FROM MY ARM-CHAIR. To the Children of Cambridge, who presented to me, on my Seventy-second Birthday, February 27th, 1879, this Chair, made from the Wood of the Village Blacksmith's Chestnut Tree. Am I a king, that I should call my own Or by what reason, or what right divine, Only, perhaps, by right divine of song Only because the spreading chestnut tree Well I remember it in all its prime, The affluent foliage of its branches made There by the blacksmith's forge beside the street Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive, And when the winds of autumn, with a shout, The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath, And now some fragments of its branches bare, Have by my hearthstone found a home at last, The Danish king could not in all his pride But seated in this chair, I can in rhyme I see again, as one in vision sees, And hear the children's voices shout and call, I see the smithy with its fires aglow, And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat And thus, dear children, have ye made for me And to my more than threescore years and ten The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, The precious keepsakes, into which are wrought Only your love and your remembrance could Give life to this dead wood, And make these branches, leafless now so long, Blossom again in song. THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE. Is it so far from thee In the Chamber over the Gate Is it so long ago That cry of human woe There is no far nor near, There is neither there nor here, To that cry of human woe, From the ages that are past Over seas that wreck and drown, O Absalom, my son ! He goes forth from the door, With him our joy departs; The light goes out in our hearts; O Absalom, my son ! That 'tis a common grief CHARLEMAGNE. OLGER the Dane and Desiderio, King of the Lombards, on a lofty tower And still the innumerable multitude Then came the guard that never knew repose, And then appeared in panoply complete 66 When you behold the harvests in the fields Shaking with fear, the Po and the Ticino Then may you know that Charlemagne is come." Lo! there uprose a black and threatening cloud, His helmet was of iron, and his gloves Saw from the tower, and turning to the King THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS. UP soared the lark into the air, St. Francis heard; it was to him Around Assisi's convent gate The birds, God's poor who cannot wait, Came flocking for their dole of food. "O brother birds," St. Francis said, "Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds, With manna of celestial words; Not mine, though mine they seem to be, Not mine, though they be spoken through me. "O, doubly are ye bound to praise The great Creator in your lays; He giveth you your plumes of down, Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown. "He giveth you your wings to fly With flutter of swift wings and songs He knew not if the brotherhood The meaning of his words was clear. |