exclusively for this poem, was originally, in the poet's mind, a generic one. He notes from time to time that he has written a psalm, a psalm of death, or another psalm of life. The "psalmist " is thus the poet himself. When printed in the Knickerbocker it bore as a motto the lines from Crashaw :

Life that shall send

A challenge to its end,

And when it comes say, Welcome, friend.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

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.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

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!

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 !

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS

In his diary, under date of December 6, 1838, Mr. Longfellow writes: "A beautiful holy morning within me. I was softly excited, I knew not why, and wrote with peace in my heart, and not without tears in my eyes, The Reaper and the Flowers, a Psalm of Death. I have had an idea of this kind in my mind for a long time, without finding any expression for it in words. This morning it seemed to crystallize at once, without any effort of my own." This psalm was printed in the Knickerbocker for January, 1839, with the sub-title A Psalm of Death, and with the familiar stanza from Henry Vaughan, beginning:

THE LIGHT OF STARS

"This poem was written on a beautiful summer night. The moon, a little strip of silver, was just setSing behind the groves of Mount Auburn, and the planet Mars blazing in the southeast. There was a singular light in the sky." H. W. L. It was pubfished in the same number of the Knickerbocker as the last, where it was headed A Second Psalm of Life, and prefaced by another stanza from the same poem of Yaughan :

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.

THE night is come,

but not too soon;

And sinking silently,

All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.

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.

Is it the tender star of love?

The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above
A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,

The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light

But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,

And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

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.

FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS

The poem in its first form bore the title Erening Shadows. The reference in the fourth stanza is to the poet's friend and brother-in-law George W. Pierce, of whom he said long after: "I have never ceased to feel that in his death something was taken from my own life which could never be restored." News of his friend's death reached Mr. Longfellow in Heidelberg on Christmas eve, 1835, less than a month after the death of Mrs. Longfellow, who is referred to in the sixth and follow. ing stanzas.

WHEN the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,

To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,

Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,

Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly,

Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,

Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,

If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died!

FLOWERS

"I wrote this poem on the 3d of October, 1837, to send with a bouquet of autumnal flowers. I still remember the great delight I took in its composition, and the bright sunshine that streamed in at the southern windows as I walked to and fro, pausing ever and anon to note down my thoughts." H. W. L. It was probably the first poem written by Mr. Longfellow after his establishment at Cambridge.

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.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,

God hath written in those stars above; But not less in the bright flowerets under

us

Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,

Written all over this great world of ours; Making evident our own creation,

In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being,

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.

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;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tis

sues,

Flaunting gayly in the golden light ;

Large desires, with most uncertain issues, Tender wishes, blossoming at night!

These in flowers and men are more than seeming,

Workings are they of the self - same powers,

Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing, Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,

Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,

And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, In the centre of his brazen shield;

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,

On the mountain-top, and by the brink Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys, Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,

Not on graves of bird and beast alone, But in old cathedrals, high and hoary, On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

In the cottage of the rudest peasant, In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,

Speaking of the Past unto the Present,

Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons, Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,

Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection,

We behold their tender buds expand; Emblems of our own great resurrection, Emblems of the bright and better land.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY

Mr. Samuel Longfellow states that the suggestion of the poem came from a note in one of the volumes of Scott's Border Minstrelsy: "Similar to this was the Nacht Lager, or midnight camp, which seemed nightly to beleaguer the walls of Prague, but which disappeared

The

upon the recitation of [certain] magical words."
title of the poem served also as that of a remarkable
prose sketch by Mrs. Oliphant.

I HAVE read, in some old, marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air
As clouds with clouds embrace.

But when the old cathedral bell

Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell On the alarmèd air.

Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.

I 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.

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.

No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.

And when the solemn and deep church-bell
Entreats the soul to pray,