LIGHT is out in Italy,
A golden tongue of purest flame; We watched it burning, long and lone, And every watcher knew its name, And knew from whence its fervor came: That one rare light of Italy, Which put self-seeking souls to shame!
This light which burnt for Italy,
Through all the blackness of her night, She doubted once upon a time,
Because it took away her sight;
She looked and said, "There is no light!" It was thine eyes, poor Italy? That knew not dark apart from bright.
As yet unbroken! Stormy voice of France, Who does not love our England, so they say; I know not! England, France, all men to be, Will make one people, ere man's race be run; And I, desiring that diviner day, Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy To younger England, in the boy, my son.
This flame which burnt for Italy, It would not let her haters sleep; They blew at it with angry breath, And only fed its upward leap, And only made it hot and deep;
Its burning showed us Italy, And all the hopes she had to keep. This light is out in Italy,
Her eyes shall seek for it in vain! For her sweet sake it spent itself,
Too early flickering to its wane — Too long blown over by her pain. Bow down and weep, O Italy, Thou canst not kindle it again!
LAURA C. REDDEN (Howard Glyndon).
E touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced. As some vast river of unfailing source, Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, And oped new fountains in the human heart. Where Fancy halted, weary in her flight, In other men, his, fresh as morning, rose, And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home
Where angels bashful looked. Others, though great, Beneath their argument seemed struggling whiles;
He from above descending stooped to touch The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest At will with all her glorious majesty. He laid his hand upon "the ocean's mane," And played familiar with his hoary locks; Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines, And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend; And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing, Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God, Marching upon the storm in vengeance, seemed; Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sung His evening song beneath his feet, conversed. Suns, moons, and stars and clouds, his sisters were; Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas and winds and storms His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce As equals deemed. All passions of all men, The wild and tame, the gentle and severe; All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds, all seasons, time, eternity; All that was hated, and all that was dear; All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man; He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves, Then, smiling, looked upon the wreck he made. With terror now he froze the cowering blood, And now dissolved the heart in tenderness; Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself; But back into his soul retired, alone, Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet. ROBERT POLLOK.
MASTER! here I bow before a shrine; Before the lordliest dust that ever yet Moved animate in human form divine. Lo! dust indeed to dust. The mould is set Above thee, and the ancient walls are wet, And drip all day in dank and silent gloom, As if the cold gray stones could not forget Thy great estate shrunk to this sombre room, But learn to weep perpetual tears above thy tomb.
Through broken panes I hear the schoolboy's shout, I see the black-winged engines sweep and pass, And from the peopled narrow plot without, Well grown with brier, moss, and heaving grass, I see the Abbey loom an ivied mass, Made eloquent of faiths, of fates to be, Of creeds, and perished kings; and still, alas, O soldier-childe! most eloquent of thee, Of thy sad life, and all the unsealed mystery.
I look into the dread, forbidding tomb; Lo! darkness-death. The soul on shifting sand That belts eternity gropes in the gloom-
The black-winged bird goes forth in search of land, But turns no more to reach my reaching hand-
O, land beyond the land! I lean me o'er Thy dust in prayer devout- -I rise, I stand Erect; the stormy seas are thine no more;
A weary white-winged dove has touched the olive shore.
A bay-wreath woven by the sun-down west Hangs damp and stained upon the dank gray wall, Above thy time-soiled tomb and tattered crest; A bay-wreath gathered by the seas that call To orient Cathay, that break and fall On shell-lined shores, before Tahiti's breeze- A slab, a crest, a wreath, and these are all Neglected, tattered, torn; yet only these
The world bestows for song that rivaled singing seas. A bay-wreath wound by one more truly brave Than Shastan; fair as thy eternal fame, She sat and wove above the sunset wave, And wound and sang thy measures and thy name. 'T was wound by one, yet sent with one acclaim By many, fair and warm as flowing wine, And purely true, and tall as glowing flame, That list and lean in moonlight's yellow shine To tropic tales of love in other tongues than thine.
I bring this idle reflex of thy task,
And my few loves, to thy forgotten tomb: I leave them here; and here all pardon ask Of thee, and patience ask of singers whom Thy majesty has silenced. I resume My staff, and now my face is to the West; My feet are worn; the sun is gone, a gloom Has mantled Hucknall, and the minstrel's zest For fame is broken here, and here he pleads for rest. JOAQUIN MILLER.
ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE.
HIS figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With nature, to outdo the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit,
As well in brass, as he hath hit His face; the print would then surpass All that was ever writ in brass: But since he cannot, reader, look, Not on his picture, but his book.
[In memory of Daniel Webster.]
COME die too late, and some too soon, At early morning, heat of noon, Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, Whom the rich heavens did so endow With eyes of power and Jove's own brow, With all the massive strength that fills Thy home-horizon's granite hills, With rarest gifts of heart and head From manliest stock inherited
New England's stateliest type of man. In port and speech Olympian; Whom no one met, at first, but took A second awed and wondering look (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece, On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece); Whose words in simplest home-spun clad, The Saxon strength of Cædmon's had, With power reserved at need to reach The Roman forum's loftiest speech, Sweet with persuasion, eloquent In passion, cool in argument, Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes
As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, Crushing as if with Talus' flail Through error's logic-woven mail, And failing only when they tried The adamant of the righteous side,- Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved Of old friends, by the new deceived, Too soon for us, too soon for thee, Beside thy lonely Northern sea,
Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, Laid wearily down thy august head.
Thou shouldst have lived to feel below Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow,— The late-sprung mine that underlaid Thy sad concessions vainly made.
Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall The star-flag of the Union fall, And armed Rebellion pressing on The broken lines of Washington!
No stronger voice than thine had then Called out the utmost might of men,
To make the Union's charter free And strengthen law by liberty. How had that stern arbitrament To thy gray age youth's vigor lent, Shaming ambition's paltry prize Before thy disillusioned eyes; Breaking the spell about thee wound
Like the green withes that Samson bound; Redeeming, in one effort grand, Thyself and thy imperilled land! Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, O sleeper by the Northern sea, The gates of opportunity!
God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed. Wise men and strong we did not lack; But still, with memory turning back, In the dark hours we thought of thee, And thy lone grave beside the sea.
Above that grave the east winds blow, And from the marsh-lands drifting slow The sea-fog comes, with evermore The wave-wash of a lonely shore, And sea-birds melancholy cry,
As Nature fain would typify The sadness of a closing scene,
The loss of that which should have been. But, where thy native mountains bare Their foreheads to diviner air, Fit emblem of diviner fame,
One lofty summit keeps thy name. For thee the cosmic forces did The rearing of that pyramid; 'The prescient ages shaping with Fire, flood, and frost, thy monolith. Sunrise and sunset lay thereon With hands of light their benison; The stars of midnight pause to set Their jewels in its coronet.
And evermore that mountain mass Seems climbing from the shadowy pass To light, as if to manifest
Thy nobler self, thy life at best!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
HERE 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!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
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