THE BRIDGE. Finished October 9, 1845, and at first localized as The Bridge over the Charles, the river which separates Cambridge from Boston. I STOOD. on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, I saw her bright reflection And far in the hazy distance Among the long, black rafters The wavering shadows lay, And the current that came from the ocean As, sweeping and eddying through them, And, streaming into the moonlight, And like those waters rushing A flood of thoughts came o'er me How often, oh how often, In the days that had gone by, I had stood on that bridge at midnight And gazed on that wave and sky! 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 life was full of care, And the burden laid upon me Seemed greater than I could bear. But now it has fallen from me, Yet whenever I cross the river And I think how many thousands I see the long procession The young heart hot and restless, And the old subdued and slow! And forever and forever, As long as the river flows, The moon and its broken reflection TO THE DRIVING CLOUD. "October 17, 1845. Retouched The Bridge and the lines To the Driving Cloud in hexameters, better than the translation from Tegnér" The Children of the Lord's Supper. GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas; Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken! Wrapped in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints. What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints? How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies? How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains? Ah! 'tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements, Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too, Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division! Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash! There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches. There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses! There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elkhorn, Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omaha Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet! Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts? Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth, Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder, And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man? Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes, Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth, Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts. the Missouri's Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race; It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches! Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind, Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams! SONGS THE DAY IS DONE. Written in the fall of 1844 as proem to The Waif, a small volume of poems selected by Mr. Longfellow and published at Christmas of that year. THE day is done, and the darkness As a feather is wafted downward |