PANDORA. I have brought wrath and ruin on thy house ! My heart hath braved the oracle that The fatal secret from us, and my hand EPIMETHEUS. Then all is lost! I am indeed undone. PANDORA. That made me brave the oracle, revolts EPIMETHEUS. Youth, hope, and love : To build a new life on a ruined life, Even now in passing through the garden I pray for punishment, and not for pardon. Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest Ruined and full of rain; and over me THE HANGING OF THE CRANE "One morning in the spring of 1867," writes Mr. T. B. Aldrich," Mr. Longfellow came to the little home in Pinckney Street [Boston], where we had set up housekeeping in the light of our honeymoon. As we lingered a moment at the dining-room door, Mr. Longfellow turning to me said, 'Ah, Mr. Aldrich, your small round table will not always be closed. By and by you will find new young faces clustering about it; as years go on, leaf after leaf will be added until the time comes when the young guests will take flight, one by one, to build nests of their own elsewhere. Gradually the long table will shrink to a circle again, leaving two old people sitting there alone together. This is the story of life, the sweet and pathetic poem of the fireside. Make an idyl of it. I give the idea to you.' Several months I THE lights are out, and gone are all the guests That thronging came with merriment and jests To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane In the new house, - into the night are gone; But still the fire upon the hearth burns on, And I alone remain. O fortunate, O happy day, So said the guests in speech and song, II And now I sit and muse on what may be, And in my vision see, or seem to see, Through floating vapors interfused with light, Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade, For two alone, there in the hall, afterward, I received a note from Mr. Longfellow in which he expressed a desire to use this motif in case I had done nothing in the matter. The theme was one peculiarly adapted to his sympathetic handling, and out of it grew The Hanging of the Crane." Just when the poem was written does not appear, but its first publication was in the New York Ledger, March 28, 1874. Mr. Longfellow's old friend, Mr. Sam. Ward, had heard the poem, and offered to secure it for Mr. Robert Bonner, the proprietor of the Ledger, "touched," as he wrote to Mr. Longfellow, "by your kindness to poorand haunted by the idea of increasing handsomely your noble charity fund." Mr. Bonner paid the poet the sum of three thousand dollars for this poem. Of love, that says not mine and thine, But ours, for ours is thine and mine. They want no guests, to come between The great, forgotten world outside; They want no guests; they needs must be Each other's own best company. III The picture fades; as at a village fair Again appear transfigured on the screen, So in my fancy this; and now once more, In part transfigured, through the open door Appears the selfsame scene. Seated, I see the two again, With face as round as is the moon, Are these celestial manners? these He speaketh not; and yet there lies There are two guests at table now; V Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene, Again the drifting vapors intervene, And the moon's pallid disk is hidden quite; And now I see the table wider grown, I see the table wider grown, Like timid birds that fain would fly, But do not dare to leave their nests; And youths, who in their strength elate Challenge the van and front of fate, Eager as champions to be In the divine knight-errantry Of youth, that travels sea and land The phantom with the beckoning hand, VI The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still, Quickens its current as it nears the mill; And so the stream of Time that lingereth In level places, and so dull appears, The gloomy mills of Death. And now, like the magician's scroll, The crown of stars is broken in parts; And battle's terrible array. On battle-fields, where thousands bleed VII After a day of cloud and wind and rain Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again, And, touching all the darksome woods with light, Smiles on the fields, until they laugh and sing, Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring Drops down into the night. What see I now? The night is fair, The storm of grief, the clouds of care, The wind, the rain, have passed away; The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright, The sunshine of their golden hair. Out of the sky hath fallen down; O fortunate, O happy day! MORITURI SALUTAMUS POEM FOR THE FIFTIETH AN- | In the arena, standing face to face With death and with the Roman populace. Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, In October, 1874, Mr. Longfellow was urged to write a poem for the fiftieth anniversary of the graduation of his college class to be held the next summer. At first he said that he could not write the poem, so averse was he from occasional poems, but a sudden thought seems to have struck him, very likely upon seeing a representation of Gerome's famous picture, and ten days later he notes in his diary that he had finished the writing. He not only wrote the poem, but what was a rare act with him, read it before the audience gathered in the church at Brunswick on the occasion of the anniversary. He expressed his relief when he found that he could read his poem from the pulpit, and said, "Let me cover myself as much as possible; I wish it might be entirely." "O CESAR, we who are about to die Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry ye familiar scenes, -ye groves of pine, That once were mine and are no longer |