The title Voices of the Night originally was used by Mr. Longfellow for the poem Footsteps of Angels; then be gave it to the first collected volume of his poetry with special application to the group of eight poems following Prelude. Here it is confined to this group.

PLEASANT it was, when woods were green
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
With one continuous sound;

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings The feelings of a dream,

As of innumerable wings,

As, when a bell no longer swings,
Faint the hollow murmur rings
O'er meadow, lake, and stream.

And dreams of that which cannot die,
Bright visions, came to me,
As lapped in thought I used to lie,
And gaze into the summer sky,
Where the sailing clouds went by,
Like ships upon the sea;

EURIPIDES.

Dreams that the soul of youth engage
Ere Fancy has been quelled;
Old legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,

And chronicles of eld.

And, loving still these quaint old themes,
Even in the city's throng

I feel the freshness of the streams,
That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams,
Water the green land of dreams,
The holy land of song.

Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings
The Spring, clothed like a bride,
When nestling buds unfold their wings,
And bishop's-caps have golden rings,
Musing upon many things,

I sought the woodlands wide.

The green trees whispered low and mild;
It was a sound of joy!

They were my playmates when a child,
And rocked me in their arms so wild!
Still they looked at me and smiled,
As if I were a boy;

And ever whispered, mild and low,
"Come, be a child once more!"
And waved their long arms to and fro,
And beckoned solemnly and slow;
Oh, I could not choose but go

Into the woodlands hoar,

Into the blithe and breathing air,

Into the solemn wood,

Solemn and silent everywhere!

Nature with folded hands seemed there, Kneeling at her evening prayer!

Like one in prayer I stood.

Before me rose an avenue

Of tall and sombrous pines;

Abroad their fan-like branches grew, And, where the sunshine darted through, Spread a vapor soft and blue,

In long and sloping lines.

And, falling on my weary brain,

Like a fast-falling shower,

The dreams of youth came back again, -
Low lispings of the summer rain,
Dropping on the ripened grain,
As once upon the flower.

Visions of childhood! Stay, oh, stay!
Ye were so sweet and wild!
And distant voices seemed to say,
"It cannot be ! They pass away!
Other themes demand thy lay;
Thou art no more a child!

"The land of Song within thee lies,
Watered by living springs ;
The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes
Are gates unto that Paradise ;
Holy thoughts, like stars, arise;
Its clouds are angels' wings.

66 Learn, that henceforth thy song shall be,
Not mountains capped with snow,
Nor forests sounding like the sea,
Nor rivers flowing ceaselessly,
Where the woodlands bend to see
The bending heavens below.

"There is a forest where the din
Of iron branches sounds!
A mighty river roars between,
And whosoever looks therein
Sees the heavens all black with sin,
Sees not its depths, nor bounds.

"Athwart the swinging branches cast,
Soft rays of sunshine pour;
Then comes the fearful wintry blast;
Our hopes, like withered leaves, fall fast;
Pallid lips say, 'It is past!

We can return no more!'

"Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

Yes, into Life's deep stream! All forms of sorrow and delight, All solemn Voices of the Night, That can soothe thee, or affright,

Be these henceforth thy theme."

HYMN TO THE NIGHT

Ασπασίη, τρίλλιστος

Composed in the summer of 1839, "while sitting at my chamber window, on one of the balmiest nights of the year. I endeavored to reproduce the impression o. the hour and scene."

I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night

Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the

Night,

Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,

From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight, The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

The best-beloved Night!

A PSALM OF LIFE

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST

Mr. Longfellow said of this poem: "I kept it some time in manuscript, unwilling to show it to any one, being a voice from my inmost heart, at a time when! was rallying from depression." Before it was pub lished in the Knickerbocker Magazine, October, 1838, it was read by the poet to his college class at the clos of a lecture on Goethe. Its title, though used no

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 palm 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.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS

In his diary, under date of December 6, 1838, M 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:

Dear beauteous death; the jewel of the just!

THERE is a Reaper. whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;

"Have naught but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,

I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

THE LIGHT OF STARS

"This poem was written on a beautiful summer night. The moon, a little strip of silver, was just setting 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 published 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 Vaughan :

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 Evening 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.