills ! No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. Sunrise on the Hills. Grave in his aspect and attire, A man of ancient pedigree. Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. • September 14. With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought. Drift-Wood. And liked the canter of the rhymes, That had a hoofbeat in their sound. Interlude before "The Mother's Ghost,'' JVuyside Inn. Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water. Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music. That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. Evangeline. He the mightiest among many. Hiawatha. 280 September 13. September 14. Wallenstein, 15S3 ; A. von Humboldt, 1769 ; H. Coleridge, 1796. 281 September 15. The free and spirited touches of a master's hand are recognized in all. Outre-Mer. The father sat and told them tales Of wrecks in the great September gales, Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main, And ships that never came back again. The Building of the Ship. Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing Must they see above them sailing O'er life's barren crags the vulture ? Prometheus. Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error. The Courtship of Miles Standish. September 16. She was like Guercino's Sibyl, with the scroll of fate and the uplifted pen ; and the scroll she held contained but three words, — three words that con- trolled the destiny of a man, and, by their soft im- pulsion, directed forevermore the current of his thoughts. They were, — " Come to me ! " Kavanagh. So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels. Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder, Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer, Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other. The Courtship of Miles Standish. 282 September 15. J F. Cooper, 1789; J. G. Percival, 1795. September i6. 283 September 17. ** Why has heaven given me these affections, only to fall and fade ? " Hyperion. Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted ; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, re- turning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment ; That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain. Evangeline. ♦ September 18. " Bitter as Juvenal ! " " Not in the least bitter. ... It is all true." Hyperion. His form is the form of a giant, But his face wears an aspect of pain ; Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth ? Can this be Sir Allan McLean ? Ah, no ! It is only the Rambler, The Idler, who lives in Bolt Court, And who says, were he Laird of Inchkenneth, He would wall himself round with a fort. A Wraith in the Mist. There never was so wise a man before ; He seemed the incarnate " Well, I told you so ! " The Birds of Killingworth, Ta/es of a Wayside Inn. Though he was rough, he was kindly. The Courtship of Miles Standish. 284 September 17. G. W. Rabener, 1714; Condorcet, 1743; John Foster 1770. September i8. Bishop Burnet, 1643; S. Johnson. 1769; J. Story, 1779. 28s September 19. How indescribably beautiful this brown water is ! ... It is like wine, or the nectar of the gods of Olympus ; as if the falling Hebe had poured it from the goblet. Kavanagh. Beautiful in form and feature, Lovely as the day, Can there be so fair a creature Formed of common clay ? The Masque of Pandora. Pondering much and much contriving How the tribes of men might prosper. Hiawatha. • September 20. Believe me, upon the margin of celestial streams alone those simples grow which cure the heart- ache ! Hyperion. That 't is a common grief Bringeth but slight relief ; Ours is the bitterest loss, Ours is the heaviest cross. The Chamber over the Gate. Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. Resignation. A rmi potent in every act. Charlemagne, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 286 September 19. Lord Brougham, 1779. September 20. Alexander the Great, 356 b. c. 2S7 September 21. There is nothing so good for sorrow as rapid motion in the open air. Hyperion. Gone was every trace of sorrow, As the fog from off the water, As the mist from off the meadow. Hiawatha. To him all things were possible, and seemed Not what he had accomplished, but had dreamed, And what were tasks to others were his play, The pastime of an idle holiday. Emma and Eginhard, Talcs of a Wayside Inn. September 22. How .... the wind plays on those great sonorous harps, the shrouds and masts of ships. Hyi-erion. The windows, rattling in their frames. The ocean, roaring up the beach. The gusty blast, the bickering flames. All mingled vaguely in our speech ; 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. The Fire of Drift-Wood, A man of such a genial mood The heart of all things he embraced. And yet of such fastidious taste, He never found the best too good. PuELUDE TO Tales of a Wayside Inn. 288 September 21. Savonarola, 1452. September 22. Lord Chesterfield, 1694; Hook, 17S8; G. S. Illllard, 1808. 289 September 23. Decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, — the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time ! Kavanagh. A handful of red sand, from the hot clime Of Arab deserts brought, Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, The minister of Thought. Sand of the Desert in an Hour-glass. O enviable fate ! to be Strong, beautiful, and armed like thee With lyre and sword, with song and steel. A hand to smite, a heart to feel. The Golden Legend. • September 24. The moon is full and bright, and the shadows lie so dark and massive in the street they seem a part of the walls that cast them. Outre-Mer. The moon was pallid, but not faint ; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God, Unharmed with naked feet she trod Upon the hot and burning stars. As on the glowing coals and bars, Tliat were to prove her strength, and try Her holiness and purity. The Occultation of Orion. 290 SEPTEiVn'.KR 23. Jane Taylor, 1723; Cornelius, 1787; K. T. Kiiriier, 1791. September 24. Sharon Turner, 1768. 291 September 25. As he . . . heard at times the sound of the wind in the trees, and the sound of Sabbath bells ascend- ing up to heaven, holy wishes and prayers ascended with them from his inmost soul, beseeching that he might not love in vain. Hyperion. 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. Long was the prayer he uttered, Yet it seemed not so to me ; For in my heart I prayed with him, And still I thought of thee. A Gleam of Sunshine. • September 26. The God's truce with worldly cares was once more at an end. . . . Suddenly closed the ivory gate of dreams, and the horn gate of every-day life opened, and he went forth to deal with the man of flesh and blood. Kavanagh. Bravely have you wrestled with me, Thrice have wrestled stoutly with me, And the Master of Life, who sees us, He will give to you the triumph. Hiawatha. Wild with the winds of September Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel. Evangeline. 292 September 25. C. G. Heyne, 1729 ; W. L. Bowles, 1762 ; Mrs. Hemans, 1794. September 26. J. A. Hillhouse, 17S9. 293 September 27. There are seasons of revery and deep abstraction which seem to me analogous to death. The soul . . . sees familiar faces and hears beloved voices which to the bodily senses are no longer audible. Hyperion. When the hours of Day are numbered, And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that slumbered, To a holy, calm delight ; Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door ; The beloved, the true-hearted, Come to visit me once more. Footsteps of Angels. September 28. I love these rural dances — from my heart I love them. This world, at best, is so full of care and sorrow . . . there is so much toil and struggling and anguish and disappointment here below, that I gaze with delight on a scene where all these are laid aside and forgotten. Outre-Mer. Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances, Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows ; Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them. Evangeline. Thou art a scholar. The Spanish Student. 294 September 27. Bossuet, 1627; S. Adams, 1722; Epes Sargent, 1812. September 28. Tassoui, 1565; Sir Wm. Jones, 174^- 295 September 29. Without, the village street was paved with gold ; the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. Within, the faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls ; the returning footsteps of the long-absent gladdened the threshold ; and all the sweet ameni- ties of social life again resumed their interrupted reign, Kavanagh. The morrow was a bright September morn ; The earth was beautiful as if new-born ; There was that nameless splendor everywhere, That wild exhilaration in the air, Which makes the passers in the city street Congratulate each other as they meet. The Falcon of Sir Federigo, Tales of a Wayside hm. . . . Strong and great, a hero. To THE Driving Cloud. • September 30. The country is lyric, — the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama. Kavanagh. O sweet illusions of Song, That tempt me everywhere, In the lonely fields, and the throng Of the crowded thoroughfare. Fata Morgana. Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, Life is checkered shade and sunshine. Rule by love, O Hiawatha. Hiawatha 296 September 29. Mickle, 1734; Horatio Nelson, 1758. September 30. Euripides, 4S0 B. c. 297 BOSTON. St. Botolph's Town ! Hither across the plains And fens of Lincohishire, in garb austere, There came a Saxon monk, and founded here A Priory, pillaged by marauding Danes, So that thereof no vestige now remains ; Only a name, that, spoken loud and clear, And echoed in another hemisphere, Survives the sculptured walls and painted panes. St. Botolph's Town ! Far over leagues of land And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower. And far around the chiming bells are heard ; So may that sacred name forever stand A landmark, and a symbol of the power, That lies concentred in a single word. 298 ^u <©cto6cr. THE HARVEST MOON. It is the Harvest Moon ! On gilded vanes And roofs of villages, on woodland crests And their aerial neighborhoods of nests Deserted, on the curtained window-panes Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests ! Gone are the birds that were our summer guests, With the last sheaves return the laboring wains ! All things are symbols : the external shows Of Nature have their image in the mind, As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves ; The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, Only the empty nests are left behind, And pipings of the quail among the sheaves. 299 October i. The brown autumn came. Out of doors, it brought to the fields the prodigality of the golden harvest, — to the forest, revelations of light, — and to the sky, the sharp air, the morning mist, the red clouds at evening. Within doors, the sense of seclusion, the stillness of closed and curtained win- dows, musings by the fireside, books, friends, con- versation, and the long, meditative evenings. Kavanagh. It was autumn, and incessant Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, And, like living coals, the apples Burned among the withering leaves. Pegasus in Pound. Oh ! there is something in that voice that reaches The innermost recesses of my spirit. The Divine Tragedy. ♦ October 2. A stout gentleman of perhaps forty-five, round, ruddy, and with a head which, being a little bald on the top, looked not unlike a crow's nest with one egg in it. Hyperion. He had a way of saying things That made one think of courts and kings, And lords and ladies of high degree. The Rhyme of Sir Christopher, Tales of a Wayside Inn Patience ! . . . have faith, and thy prayer will be answered ! Evangeline. 300 October i. Lord Bolingbroke, 1678 ; Rufus Choate, 1799. October 2. Borromeo, 153S; J. Ritson, 1752. 301 October 3. New shops, with new names over the doors ; new streets, with new forms and faces in them ; the whole town seemed to have been taken and occu- pied by a besieging army of strangers. Kavanagh. Bright as ever flows the sea, Bright as ever shines the sun, But alas ! they seem to me Not the sun that used to be, Not the tides that used to run. Changed. His heart was in his work, and the heart Giveth grace unto every Art. The Building of the Ship. October 4. He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. Hyperion. I must go forth into the town, To visit beds of pain and death, Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, And sorrowing hearts and patient eyes That see, through tears, the sun go down, But never more shall see it rise. The poor in body and estate, The sick and the disconsolate, Must not on man's convenience wait. The Golden Legend. Feet that run on willing errands. Hiawatha 302 October 3. George Bancroft, iSoo. October 4. Malone, 1741. 303 October 5. The hearts of some women tremble like leaves ,at every breath of love which reaches them, and then are still again. Others, like the ocean, are moved only by the breath of a storm, and not so easily lulled to rest. Kavanagh. Pescara's beautiful young wife, The type of perfect womanhood. Whose life was love, the life of life, That time and change and death withstood. VlTTORIA COLONNA. Having . . . skill in the turning of phrases. The Courtship of Miles Standish. October 6. He passed an orchard. The air was filled with the odor of the fallen fruit, which seemed to him as sweet as the fragrance of blossoms in June. Kavanagh. And the maize-field grew and ripened. Till it stood in all the splendor Of its garments green and yellow. Hiawatha. Her silver voice Ts the rich music of a summer bird Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence. The Spirit of Poetry. The song on its mighty pinions Took every living soul, and lifted it gently to heaven. Children of the Lord's Supper. October 5. Horace Walpole, 1717- October 6. Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, 1821 505 October 7. Miiller . . . has written a great many pretty songs, in which the momentary, indefinite longings and impulses of the soul of man find an expression. . . . There is one among them much to our present purpose. He expresses in it the feeling of unrest and desire of motion which the sight and sound of running waters often produce in us. Hyperion. I heard a brooklet gushing From its rocky fountain near, Down into the valley rushing. So fresh and wondrous clear. Is this the way I was going ? Whither, O brooklet, say ! Thou hast, with thy soft murmur, Murmured my senses away ? Whither ? Tr. from the German of Miiller. « October 8. Many quaint and quiet customs, many comic scenes and strange adventures, ... fit for humorous tale and soft, pathetic story, lie all about us here in New England. Drift-Wood. Tales that have the rime of age. Prelude to Voices of the Night. Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes overrun- ning with laughter, Said, in a tremulous voice, *' Why don't you speak for yourself, John "i " Courtship of Miles Standish. ';o6 October 7. .Wilhelm Muller, i795- October 8. 307 October 9. We have now entered the vast and melancholy plains of La Mancha — a land to which the genius of Cervantes has given a vulgo-classic fame. ... A few years pass away and history becomes romance and romance history. To the peasantry of Spain, Don Quixote and his squire are historic personages. Outre-Mer. Such'a fate as this was Dante's, By defeat and exile maddened ; Thus were Milton and Cervantes, Nature's priests and Corybantes, By affliction touched and saddened. Prometheus. October 10. Where is now that merry company ? One sleeps in his youthful grave ; two sit in their fatherland, and " coin their brain for their daily bread ; " and the others, — where are they .'' Outre-Mer. The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark. Fire of Drift-Wood. Where are they now ? What lands and skies Paint pictures in their friendly eyes .■* What hope deludes, what promise cheers, What pleasant voices fill their ears ? Finale to Tales of a Wayside Inn. Building nests in Fame's great temple. As in spouts the swallows build. Nuremberg. 308 October 9. Cervantes, 1547; Harriet G. Hosmer, 1S30. October io. B. West, 1738; G p. Morris, 1S02. 309 October ii. The eldest of the three was a woman in that sea- son of life when the early autumn gives to the sum- mer leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. Though the mother of many children, she was still beautiful ; — resembling those trees which blossom in October, when the leaves are changing, and whose fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. Hyperion. On her cheek Blushes the richness of an autumn sky, With ever-shifting beauty. Spirit ok Foetrv. I cannot sleep ! my fervid brain Calls up the vanished past again. And throws its misty splendors deep Into the pallid realms of sleep ! The Golden Legend. ♦ October 12. The resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve much. Hyperion. All thoughts of ill ; all evil deed-;, That have their root in thoughts of ill ; Whatever hinders or impedes The action of the nobler will ; — All these must first be trampled down Beneath our feet, if we would gain In the bright fields of fair renown The right of eminent domain. The Ladder of St. Augustine. 310 October ii. Reinhold, 151 1 ; H. J. von Klaproth, 1783. October 12. Hugh Miller, 1S02. 3" October 13. People of a lively imagination are generally curi- ous, and always so when a little in love. Hyperion. And Love is master of all arts, And puts it into human hearts The strangest things to say and do. Interlude before The Monk of Casal-Maggiore, Tales of a Wayside Inn. When the silver habit of the clouds Comes clown upon the autumn sun, and with A sober gladness the old year takes up His bright inheritance of golden fruits, A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. Autumn. October 14. Out of his old faith he brought with him all he had found in it that was holy and pure and of good report. Not its . . . intolerance ; but its zeal, its self-devotion, its heavenly aspirations, its human sympathies. Kavanagh. Thou hast the nobler virtues of thy race, Without the failings that attend those virtues. Thou canst be strong, and yet not tyrannous, Canst righteous be and not intolerant. Judas Maccabeus. There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile, Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country. Evangeline. 312 October 13. Marshal Saxe, 1696. October 14. William Penn, 1644. 3^3 October 15. He found the veteran sculptor Dannecker sit- ting alone with his psalm-book and the reminis- cences of a life of eighty years. ..." So you are from America . . . but you have a German name. Paul Flemming was one of our old poets." .... He took Flemming by the hand and made him sit down by his side. " My hands are cold ; colder than yours. They were warmer once. I am now an old man." ..." Yes, these are the hands," an- swered Flemming, " that sculptured the beauteous Ariadne and the Panther. The soul never grows old." Hyperion. For us there are mellowing apples. Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in abundance, And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the distance, And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows. From Virgil's First Eclogue. ♦ October 16. Like a Goth of the Dark Ages, he consults his wife on all mighty matters, and looks upon her as a being of more than human goodness and wisdom, Hyperion. As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman ; Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him, yet she follows. Hiawatha. 3H October 15. Virgil, 70 B. c. ; Paul Flemming, 1609 ; Dannecker, 1758- October i6. A. von Haller, 170S; Salzer, 1720. 315 October 17. Sometimes we may learn more from a man's er- rors than from his virtues. Hyperion. And then to die so young, and leave Unfinished what he might achieve. . Robert Burns. Just above yon sandy bar, As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely, a single star Lights the air with a dusky glimmer. Chrvsaor. Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor, Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and apostles. Evangeline. « October 18. "Ah ! these children, these children ! " said Mr. Churchill, ..." we ought to love them very much now, for we shall not have them long with us ! " " Good heavens ! " exclaimed his wife, " what do you mean ? Does anything ail them ? Are they going to die ? " " I hope not. But they are going to grow up, and be no longer children." Kavanagh. And the boy that walked beside me, He could not understand Why closer in mine, ah ! closer, I pressed his warm, soft hand ! The Open Window. 316 October 17. Robert Ferguson, 1750; Sir John Bowring, 1792. October i8. Ambrose Phillips, 1770; Geibel, 1815. 317 October 19. The setting sun stretched his celestial rods of light across the level landscape, and like the He- brew in Egypt, smote the rivers and the brooks and the ponds, and they became as blood. Kavanagh. All your strength is in your union All your danger is in discord. Hiawatha. As pleasant songs at morning sung, The words that dropped from his sweet tongue Strengthened our hearts ; or, heard at night, Made all our slumbers soft and light. The Golden Legend. October 20, How merry is a student's life, and yet how changeable ! Alternate feasting and fasting . . . alternate want and extravagance ! Care given to the winds — no thought beyond the passing hour; yesterday forgotten, — to-morrow, a word in an un- known tongue ! Outre-Mer. Those college days ! I ne'er shall see the like ! I had not buried then so many hopes ! I had not buried then so many friends ! I 've turned my back on what was then before me ; And the bright faces of my young companions Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more. The Spanish Student. The architect Built his great heart into these sculptured stones. The Golden Legeni?. October 19. Sir Thomas Browne, 1605 ; J. Adams, 1735 ; Leigh Hunt, 1784- October 20. SirC. Wren, 1632; James Beattie, 1735; T. Hughes, 1823. 319 October 21. His readers should be poets themselves, or they will hardly comprehend him. Hyperion. We ought sometimes to be content with feeling. Ibid. Yes, well your story pleads the cause Of those dumb mouths that have no speech, Only a cry from each to each In its own kind, with its own laws. Interlude after The Bell of Atri, IVayside Inn. Listen to that song and learn it ! Half my kingdom would I give, As I live, If by such songs you would earn it ! The Saga of King Olaf, Tales of a Wayside Inn> ♦ October 22. The wood-fire was singing on the hearth, like a grasshopper in the heat and silence of a summer noon ; and to his heart the chill autumnal evening became a summer noon. His w^ife turned toward him with looks of love in her joyous blue eyes ; and in the serene expression of her face he read the divine beatitude, " Blessed are the pure in heart." Kavanagh. She, too, would bring to her husband's house de- light and abundance. Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces o^children. Evangeline. 320 October 21. S. T. Coleridge, 1772 ; G. Combe, 17SS ; Lamartine, 1792. October 22. Boccage, 1710; Sir P. Francis, 1740; C. Lassen, 1800. 321 October 23. " I know the critics, root and branch, — out and out, — have summered them, and wintered them, — in fact, am one of them myself. Very good fel- lows are the critics, are they not ? " One, over eager to commend. Crowned it with injudicious praise ; And then the voice of blame found vent, And fanned the embers of dissent Into a somewhat lively blaze. "iNTERLUDE AFTER ThE FaLCON OF SeR FeDERIGO, Tales of a Wayside Inn. Give me your hand, Ralph. Ah, how good it feels ! The hand of an old friend. John Endicott, New England Tragedies. October 24. Far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the Past shut behind him, as the Divine Poet did the gate of Paradise, when the angel pointed him the way up to the Holy Mountain ; and to him likewise was it forbidden to look back. Hyperion. The mill -brook rushed from the rocky height, I leaned o'er the bridge in my yearning ; Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight. As they glided so light In the night, in the night, Yet backward not one was returning. Remorse, Tr.from August vott Platefi. 322 October 23. Francis Jeff ley, 1773. October 24. August von Platen, 1796. 323 October 25. He uses words as mere stepping-stones, upon which, with a free and youthful bound, his spirit crosses and recrosses the bright and rushing stream of thought. Drift-Wood. And, loving still these quaint old themes, Even in the city's throng I feel the freshness of the streams, That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams. Water the green land of dreams, The holy land of song. Prelude to Voices of the Night. October 26. A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the romantic German landscape, as in the romantic German tale. Hyperion. Behold ! a giant am I, Aloft here in my tower, With my granite jaws I devour The maize, and the wheat, and the rye, And grind them into flour, I hear the sound of flails Far off, from the threshing floors In barns, with their open doors, And the wind, the wind in my sails. Louder and louder roars. The Windmill. 3?4 October 25. C. Sprague, 1791 ; J. Neal, 1793; Macaulay, 1800. October 26. Dupuis, 1742; P. P. Cooke, 1816. 125 October 27. The great golden elms that marked the line of the village street ... the air of comfort and plenty, . . . and from far-off farms the sound of flails, beating the triumphal march of Ceres through the land — these were the sights and sounds that greeted him as he looked. Kavanagh. Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, and the maidens Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a lover. Evangeline. Be the sunlight of my people ! Hiawatha. ♦ October 28. Like an inundation of the Indus is the course of Time. We look for the homes of our childhood, they are gone; for the friends of our childhood, they are gone. Kavanagh. Strange to me now are the forms I meet When I visit the dear old town ; But the native air is pure and sweet, And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street, As they balance up and down, Are singing the beautiful song. Are sighing and whispering still : "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." My Lost Youth. October 27. Hester Chapoiie, 1727. October 28 Erasmus, 1467. 327 October 29. A life that is worth writing at all, is worth writ- ing minutely. Hyperion. The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep ; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told ! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep ; Lo ! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, On which I read : " Here lieth one whose name Was writ in water." And was this the meed Of his sweet singing ? Rather let me write : " The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed." Keats. Star of tenderness and passion ! Hiawatha. ♦— October 30. A living caricaturie of man, presenting human nature in some of the grotesque attitudes she as- sumes when that pragmatical schoolmaster. Propri- ety, has fallen asleep in his chair. Outre-Mer. Listen, every one That listen may, unto a tale That 's merrier than the nightingale. Interlude before The Monk of Casal-Maggiore, Tales of a Wayside Inn. Fortune comes well to all that comes not late. The Spanish Student. 328 October 29. James Uoswell, 1740; John Keats, 1796. October 30. Sheridan, 1751. 329 October 31. When I watched the out-bound sail fading over the water's edge, and losing itself in the blue mists of the sea, my heart went with it. Outre-Mer. MAIDEN. Ah, that is the ship from over the sea, That is bringing my lover back to me, Bringing my lover so fond and true, Who does not change with the wind like you. WEATHERCOCK. If I change with all the winds that blow, It is only because they made me so, And people would think it wondrous strange, If I, a Weathercock, should not change. O pretty Maiden, so fine and fair, With your dreamy eyes and your golden hair, When you and your lover meet to-day. You will thank me for looking some other way ! Maiden and Weathercock. The leaves fell, russet-golden and blood-red, Love-letters thought the poet fancy-led. Or Jove descending in a shower of gold Into the lap of Danae of old ; For poets cherish many a strange conceit, And love transmutes all nature by its heat. Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn, ZZ^ October 31. John Evelyn, 1620; C Anstey, 1724. 331 THREE FRIENDS OF MINE. River, that stealest with such silent pace Around the City of the Dead, where lies A friend who bore thy name, and whom these eyes Shall see no more in his accustomed place, Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace And say good night, for now the western skies Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise Like damps that gather on a dead man's face. Good-night ! good-night ! as we so oft have said Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed ; I stay a little longer, as one stays To cover up the embers that still burn. 332 IJJotocnibcn THE RAINY DAY. The day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; It rains, and the wind is never weary ; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary ; My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, And the days are dark and dreary. Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; Thy fate is the common fate of all. Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. 333 November i. Ah, this is indeed human life ! where in the rush- ing noisy crowd and amid sounds of gladness, and a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly audible to the ear of thought, are the pulsations of some mel- ancholy string of the heart, touched by an invisible hand. Hyperion. Onward and onward the highway runs to the dis- tant city, impatiently bearing Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing and daring. The Golden Legend. November 2. If you look about you, you will see men who are wearing life away in feverish anxiety for fame. Hyperion. The world is changed. We Elders are as nothing ! We are but yesterdays, that have no part Or portion in to-day ! Dry leaves that rustle, That make a little sound, and then are dust ! The Divine Tragedy. But the great Master said, " I see No best in kind, but in degree ; I gave a various gift to each. To charm, to strengthen, and to teach. " These are the three great chords of might, And he whose ear is tuned aright Will hear no discord in the three, But the most perfect harmony." The Singers. 334 November i. Sir Matthew Hale, 1619 ; Boileau, 1636. November 2. 335 November 3. It is one of the attributes of the poetic mind to feel a universal sympathy with Nature, both in the material world and in the soul of man. It identi- fies itself likewise with every object of its sympathy, giving it new sensation and poetic life, whatever that object maybe, whether man, bird, beast, flower, or star. Drift-Wood. And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the selfsame, universal being. Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Flowers. November 4. As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, and divides into drops, each of which reflects an image of the sun ; so life, in the smile of God's love, divides itself into separate forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image of God's love. Hyperion. Oh let thy presence pass Before my spirit, and an image fair Shall meet that look of mercy from on high, As the reflected image in a glass Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there, And owes its being to the gazer's eye. The Image of God, Tr.from the Spa?iish of Aidafia. November 3. William Cullen Bryant, 1794. November 4. James Montgomery, 1771 337 November 5. The unfinished fabric stands a lasting monument of the power and weakness of man — of his vast desires, his sanguine hopes, . . . and of the unlooked- for conclusion, where all these desires and hopes and purposes are so often arrested. Outre-Mer. But in the dark unknown Perfect their circles seem, Even as a bridge's arch of stone Is rounded in the stream. Charles Sumner. Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft, Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed. Nuremberg. November 6. A good heart and a poetic imagination made his life joyous and the world beautiful. Hyperion. In Attica thy birthplace should have been, Or the Ionian Isles, or w-here the seas Encircle in their arms the Cyclades, So wholly Greek wast thou in thy serene And childlike joy of life, O Philhellene ! Oh, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death, Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee, That thou shouldst die before thou hadst grown old! Three Friends of Mine (Somiet to Felton). November 5. Hans Sachs, 1494; Washington Allston, 1779. November 6. Gregory, 163S; Colley Gibber, 1671 ; G. C. Felton, 1807. 339 November 7. Expression of feeling is different with different minds. It is not always simple. Some minds, when excited, naturally speak in figures and simil- itudes. They do not on that account feel less deeply. Hyperion. Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on the surface Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the an- chor is hidden. Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions. Evangeline. • November 8. The broad meadows and the steel-blue river re- mind me of the meadows of Unterseen and the river Aar ; and beyond them rise magnificent snow-white clouds, piled up like Alps. Thus the shades of Washington and William Tell seem to walk to- gether on these Eh^sian Fields. Hyperion. Up and down these echoing stairs, Heavy with the weight of cares, Sounded his majestic tread ; Yes, within this very room Sat he in those hours of gloom, Weary both in heart and head. To A Child. Rule by patience, Laughing Water ! Hiawatha. 340 November 7. Stukely, 1687; Count Stolberg, 1750- November 8. William Wirt, 1772. 341 November 9. Imagination was the ruling power of liis mind. Hyperion. I see the lights of the village 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, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Day is Done. « November 10. I think the name of Martin Tuther, the monk of Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monk- hood from the reproach of laziness. Hyperion. Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the Psalmist, Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and com- forting many. Courtship of Miles Standish. These are the Voices Three, That speak of endless endeavor, Speak of endurance and strength. Triumph and fulness of fame, Sounding about the world, An inspiration forever. Stirring the hearts of men. Shaping their end and their aim. The Masque of Pandora. November 9. Mark. Akenside, 1721. November io. Martin Luther, 14S3; O. Goldsmith, 1728; Schiller, 1759. 343 November ii. There is something Faust-like in you. Hyperion. The driving storm is grand. It startles me ; it awakens me. It is wild and woful, like my own soul. Ibid. So when storms of wild emotion Strike the ocean Of the poet's soul, erelong From each cave and rocky fastness, In its vastness, Floats some fragment of a song : Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the shifting Currents of the restless heart ; Till at length in books recorded, They, like hoarded Household words, no more depart. Sea-Weed November 12. It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the heat and drenched by the rain of life. Hyperion. For the lesson that they teach ; The tolerance of opinion and of speech. Hope, Faith, and Charity remain — these three ; And greatest of them all is Charity. Prologue to John Endicott, New England Tragedies 344 November ii. B. Tasso, 1493 ; J. Bbhme, 1575; Alfred de Musset, November 12. Richard Baxter, 1615. 345 November 13. If, invisible ourselves, we could follow a single human being through a single day of his life, and know all his secret thoughts and hopes and anxie- ties, his prayers and tears and good resolves, his passionate delights and struggles against tempta- tion ... we should have poetry enough to fill a vol- ume. Drift-Wood. Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame. The Ladder of St. Augustine. Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me. Hiawatha. ♦ ■ November 14. Already the landscape began to wear a pale and sickly hue, as if the sun were withdrawing farther and farther, and were soon wholly to disappear, as in a northern winter. But to brighten this northern winter there now arose within her . . . the auroral light of love, blushing through the whole heaven of her thoughts. Kavanagh. Then as the sun, though hidden from sight, Transmutes to gold the leaden mist, Her life was interfused with light, From realms that, though unseen, exist. Vittoria Colonna. 346 November 13. St. Augustine, 354 5 Pindemonte, 1753- November 14. Oehlenschlager, 1779; Sir C. Lyell, 1797- 347 November 15. Does every grave awaken the same emotion in our hearts ? . . . No ! Then all are not equal in the grave. Outre-Mer. The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall ; — The dead around him seemed to wake, and call His name, as worthy of so white a crown. And now the moon is shining on the scene, And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er With shadows cruciform of leafless trees, As once the winding-sheet of Saladin With chapters of the Koran ; but, ah ! more Mysterious and triumphant signs are these. The Burial of the Poet (Richard Henry Dana). Beautiful within him Was the spirit of Osseo. Hiawatha. — « — November 16. She was . . . one of those who are born to work, and accept their inheritance of toil as if it were play. Kavanagh. The tidal wave of deeper souls Into our inmost being rolls. And lifts us unawares Out of all meaner cares. Santa Filomena. . . . Took heart To speak out what was in him, clear and strong. The Birds of Killingworth, Tales of a Wayside Inn. November 15. Cowper, 1731; Herschel, 173S; Lavater, 1741 ; Dana, 1787. November i6. John Bright, iSii. 349 November 17. It is difficult to know at what moment love be- gins ; it is less difficult to knowthat it has begun. . . . A thousand ministers and messengers betray it to the eye. Kavanagh. How can I tell the signals and the signs By which one heart another heart divines ? How can I tell the many thousand ways By which it keeps the secret it betrays ? Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn . . . Feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and strengthened. Hiawatha. November 18. Oh ! this lassitude — this weariness ! . . . I have this morning a singular longing for flowers. Hyperion. Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. Not alone in Spring's armorial l)earing. And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, But in arms of brave old Autunm's wearing, In the centre of his brazen shield. Flowers. 350 November 17. D'Alembert, 171 7. November i8. Bayle, 1647; Wilkie, 17S5; A. Gray, iSio. 351 November 19. What forms of strength and beauty ! what glori- ous creations of the human mind ! Hyperion. Could we, by some spell of magic, change The world and its inhabitants to stone. In the same attitudes they now are in, What fearful glances downward might we cast Into the hollow chasms of human life ! What groups should we behold about the death- bed, Putting to shame the group of Niobe ! What joyful welcomes and what sad farewells ! The Spanish Student. Every human heart is human. Hiawatha. • November 20. If you look closely at the causes of the calamities of authors, you will find that many of them spring from false and exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic character. Hyperion. Not with steeper fall nor faster, From the sun's serene dominions. Not through brighter realms nor vaster, In swift ruin and disaster, Icarus fell with shattered pinions. Epimetheus. When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music. Evangeline. November 19. Bertel Thorwaldsen, 1770. November 20. Thomas Chatterton, 1752 353 November 21. I love that tranquillity of soul, in which we feel the blessing of existence, and which in itself is a prayer and a thanksgiving. Hyperion. Be not like a stream that brawls Loud with shallow waterfalls, But in quiet self-control Link together soul and soul. Songo River. In that mansion used to be Free-hearted Hospitality ; His great fires up the chimney roared; The stranger feasted at his board. The Old Clock on the Stairs. ♦ November 22. Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of what might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen. By going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this man or that, or by turning down this street instead of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the whole current of our lives would have been changed. Drift-Wood, I judge thee not . . . Thou art descended from Titanic race, And hast a Titan's strength, and faculties That make thee god-like. The Masque of Pandora. 354 November 21. Schleiermacher, 1768; Lord Holland, 1773. November 22. George Eliot (M. Cross), 1820 j:):) November 23. What is really best for us lies always within our reach, though often overlooked. Kavanagh. Then a voice cried, " Rise, O master ! From the burning brand of oak Shape the thought that stirs within thee ! " And the startled artist wqI^c, — Woke, and from the smoking embers Seized and quenched the glowing wood; And therefrom he carved an image, And he saw that it was good. O thou sculptor, painter, poet ! Take this lesson to thy heart : That is best which lieth nearest ; Shape from that thy work of art. Caspar Becerra. November 24. The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without a thought of fame. Hyperion. The deed di\'inc Is written in characters of gold, That never shall grow old, But through all ages Burn and shine, WMth soft efifulgence ! Epilogue to Golden Legend, November 23. November 24. Spinoza, 1632; L. Sturm, 1713; Grace Darling, 1805. 3:7 November 25. How would the history of Spain look, if the leaves were torn out on which are written the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon. Hyperion. The wonderful Lope de Vega. Outre-Mer. Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care, Thou didst seek after me, that thou didst wait, Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate, And pass the gloomy nights of winter there ? How oft my guardian angel gently cried, " Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see How he persists to knock and wait for thee ! " And, oh ! how often to that voice of sorrow, " To-morrow we will open ! " I replied, And when the morrow came I answered still, "To-morrow." To-morrow, Tr./rom the Sfanish of Lope de Vega. ♦ November 26. " This autumn he is going t'o bring out a volume of poems. ... I told hin^ ne had better print it on cartridge-paper." " "Why so t " " Why, to make it go off better ! ."- Kavanagh. Benedict Be'/jefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thv ballad ! Happ,y art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe. Evangeline. November 25. Lope de Vega, 1562 ; Kemble, 1775. November 26. Sir J. Ware, 1594; Derham, 1657. 359 November 27. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts, and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Hyperion. Ah me ! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore ? Palingenesis. O precious evenings ! all too swiftly sped ! Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages, And giving tongues unto the silent dead ! Sonnet on Mrs. Kemble's Readings from Shakespeare. November 28. When I stood by the sea-shore and listened to t^^e . , ^ familiar roar of its waves, it seemed but a ^•^^ p from the threshold of a foreign land to the *' 'reside of home. Outre-Mer. Ah ! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless. In foreign harbors shall behold That flag unrolled, 'T will be as a friendly hand Stretched out from his native land, Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless ! The Building of the Ship. ^60 November 27. Fanny Kemble Butler, iSog- November 28. Robert Lowth, 1710; William Blake, 1757; Cousin, 1792 361 November 29. As was said to Sidney's Arcadia : *' Live ever, sweet, sweet book ! the simple image of liis gentle wit, and the golden pillar of his noble courage." Drift-Wood. But the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages, Brighter grows and gleams immortal, Unconsumed b}- moth or rust. The Norman Baron. 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. Evangeline. November 30. The basis of his character was good, sound com- mon-sense, trodden down and smoothed by educa- tion ; but this level groundwork his strange and whimsical fancy used as a dancing-floor whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. Hyperion. Make not thyself the judge of any man. The Masque of Pandora. Therefore take from henceforth, as guides in the path of existence, Prayer, with her eyes raised to heaven, and Inno- cence, bride of man's childhood. The Children of the Lord's Supper, Tr./rom Tegfier. 362 November 29. Sir Philip Sidney, 1554; W. Phillips, 1811. November 30. Dean Swift, 1667; Sir Egerton Brydges, 1762. Z^Z THE BROKEN OAR. Once upon Iceland's solitary strand A poet wandered with his book and pen, Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen, , Wherewith to close the volume in his hand. The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand. The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken, A lid from the parting cloud-rack now and then Flashed the red sunset over sea and land. Then by the billows at his feet was tossed A broken oar ; and carved thereon he read, " Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee " ; And like a man, who findeth what was lost. He wrote the words, then lifted up his head, And flung his useless pen into the sea. 364 SDcccmficr. MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING YEAR. Yes, the Year is growing old, And his eye is pale and bleared ! Death, with frosty hand and cold, Plucks the old man by the beard, Sorely, sorely ! Through woods and mountain passes The winds, like anthems, roll ; They are chanting solemn masses, Singing, " Pray for this poor soul. Pray, pray ! " And the hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain. And patter their doleful prayers ; But their prayers are all in vain. All in vain ! Then comes, with an awful roar. Gathering and sounding on, The storm-wind from Labrador, The wind Euroclydon, The storm-wind ! Howl ! howl ! and from the forest Sweep the red leaves away ! Would, the sins that thou abhorrest, O Soul ! could thus decay. And be swent away ! 365 December i. For what is Time ? The shadow on the dial, — • the striking of the clock, — the running of the sand, — day and night, — summer and winter, — months, years, centuries. These are but arbitrary and out- ward signs, — the measure of Time, not Time it- self. Time is the life of the Soul. Hypeeion. Nothing that is can pause or stay ; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again. To-morrow be to-day. Keramos. December 2. " You have no children, Kavanagh ; we have five." " Ah, so many already ! A living Penta- teuch ! A beautiful Pentapylon, or five-gated tem- ple of Life ! " Kavanagh. Ye open the eastern windows, That look towards the sun, Where thoughts are singing swallows And the brooks of morning run. Children. Honor and blessings on his head While living, good report when dead. Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. ?.e6 December i. Anna Comnena, 10S3 ; Keill, 1671; Karamskin, 1766. December 2. Dom Pedro II., 1825 367 December 3. A dreary, ^Yeary life it would have been, had not poetry from within gushed through every crack and crevice of it. This transformed it, and made it re- semble a well, into which stones and rubbish have been thrown ; but underneath is a spring of fresh, l)ure water, which nothing external can ever check or defile. Kavanagh. The melodies and measures fraught With sunshine and the open air. Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. Her cap of velvet could not hold The tresses of her hair of gold. That flowed and floated like the stream, And fell in masses down her neck. The Golden Legend. December 4. Hooded and wrapped about with that strange and antique garb, there walks a kingly, a most royal soul, even as the Emperor Charles walked amid solemn cloisters under a monk's cowl — a monarch still in soul. Hyperion. I am a reader of 3'our books, A lover of that mystic lore ! With such a piercing glance it looks Into great Nature's o])cn eye. The Golden Legend. Mindful not of herself. Elizabeth. 368 December 3. Pulci, 143 1 ; Robert Bloomfield, 1766; Conscience, 1812. December 4. Mary Mitford, 17S&; Thomas Carlyle, 1795. 369 December 5. He only is utterly wretched who is the slave of his own passions, or those of others. Hyperion. No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it. . . . The Golden Legend. She shall possess all gifts : the gift of song, The gift of eloquence, the gift of beauty, The fascination and the nameless charm That shall lead all men captive. The Masque of Pandora. December 6. She made the heroic sacrifice of self, leaving her sorrow to the great physician, Time, — the nurse of care, the healer of all smarts, the soother and con- soler of all sorrows. Kavanagh. Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others. This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her. Evangeline. Sang in tones of deep emotion, Songs of love and songs of longing. Hiawatha. December 5. Marie Stuart, 1542. December 6. Caroline B Southey, 1786. 37] December 7. The first snow came. How beautiful it was, fall- ing so silently, all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs of the living, on the graves of the dead ! All white save the river, that marked its course by a winding black line across the landscape ; and the leafless trees, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacy of their branches. Kavanagh. Came the gray daylight ; then the sun, who took The empire of the world with sovereign look, Suffusing with a soft and golden glow All the dead landscape in its shroud of snow. Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn. December 8. I have a passion for ballads. . . . They are the gipsy children of song, born under green hedge- rows, in the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature — in the genial summer time. Hyperion. There comes to me out of the Past A voice, whose tones are sweet and wild, Singing a song almost divine, And with a tear in every line. Interlude before "The Mother's Ghost," Tales of a Wayside hin. 372 December 7. Bernini, 1598. December 8. Lady Anne Barnard, 1750. 373 December 9. As in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eter- nity, burning solemnly and forever. Hyperion. I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far un- rolled, And the 'ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold. So in majestic cadence rise and fall The mighty undulations of thy song, O sightless bard, England's Masonides ! Milton. # December 10. Let us go in and see how the dead rest ! . , . They need no antidote for care, no armor against fate. . . . God's peace be with them ! Hyperion. Ah, the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher. The Golden Legend. There 's a brave fellow ! There 's a man of pluck ! A man who 's not afraid to say his say, Though a whole town 's against him. John Endicott, Xtzv England Tragedies. 374 December 9. G. Adolphus, 1594; John Milton, 1608; Winkelmann, 1717. December lo, Eugene Sue, 1804; William Lloyd Garrison, 1S05. 37S December ii. The Emperor Isaac Angelus made a treaty with Saladin, and tried to purchase the Holy Sepulchre with gold. Richard Lion-heart scorned such alli- ance, and sought to recover it by battle. Hyperion. Write on your doors the saying wise and old, " Be bold ! be bold ! " and everywhere — " Be bold ; Be not too bold ! " Yet better the excess Than the defect ; better the more than less ; Better like Hector in the field to die. Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly. MORITURI SaLUTAMUS. December 12. A foolish world is prone to laugh in public at what in private it reveres, as one of the highest impulses of our nature, — namely, Love ! Hyperion. Great are the sea and the heaven ; Yet greater is my heart, And fairer than pearls and stars Flashes and beams my love. Thou little, youthful maiden. Come unto my great heart ; My heart, and the sea, and the heaven Are melting away with love ! The Sea hath its Pearls, Translated from the German of Heine, December ii. Cullen, 1712; Grabbe, 1801 ; Berlioz, 1803. December 12. Heinrich Heine, 1797 ; F. H. Hedge, 1805. 377 December 13. I will not say . . . that humility is the only road to excellence, but I am sure that it is one road. Kavanagh. And when they were alone, the Angel said, " Art thou the king ? " Then, bowing down his head, King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast, And meekly answered him, " Thou knowest best ! " The Angel smiled,. and from his radiant face A holy light illumined all the place, And through the chant a second melody Rose like the throbbing of a single string : " I am an Angel, and thou art the King ! " King Robert of Sicily, Tales of a Wayside Inn. ♦ December 14. " I do not see how you can make mathematics poetical. There is no poetry in them." "Ah, that is a very great mistake ! " Kavanagh. I saw, with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great ^olian lyre. Rising through all its sevenfold bars. From earth unto the fixed stars. The Occultation of Orion. O friend ! O best of friends ! Thy absence more Than the impending night darkens the landscape O er. The Golden Legend. December 13. Wm. Diummond, 15S5 ; Boerhaave, 166S; Dean Stanlej^, 1815. December 14. Tycho Brahe, 1546; James Bruce, 1730; Charles Wolfe, 1791 379 December 15. Her figure was slight ; her countenance beautiful, though deadly white ; and her meek eyes like the flower of the nightshade, pale and blue, but send- ing forth golden rays. Hvfekion. A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon, Sure to be rounded into beauty soon. A maiden, modest and yet self-possessed. Youthful and beautiful, and simply dressed. The pale, thin crescent of the days gone by Is Dian now in all her majesty ! Lady Wentworth, Ta/es of a Wayside Inn. December 16. Sects were to him only as separate converging roads, leading all to the same celestial city of peace. Kavanagh. Not to one church alone, but seven. The voice prophetic spake from heaven ; And unto each the promise came, Diversified, but still the same ; For him that oveicometh are The new name written on the stone, The raiment white, the crown, the throne, And I will give him the Morning Star ! Interlude before Torquemada, Tales of a Wayside Intz. 380 December 15. G. Romney, 1734. December i6. Elizabeth Carter, 1717; Jane Austen, 1775; T. S King, 1824. 381 December 17. Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages running deep beneath ex- ternal nature give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligences, which strengthens and con- soles them, and of which the laborers on the surface do not even dream ! Kavanagh. O thou, whose daily life anticipates The life to come, and in whose thought and word The spiritual world preponderates. Hermit of Amesbury ! thou too hast heard Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, And speakest only when thy soul is stirred ! The Three Silences of Mounds, To Jo/tn G. Whitiier. O noble poet, thou whose heart Is like a nest of singing birds Rocked on the topmost bough of life. The Golden Legend. December 18. The sculptured bust, the epitaph eloquent in praise cannot, indeed create . . . distinctions, but they serve to mark them. Outre-Mer. Alike are life and death When life in death survives. And the uninterrupted breath Inspires a thousand lives. Charles Sumner 382 December 17. Beethoven, 1770; Sir H. Davy, 177S; John G.Whittier, iSoS- December i8. C. Wesley, 1708; Rosenmiiller, 1736; C M. von Weber, 1786. 383 December 19. We shall wake up and find that the frost-spirit has been at work all night building Gothic cathe- drals on our windows. Hyperion. Upon the polished silver shine The evening lamps, but, more divine, The light of love shines over all ; Of love, that says not mine and thine, But ours, for ours is thine and mine. They want no guests, to come between Their tender glances like a screen, And tell them tales of land and sea. And whatsoever may betide The great, forgotten world outside ; They want no guests ; they needs must be Each other's own best company. The Hanging of the Crane. December 20. " Spirit of the past ! look not so mournfully at me with thy great tearful eyes ! . . . Chant no more that dirge of sorrow, through the long and silent watches of the night ! " Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, " Treuenfels ! " and he remem- bered how others had suffered, and his heart grew still. Hyperion. O holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear What man has borne before ! Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, And they complain no more. Hymn to the Night. 3^4 December 19. December 20. K. R. Lepsius, 1813. 385 December 21. What would be the fame ... of France without her Radne and Rabelais and Voltaire ? Hyperion. What tragedies, what comedies, are there ; What joy and grief, what rapture and despair ! What chronicles of triumph and defeat, Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat ! What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears ! What pages blotted, blistered by our tears ! MoRiTURi Salutamus. — ♦ — December 22. " Ah ! this beautiful world ! " said Flemming, with a smile. " Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly, and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky." Hyperion. Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall. Some days must be dark and dreary. The Rainy Day. . . . Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep Into a world unknown, — the corner-stone of a nation I The Courtship of Miles Standish. December 21. Jean Racine, 1639; Disraeli, 1805. December 22. 3^7 December 23. Give what you have. To some one, it may be better than you dare to think. Kavanagh. I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where ; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. 1 breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where ; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song ? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke ; And the song, from l^eginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. The Arrow and the Song. Deecmber 24. Many have genius, but wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor. Hyperion. He is the greatest artist, then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows Nature. Never man, As artist or as artisan. Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart, or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs. Ke'kamos. 388 December 23. Robert Barclay, 1648; R. Arkwright, 1732 ; ChampoUion, 1790. December 24. George Crabbe, 1754; Matthew Arnold, 182 389 December 25. The False takes away the birthright and the blessing from the True. Hence it is that the world so often lifts up its voice and weeps. Hyperion. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep : '' God is not dead ; nor doth He sleep ! The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men." Christmas Bells. December 26. Matthisson's . . . Elegy on the Ruins of an An- cient Castle is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. . . . I am sorry I have not a translation of it for you. Instead of it, I will give you a sweet and mournful poem from Salis." Hyperion. Into the Silent Land ! To you, ye boundless regions Of all perfection ! Tender morning-visions Of beauteous souls ! The Future's pledge and band ! Who in Life's battle firm doth stand. Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms Into the Silent Land ! Song of the Silent Land, Tr. from the German of Salis. Thy pathway lies among the stars. The Spanish Student. December 25. William Collins, 1720 December 26. T. Gray, 1716; J. G. Salis, 1762; Mrs. Somerville, 17S0 391 December 27. The all-controlling, all-subduing will . . . the fixed purpose that sways and .bends all circumstances to its uses. Kavanagh. I lift my head boldly to the threatening moun- tain-peaks . . . and say — "I am eternal and defy your power ! " Hyperion. There in the twilight cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, And from the sky, serene and far, A voice fell, like a falling star, E.xxelsior ! Excelsior. Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others. Courtship of Miles Standish. December 28. There is something exceedingly thrilling in the voices of children singing. Outre-Mer. I see again, as one in vision sees, The blossoms ari^d the bees, And hear the children's voices shout and call, And the brown chestnuts fall. The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought The giver's loving thought. From my Arm-Chair. December 27. J. Arnd, 1555; John Kepler, 1571 December 28. J. Reuchlin, 1455; C. M. Sedgwick, 1789. 393 December 29. Alas ! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life, to light the fires of j^assion with, from day to •day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number. Hyperion. I hear a voice that cries, " Alas ! alas ! Whatever hath been written shall remain. Nor be erased nor written o'er again ; The unwritten only still belongs to thee : Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be." MoRiTURi Salutamus. — • — December 30. " What a noble figure ! What grace ! what atti- tudes ! How much soul in every motion ! . . . Every step is a word ; and the whole together a poem ! " Hyperion. O graceful form, that cloud-like floatest on With the soft, undulating gait of one Who moveth as if motion were a pleasure ! Masque of Pandora. We speak of a Merry Christmas, And many a Happy New Year ; But each in his heart is thinking Of those that are not here. The Meeting. 3^4 December 29. A. Alison, 1792- December 30. 395 December 31. Oh ! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride and unrequited love, were in those tears through which he read, on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, [St. Gilgen] this singular inscrip- tion : — " Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart." Hyperion. Life is real ! Life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal ; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. 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 ! A Psalm of Life. 396 December 31. Horace Smith, 1779; A. Norton, 1786; Alexander II., li 397 NATURE. As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door. Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more ; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know. 398 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DOOEBHaHm'^ 'mC: ^s»;ii.-'o»>;-;^-.-;.': ' ;^^;.'--.>V.^; ■e* :?.-M.*;.*fK'?^v,-i>)'->'-.- ^^^ # ^ .>^: