60 Are these celestial manners? these There are two guests at table now; V 80 Again the tossing boughs shut out the I see the table wider grown, Out of the sky had fallen down; In the divine knight-errantry 120 Quickens its current as it nears the mill; And so the stream of Time that lingereth In level places, and so dull appears, And now, like the magician's scroll, The crown of stars is broken in parts; 140 'Mid clink of arms and horses' tramp, 150 And battle's terrible array. I see the patient mother read, With aching heart, of wrecks that float On battle-fields, where thousands bleed VII 160 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, AN old man in a lodge within a park; And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound; I PACE the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, So in majestic cadence rise and fall KEATS (1875.) THE sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, As of a cataract from the mountain's side, Of things beyond our reason or control. And whose discourse was like a generous wine, I most of all remember the divine Something, that shone in them, and made us see The archetypal man, and what might be I cannot find them. Nothing now is left 10 1 Keats' epitaph upon himself, inscribed on the simple stone that stands at the head of his grave beside the walls of Rome. Of the many poets' protests against its cutting pathos, perhaps the best is this, by J. E Spingarn: The Star of Fame shines down upon the river, The name of Keats ¦' 1 C. C. Felton, for many years professor of Greek at Harvard, and president of the University from 1860 till his death in 1862. See the Life of Longfellow, in many passages, but especially vol. iii, pp. 4, 7, 9. 2 Agassiz was a constant companion of Longfellow's. See note on p. 211, and many passages in the Life. 3 Charles Sumner was lecturer in the Harvard Law School when Longfellow first came to Cambridge, in 1836, and from that time until his death, in 1874, was one of Longfellow's closest friends. Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear! We are forgotten; and in your austere And calm indifference, ye little care Whether we come or go, or whence or where. What passing generations fill these halls, What passing voices echo from these walls, 1 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. The painting by Gerome, referred to, represents a Roman arena, where the gladiators, about to engage in mortal combat, salute the emperor, who with a great concourse of people is to witness the scene. Beneath the painting, Gerome, following a popular tradition, wrote the words, Ave Caesar, Imperator, Morituri te Salutant: Hail, Cæsar, Emperor! those who go to their death salute thee.' The reference to a gladiatorial combat, which these words imply, is doubted by some scholars, who quote ancient authors as using the phrase in connection with the great sea-fight exhibition given by the emperor on Lacus Fucinus. The combatants on that occasion were condemned criminals, who were to fight until one of the sides was slain, unless spared by the mercy of the emperor. (Riverside Literature Series.) Compare Emerson's 'Terminus,' Holmes's 'The Iron Gate,' Whittier's To Oliver Wendell Holmes,' etc. They are no longer here; they all are The great Italian poet, when he made Met there the old instructor of his youth, And cried in tones of pity and of ruth: 'Oh, never from the memory of my heart Your dear, paternal image shall depart, Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised, 40 Taught me how mortals are immortalized; How grateful am I for that patient care All my life long my language shall declare.' 2 To-day we make the poet's words our own, Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw, Were part and parcel of great Nature's law; Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid, But labored in their sphere, as men who live In the delight that work alone can give. 2 Dante to Brunetto Latini. Inferno, Canto XV, lines 82-87. |