Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, It echoes along the vacant hall, And seems to say, at each chamber-door, — "Forever- never! Never forever!" Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, Never-forever!" In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared; That warning timepiece never ceased, — "Forever never! There Never forever!" groups of merry children played, There youths and maidens dreaming strayed; O precious hours! O golden prime, And affluence of love and time! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient timepiece told, - From that chamber, clothed in white, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, "Ah! when shall they all meet again?" As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply, "Forever never! Never forever!" Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, Sayeth this incessantly, THE ARROW AND THE SONG. "October 16, 1845. Before church, wrote The Arrow and the Song, which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and glanced on to the paper with arrow's speed. Literally an improvisation." I SHOT an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where ; I breathed a song into the air, Long, long afterward, in an oak SONNETS MEZZO CAMMIN. Written at Boppard on the Rhine, August 25, 1842, just before leaving for home. HALF of my life is gone, and I have let The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The aspiration of my youth, to build Some tower of song with lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret Of restless passions that would not be stilled, But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, A city in the twilight dim and vast, With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,— And hear above me on the autumnal blast The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights. THE EVENING STAR. "October 30, 1845. The Indian summer still in its glory. Wrote the sonnet Hesperus in the rustic seat of the old appletree. This sonnet, addressed to his wife, and afterward given its present title, "is noticeable," says his biographer, as being the only love-poem among Mr. Longfellow's verses. Lo! in the painted oriel of the West, 66 Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines, Like a fair lady at her casement, shines The evening star, the star of love and rest! And then anon she doth herself divest Of all her radiant garments, and reclines Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines, With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed. O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus ! My morning and my evening star of love! As that fair planet in the sky above, And from thy darkened window fades the light. AUTUMN. Written November 11, 1845. THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves; Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended; Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves; And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid, Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves ! DANTE. TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom; |