improves the piece and rounds it off more perfectly that before, the thought no longer resting on the cold furrow, but on the waving harvest beyond : Green gate of Paradise! let in the sun! The poem was published with this additional stanza in The Democratic Review for December, 1841, but when it came to be added to the volume the stanza wa dropped. I LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre ! just; It is It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust. Till at length thy rest thou findest In the bosom of the sea! Four long years of mingled feeling, Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! Oft in sadness and in illness, I have watched thy current glide, Till the beauty of its stillness Overflowed me, like a tide. And in better hours and brighter, Not for this alone I love thee, Nor because thy waves of blue From celestial seas above thee Take their own celestial hue. 17 remarkable for their beauty. At once the whole scene presented itself to my mind in lively colors, the walls of Jericho, the cold wind through the gateway, the ragged, blind beggar, his shrill cry, the tumultuous crowd, the serene Christ, the miracle; and these things took the form I have given them above, where, perforce, I have retained the striking Greek expressions of entreaty, comfort, and healing; though I am well aware that Greek was not spoken at Jericho. . . . I think I shall add to the title, supposed to be written by a monk of the Middle Ages,' as it is in the legend style." BLIND Bartimeus at the gates Of Jericho in darkness waits ; He hears the crowd ;- he hears a breath The thronging multitudes increase; Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace! But still, above the noisy crowd, The beggar's cry is shrill and loud; Until they say, "He calleth thee! Θάρσει· ἔγειραι, φωνεῖ σε ! Then saith the Christ, as silent stands And he replies, "Oh, give me light! Ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε! Ye that have eyes, yet cannot see, Θάρσει· ἔγειραι, ὕπαγε ! Η πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε ! THE GOBLET OF LIFE Mr. Longfellow, writing to Mr. Ward, November 3, 1841, says: "I shall send him [Mr. Benjamin] a new poem, called simply Fennel, which I do not copy here on account of its length. It is as good, perhaps, as Excelsior. Hawthorne, who is passing the night with me, likes it better." He afterward changed the title to that which the poem now bears. FILLED is Life's goblet to the brim ; With solemn voice and slow. Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe. This goblet, wrought with curious art, Is filled with waters, that upstart, When the deep fountains of the heart, By strong convulsions rent apart, Are running all to waste. And as it mantling passes round, Above the lowly plants it towers, It gave new strength, and fearless mood; A wreath of fennel wore. Then in Life's goblet freely press New light and strength they give! And he who has not learned to know The original manuscript of Excelsior, showing the several drafts and interlineations, is preserved in the library of Harvard University. It was written on the back of a note from Mr. Sumner, and is dated at the close: "September 28, 1841. Half past 3 o'clock, morning. Now to bed." The suggestion of the poem came to Mr. Longfellow from a scrap of newspaper, a part of the heading of one of the New York journals, bearing the seal of the State, — -a shield, with a rising sun, and the motto Excelsior. The intention of the poem was intimated in a letter from Mr. Longfellow written some time after to Mr. C. K. Tuckerman : "I have had the pleasure of receiving your note in regard to the poem Excelsior and very willingly give you my intention in writing it. This was no more than to display, in a series of pictures, the life of a man of genius, resisting all temptations, laying aside all fears, heedless of all warnings, and pressing right on to accomplish his purpose. His motto is Excelsior 'higher.' He passes through the Alpine villagethrough the rough, cold paths of the world-where the peasants cannot understand him, and where his watchword is in an unknown tongue.' He disregards the happiness of domestic peace and sees the glaciers — his fate before him. He disregards the warning of the old man's wisdom and the fascinations of woman's love. He answers to all,' Higher yet!' The monks of St. Bernard are the representatives of religious forms and ceremonies, and with their oft-repeated prayer mingles the sound of his voice, telling them there is something higher than forms and ceremonies. Filled with these aspirations, he perishes; without having reached the perfection he longed for; and the voice heard in the air is the promise of immortality and progress ever upward. You will perceive that Excelsior, an adjective of the comparative degree, is used adverbially; a use justified by the best Latin writers." This he afterwards found to be a mistake, and explained excelsior as the last word of the phrase Scopus meus est excelsior. Five years after writing this poem, Mr. Longfellow made the following entry in his diary: "December 8, Mounts to the play-ground of the lark, high up Quite to the sky. And then again it falls As a lost star falls down into the marsh. Now, when in Excelsior I said, A voice fell, like a falling star, Brainard's poem was not in my mind, nor had I in all probability ever read it. Felton said at the time that the same image was in Euripides, or Pindar, I forget which. Of a truth, one cannot strike a spade into the soil of Parnassus, without disturbing the bones of some dead poet." Dr. Holmes remarks of Excelsior that "the repetition of the aspiring exclamation which gives its name to the poem, lifts every stanza a step higher than the one which preceded it." THE shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath, A traveller, by the faithful hound, There in the twilight cold and gray, POEMS ON SLAVERY In the spring of 1842 Mr. Longfellow obtained leave of absence from college duties for six months and went abroad to try the virtues of the water-cure at Marienberg on the Rhine. When absent in Europe in the summer of 1842 Mr. Longfellow made an acquaintance with Ferdinand Freiligrath, the poet, which ripened into a life-long friendship. It was to this friend that he wrote shortly after his return to America [on leaving Bristol for New York]: "We sailed (or rather, paddled) out in the very teeth of a violent west wind, which blew for a week,-Frau die alte sass gekehrt rückwärts nach Osten' with a vengeance. We had a very boisterous passage. I was not out of my berth more than twelve hours for the first twelve days. I was in the forward part of the vessel, where all the great waves struck and broke with voices of thunder. There, 'cribbed, cabined, and confined,' I passed fifteen days. During this time I wrote seven poems on slavery; I meditated upon them in the stormy, sleepless nights, and wrote them down with a pencil in the morning. A small window in the side of the vessel admitted light into my berth, and there I lay on my back and soothed my soul with songs. I send you some copies." He had published the poems at once on his arrival in America in December, 1842, in a thin volume of thirty TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING THE pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, "Servant of God! well done!" Well done! Thy words are great and bold; Like Luther's, in the days of old, Go on, until this land revokes The old and chartered Lie, The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes Insult humanity. A voice is ever at thy side Speaking in tones of might, Like the prophetic voice, that cried To John in Patmos, "Write!" Write! and tell out this bloody tale; Record this dire eclipse, This Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail, This dread Apocalypse! one pages in glazed paper covers, adding to the sever an eighth, previously written, poem, The Warning. It is possible that his immediate impulse to write came from his recent association with Dickens, whose Ameri can Notes, with its "grand chapter on slavery," he speaks of having read in London. The book naturally received attention out of all proportion to its size. It was impossible for one at that time to range himself on one side or other of the great controversy without inviting criticism, not so much of literary art as of ethical position. To his father, Mr. Longfellow wrote: "How do you like the Slavery Poems? I think they make an impression; I have received many letters about them, which I will send to you by the first good opportunity. Some persons regret that I should have written them, but for my own part I am glad of what I have done. My feelings prompted me, and my judgment approved, and still approves." The poem on Dr. Channing was written when the poet was ignorant of the great preacher's death. "Since that event," he says in his prefatory note to the volume, "the poem addressed to him is no longer appropriate. I have decided, however, to let it remain as it was written, in testimony of my admiration for a great and good man." THE SLAVE'S DREAM His breast was bare, his matted hair Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, Wide through the landscape of his dreams Once more a king he strode ; He saw once more his dark-eyed queen They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks, They held him by the hand! A tear burst from the sleeper's lids And then at furious speed he rode Along the Niger's bank: |